News of another food safety scare has broken today (March 7 ) in Romania. The alert concerns batches of milk containing toxic and highly carcinogenic aflatoxins. One batch came for Hungary, while the other consignment of milk was produced locally, according to local news reports.

“Milk containing carcinogenic aflatoxins, some imported from Hungary and the rest processed in Romania, has been identified and removed from the market,” said the Minister of Agriculture Daniel Constantin earlier today.

The discovery of the aflatoxins in the milk was the result of testing across the food supply industry and the Minister said there was no danger to the public as the contaminated milk had been withdrawn. Aflatoxins are naturally occurring and are produced by some types of aspergillus fungi. The fungi can grow on grains and aflatoxins can be found in the milk of animals that have eaten infected feed.

According to the US Food & Drug Administration, aflatoxins were found to be carcinogenic in the 1960s and a maximum safe level of 20 parts per billion was set for food for human consumption.

editor@romania-insider.com