The Analytical Chemist Who Saved Belgium

Professor Dr. Pat Sandra is probably one of the world's most recognized and respected separation scientists.

He is a professor at the University of Ghent, and also chairman of the chemistry department at the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa. In addition, he runs the Research Institute for Chromatography (RIC), which he founded, in Kortijk, Belgium. And for good measure, he chairs a biennial chromatography conference,the International Symposium on Capillary Chromatography, in Riva del Garda, Italy.

Research Institute for Chromatography (RIC)

He is also a highly respected consultant to Agilent Technologies' Chemical Analysis Group, helping to evaluate new instrument developments and collaborating on research projects.

These days, however, such activities all take a back seat to a more urgent issue that Professor Sandra helped illuminate and contain - the Belgian dioxin crisis.

Poultry Portent

In February and March of this year, Belgian poultry farmers began to notice unusual behavior in their chickens - premature death, nervous disorders, eggs failing to hatch. One organization, the De Brabander firm, contacted their insurance company and sent a sample of their animal feed to a laboratory for analysis.

Four weeks later, the results came back: significant levels of dioxin were in the feed and in the fat of the abnormal chickens.

Unfortunately, it took the Belgian government another month to confirm the contamination, by which time dioxins had also entered the human food chain by way of the contaminated poultry. Part of the problem lay in the analytical approach the government had taken.

"Dioxin analyses take a long time and cost on the order of $1700 to $1800 each," says Dr. Sandra. "Furthermore, dioxins are not primary products. It seemed to me that they should be looking for the precursors to dioxins which would show up faster using less exotic equipment than the high-resolution mass spectrometers you need for dioxin analysis."

And what were dioxins doing in the food chain in the first place, Professor Sandra wondered. Dioxins may be produced when chlorine-containing compounds are burned - but products of combustion aren't put into animal feed. But what does go into animal feed? Well, fat is added, for one thing. Fat…oil…PCBs? Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) were developed for use as insulating oils in electrical transformers. They look and act in many ways like edible oils. If the fat added to the animal feed was contaminated with PCB transformer oil, or if PCB oils were added directly to the feed, that could be the source of the dioxin.

Trace amounts of dioxins are by-products of PCB production, so in any given source of PCBs, the chances are that dioxins will be present. Sandra's idea: analyze for PCBs. They are usually present in much higher concentrations, so they're far easier, faster and less expensive to find. Test everything you have any reason whatever to believe might be contaminated, determine the extent of the damage, and contain it.

PCBs are not nearly as toxic or carcinogenic as dioxins (especially 2,3,7,8-TCDD), but some of the 208 possible congeners have been shown to be of great concern. In addition, PCBs as a class have been implicated as endocrine disrupters, which mimic natural hormones and have been linked to a number of negative health effects. Unlike acute toxins, the effects of endocrine disrupters can be delayed for several years, can last for more than 20 years in an individual, and are additive (that is, they bioaccumulate in the human body).

Using an Agilent 6890 gas chromatograph (GC) system, Professor Sandra and his colleagues developed and implemented an effective and time-efficient PCB method. Sure enough, there was 50 ppm total PCBs in feed. Up to 10 ppm total PCBs in chicken fat. And one ppm total PCBs in eggs.

Full-blown Crisis

By now the problem had spread along with the animal feed to the meat and dairy industries, and Belgium had a full-blown crisis on its hands.

The repercussions from this event resounded far and wide. Just two weeks after the crisis broke, a federal election was scheduled in Belgium. The public, incensed by what it considered the government's inaction at the onset of the crisis, defeated the incumbent party, removing the Christian Democrats and installing the Conservatives for the first time in over a century.

Various members of the European Union quickly embargoed food exports from Belgium until they could be proven uncontaminated, costing the country millions of dollars per day in export sales and throwing the entire Belgian agricultural industry into chaos.

At the Research Institute for Chromatography, where they have two GC lines, they can do 100 samples per day at a cost of approximately $150 per sample. The plan was to get a handle on the problem by rounding up samples of output from every agricultural outlet in the country and determining which were contaminated.

Professor Sandra attributes the high productivity and accuracy of the RIC PCB analysis to the excellent performance of the Agilent 6890 GC system, which includes an Agilent automatic liquid sampler, micro-ECD, and multitechnique Agilent ChemStation. The automation capabilities of the system allowed analyses to be run around the clock. The retention-time stability and micro-ECD response were critical in ensuring the results were accurate and precise.

Eventually, the source of the contaminated feed was determined, and those farms who had purchased and used it were identified. An estimated 140 cattle farms, 500 pig farms and 416 poultry farms were linked to the contaminated fat.

It turned out that some 175,000 pounds of PCB-laced animal feed had gone out to poultry, beef and pig farms before distribution was suspended. Two officials of the company which produced the 80,000 kg batch of contaminated fat used in the feed have since been arrested on fraud charges.

Probably Just the Beginning

Slowly, the Belgian agricultural industry is returning to normal, but testing continues.

The Belgian PCB experience may signal a budding threat to Europe in general. While the Europeans are taking the lead in endocrine disrupter analysis and regulation, they are faced with continuing headaches as the eastern-block countries begin to deal with a half-century of environmental neglect, including disposal of PCB oils from old transformers.

In fact, it's clear that this is not the end of food screening in Europe, but rather just the beginning. The Belgian food scare will undoubtedly lead to increased testing, higher standards, and tighter regulations across Europe. Given the high cost of inspection, Belgium, which now has its own food production tightly scrutinized, will be in a better position than other EU countries to detect and respond quickly to future crises .

On a more positive note, as a result of the need for greater productivity in PCB analysis, Professor Sandra has developed a new, fast PCB-screening method. The RIC method was scaled quickly and predictably using the Agilent method translation software. In addition, a new sample preparation method was developed that reduced significantly the time and cost compared to traditional sample preparation techniques. He indicates this new approach has the potential to lower the cost of analysis per sample and increase testing capacity using existing instrumentation. He will be introducing his new method in the coming months.

To date, the cost to Belgium in lost revenue as a result of the crisis has been a staggering $1.5 billion.

One can hardly imagine what the cost would have been in revenues, jobs, national reputation, and - most importantly - public health had Professor Sandra not made the PCB-dioxin connection and immediately come forward with his alternative approach for fast screening of contaminated feed.