Australian honeys world's most contaminated By Marika Dobbin Bees visit flowers that carry poisons.
Continued Page 2 Australian honeys are the world's most contaminated, with natural poisons linked to chronic disease including cancer, according to international researchers.
Pregnant and breastfeeding women in particular should be wary, experts say, with unborn and breastfed infants at higher risk of organ damage from such toxins. 
The news affects varieties of honey sold by many leading brands and widely available on supermarket shelves.
Although the products do meet more relaxed Australian food safety standards, all but five Australian honeys tested had more contaminants than the European Food Safety Authority would consider tolerable, the research in the Food Additives and Contaminants scientific journal shows. The Australian Food Code bans the use of poisonous weeds such as Paterson's curse (also known as Salvation Jane) and Fireweed in human food. Their flowers are laced with chemicals called pyrrolizidine alkaloids that are considered the most common cause of poisoning in humans and livestock worldwide.
But Food Standards Australia and New Zealand (FSANZ) permits honey to be sourced from restricted plants, as long as it is blended with other honey to dilute it.
"Removing source plants is not feasible for many areas where apiaries are kept," a FSANZ spokesperson said. "Contaminants should be kept as low as achievable, therefore blending is the most practical way of reducing the levels of pyrrolizidine alkaloids."
In   October, German researchers from the Federal Institute for Risk Assessment found that even low- level exposure to these chemicals can cause gene mutations linked to chronic lung disease and cancers (such as leukaemia and breast cancer).
Australian toxicologist Dr John Edgar, a UN registered expert on this issue, said dietary exposure to these poisons could be a significant cause of cancer.
"Reducing the contamination in foods such as honey, teas, salads, flour, dairy and herbal products could result in a significant reduction in cancer cases worldwide," he told Fairfax Media.
FSANZ's level of safe intake for pyrrolizidine alkaloids is set 14,000 times higher than its European counterparts.
The European tolerable intake is 0.007 micrograms per kilogram of body weight, per day. The Australian intake is 1 microgram per kilogram of body weight, per day.
The blending approach used in Our honey the most tainted From Page 1 Australia is out of step with other world health authorities such as the European Food Safety Authority, Britain's Committee on Toxicology and the German Institute for Risk Assessment, which direct against the dilution of contaminated food.
The latter has criticised the Australian approach as "counterproductive".The result is that nearly every Australian honey was contaminated, according to Irish researchers, who analysed the level of pyrrolizidine alkaloids in supermarket honeys here and in Europe.
The report comes as the World Health Organisation develops a code of practice to reduce the amount of such contamination in food and stockfeed.
The WHO has already identified pyrrolizidine alkaloids, which have been found in high levels in foods such as herbal teas and some herbal medicines, as a serious threat.
A FSANZ spokesperson said it would await new international food safety limits before reconsidering its approach to pyrrolizidine alkaloids.
Australia is out of step with other world health authorities such as the European Food Safety Authority, Britain's Committee on Toxicology and the German Institute for Risk Assessment, which direct against the dilution of contaminated food.
The latter has criticised the Australian approach as "counterproductive".The result is that nearly every Australian honey was contaminated, according to Irish researchers, who analysed the level of pyrrolizidine alkaloids in supermarket honeys here and in Europe.
The report comes as the World Health Organisation develops a code of practice to reduce the amount of such contamination in food and stockfeed.
The WHO has already identified pyrrolizidine alkaloids, which have been found in high levels in foods such as herbal teas and some herbal medicines, as a serious threat.
A FSANZ spokesperson said it would await new international food safety limits before reconsidering its approach to pyrrolizidine alkaloids.