The European Food Safety Authority has produced a rather alarming report on the level of dioxins found in animal livers, especially fish.
Will this make people increasingly wary of eating fish? We already knew that some have a high rate of mercury, but now they have too many dioxins.
In high concentrations, dioxins are harmful to human health and increase the risk of cancer. Dioxins are also classified as a carcinogen by the World Health Organization.
According to the report, dioxins are naturally present in the liver of animals and fish, but they now exceed the rate allowed by the European Union.
A press release on the EFSA website explains that of 7,000 foods observed: "Overall, 8% of the samples exceeded the different maximum levels set out in EU legislation. However, some of these samples clearly originated from targeted sampling during specific contamination episodes."
Dioxins are organic chemicals that are formed primarily during combustion and can therefore be found in the food chain.