14 June 2018

Dear Sir,

I would like to draw your attention to the inappropriate title of the article “Ukrainian Cow Milk Has ‘Five Times Safe Level of Radioactivity’, Study Finds” (8 June 2018), which completely misleading your readers, by headlining that all of the Ukrainian milk is being dangerously contaminated.

 

The Ukrainian authorities have set the permissible concentration of radioactive caesium in milk at 100 Becquerel per litre. In contrast, milk producers in the European Union are required, by the Council’s Regulation (Euratom) 2016/52 of 15 January 2016, to conform to a much higher maximum permissible level of radioactive contamination of food and feed: 1000 Becquerel per litre.

 

Therefore, should milk produced in the riskiest areas in Ukraine have exceeded the above-mentioned level enacted five times as the research claims, it would have remained at least twice below the relevant EU level.

 

Ukrainian system of control is highly efficient. Thus, in 2017, no evidence suggests that Ukrainian dairy products deviate from the EU standards or radioactivity were detected in food production process in Ukraine based on 316318 samples of dairy, 576 of canned milk, 1353 of milk powder, 12332 of cheese, 17049 of fish, 104419 of meat, 21019 of sausage products, 15811 of eggs and egg products, 2697 of bee products.

I am confident that before publishing article it is worth to double-check the facts.

Words are powerful. Choose them carefully.

 

Sincerely,

 

Natalia Galibarenko

Ambassador of Ukraine