Orange Juice Imports Tested Positive for Fungicide, FDA Says
February 06, 2012, 8:49 AM ESTBy Stephanie Armour
Jan. 27 (Bloomberg) -- The Food and Drug Administration detained imported orange juice shipments after samples from Brazil and Canada tested positive for a banned fungicide.
Eleven of 80 orange juice shipments contained concentrations of 10 parts per billion or higher, the agency said today. Nine shipments were detained while manufacturers of two other shipments voluntarily halted imports.
The agency began holding and testing imported juice after low levels of the compound carbendazim was detected in trace amounts in products from Brazil. Carbendazim is banned in use in U.S. oranges and has been linked to liver tumors in animals.
“FDA is confident that orange juice in the United States may be consumed without concerns about its safety due to the possible presence of such residues,” the agency said in a statement.
Twenty-nine shipments of imported juice tested negative, the agency said. Those shipments originated in Mexico, Canada, Costa Rica, Brazil, Belize, Honduras, Lebanon and Turkey.
Imported juice that tests at concentrations of 10 parts per billion or higher will be refused or destroyed, the agency has said. Testing is also being done on domestic orange juice. That benchmark is 80 parts per billion because the Environmental Protection Agency’s risk assessment says there are no concerns at that level.
Americans consumed 1.2 million gallons from the 2009-2010 growing season, U.S. Department of Agriculture data shows. Most juice sold in the U.S. is a mix of domestic and imported product, according to the Juice Products Association.
The U.S. is the biggest single importer of orange juice and took in 190,000 metric tons last year, U.S. Department of Agriculture data show.
--With assistance from Anna Edney in Washington. Editors: Adriel Bettelheim, Bruce Rule
To contact the reporters on this story: Stephanie Armour in Washington at sarmour@bloomberg.net and Duane Stanford in Atlanta at dstanford@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Adriel Bettelheim at abettelheim@bloomberg.net
