Fish in Domestic Market Contain High Levels of Dioxin

Fish in the domestic market have been reported to contain dioxin, adding to world-wide fears of contamination by the carcinogen triggered when it was recently found in European poultry.
Professor Min Byong Yun's team at Kyung Nam University announced on June 7 that they had found that the four most consumed fish in Korea - mackerels, hairtails, yellow corvinaes and codfish - and bought for the study from a market, contained on average 2.1 picograms (a trillionth of a gram) of dioxin per gram.
This figure is larger than the dioxin content of the Belgian pork, which the EU and Belgium declared 'no problem' - 1 picogram per gram of pork fat. The average dioxin per gram of Belgian pork is calculated at 0.18 picograms as pork is generally 18 percent fat.
Among the fish, mackerels contain the most dioxin at 3.6 picograms per gram, followed by 2.1 picograms in the hairtails. Yellow corvinaes contain 1.5 picograms and codfishes 0.6 picograms.
The U.S. recommends less than 1 picogram dioxin per gram of poultry fat.
Professor Min's team said that Korean people daily consume 0.6 picogram of dioxin per kilogram of body weight, taking into account the average fish intake. This is much higher than the FDA's recommendation of 0.06 picograms per 1 kilogram of body weight.
Jooan Kang : jooan@joongang.co.kr