RiVM, the Netherlands Institute for National Health and the Environment, recommends eating as little fish, shrimp, oysters and mussels as possible from Westerschelde on the Border of The Netherlands and Belgium, because it contains too many toxic substances, pfas, which are 8 to 10 times higher than similar products in stores, mainly for fishing enthusiasts who take caught or caught seafood home to eat.
The recommendation is in line with earlier calls from GGD in Zeeland to temporarily refrain from fish and shrimp caught in the Seasheld after a survey by local media outlet Omroep Zeeland, although the sea plant sea lavender is not a big problem.
Last year, it caused unease in the Dutch province of Zeeland when it was learned that the American chemical group 3M of Zwijndrecht in Belgium discharged thousands of kilograms of PFAS into the Sisheld River each year, and the chemicals flowed into the sea through the Sisheald.
Pfas entering the human body through other sources in the Netherlands, where fish and other seafood enter the body, are already high, and such emissions make an additional contribution.
To clarify the health risks posed, fish and crustaceans are caught at different locations and examined in laboratories. Sishilde has almost no commercial fishing activity and no mussel and oyster farms, so the problem is particularly worthy of concern for amateur anglers.
What is pfas?
Pfas is a collective term for thousands of chemicals that are not naturally present in the environment. pfas is an abbreviation for poly-en perfluoralkylstoffen, and there are about 5,000 different substances. These substances are harmful to the environment, difficult to dissolve and affect the human immune system, and many types of substances can cause cancer when exposed to them for a long time.
RIVM calculated how often adults ate most of the fish (cod, flounder, ayu and sea bass), shrimp, oysters, mussels or sea lavender from the Sisheld. Since pfas are hardly found in sea lavender, they can be consumed in unlimited amounts. Flounder can only be eaten twice a year, and cod can eat up to 19 times a year.
With these numbers, people will still consume less pfas in this way than health-based limits; if people are exposed to more pfas, it can be harmful to health.
This maximum does not include the fact that people also consume pfas from other foods or beverages. RIVM says that because pFAS is already high in known food sources, it's important to eat as little as possible from Sis hailder's products.
Municipal governments around Seasheld have been arguing for a population check to determine how much pFAS is in the bodies of local residents, but the Zeeland public health agency GGD believes it is too early and wants to wait for the results of this food safety study. It's unclear how GGD feels about this.
However, GGD stuck to the advice given earlier not to eat fish and shrimp caught from Sishheldt. "It's best to buy fish, shrimp, shellfish and marine vegetables in stores, as these products come from less polluted or unspoiled areas."
Pesticide residues in vegetables and fruits are of concern
Traces of potentially harmful pesticides can be found in a growing number of fruits and vegetables, a study of nearly 100,000 European-produced fruits and vegetables by the Pesticide Action Network PAN.
The action team compared data collected by the European Food Safety Authority EFSA (Europese Autoriteit voor Voedselveiligheid) between 2011 and 2019 and concluded that there was a significant increase in the number of varieties with controversial pesticides on all types of fruits and vegetables.
Overall, 13% of vegetables and 29% of fruits in 2019 contained pesticides, compared to 11% and 18% in 2011, respectively.
Among fruits, blueberries (51%), peaches (45%) and strawberries (38%) scored the worst; the vegetables with the most pesticide residues were celery (50%), celery (45%) and cauliflower (31%).
PAN's Hans Muilerman explains that this is the result of increased resistance to insects, fungi and weeds. "As a result, farmers start spraying more pesticides, but this only creates greater resistance and gets into a vicious circle," Mullerman said. ”
PAN looked at 55 pesticides identified by the EFSA as "candidates that must be replaced." Once a replacement is available, these pesticides must be replaced by the European Commission's directive because they can accumulate in the body or decompose slowly in the environment.
Also of concern to the European Commission are the toxicological properties these pesticides may have, for example, when these substances are carcinogenic in some cases or harmful to brain development.
How worrisome is it to find these substances in fruits and vegetables in the Netherlands? According to the Dutch Food and Consumer Product Safety Agency NVWA, there is no need to worry. As long as the content is below the statutory residue limit, the fact that the presence of these substances has been detected is not a problem.
According to the NVWA, the EU sets limits much lower than in countries outside the EU.
NVWA told Dutch media OUTLET NOS: "If a food product complies with these restrictions, it is not unsafe and we have no reason to act as a regulator." ”
The pan's investigation did not include pesticide content. In 2020, EFSA in Europe announced that about 5% of fruits and vegetables exceeded the residual limit.
Martin van den Berg, professor emeritus of toxicology at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, also said that small amounts of these substances are almost non-risk to the average consumer of fruits and vegetables, "You have to eat many, many fruits and vegetables to bring them close to the amount that produces danger." ”
However, the professor believes that this is different for farmers themselves and those who live near the fields, "more investigation and research is needed on the effects of pesticides on them."
Studies have also shown that the simultaneous use of a mixture of several insecticides is also more common. In 2011, 6.4% of fruits contained "pesticide blends", compared to 10.2% in 2019.
The use of these "mixed pesticides" is the main focus of Bas Bloem, an expert on neurological problems at the University of Nijmegen in the Netherlands: "We are currently concerned with individual substances, but we don't know what kind of risks the combination of these substances poses to humans." ”
In one of his books, Bloom proposes a new way to test the safety of pesticides. For years, he has been studying the role of pesticides in the development of Parkinson's disease.
According to Bloom, the current way pesticides are tested is inadequate. This happened to mice used in the experiment to check whether they could survive the substance, whether the substance was carcinogenic, and whether it caused damage to the nervous system. While the test was largely deficient in the last category, he said, "no cumulative effect was taken into account." ”
Fruit washed or unwashed?
Pan's Mullerman called on the government to speed up the development of stricter legislation, "There are alternatives to pesticides, but the pressure exerted by the government is too small, so there is no pressure on farmers to adopt these alternatives."
PAN in particular recommends that pregnant women eat only organic and non-pesticide-sprayed fruits and vegetables. According to Van Den Berg, this is an exaggeration, but at least occasionally, it is wise to eat products that are not sprayed with pesticides, and it is wise to wash fruits and vegetables.
NVWA also wrote: "In any case, washing fruits and vegetables is a good habit to rinse off dust and dirt. ”