DIOXIN CONTAMINATION, PIG MEAT – IRELAND, EUROPE
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A ProMED-mail post
ProMED-mail is a program of the
International Society for Infectious Diseases <http://www.isid.org>
[1] Ireland
Date: Sat 6 Dec 2008
Source: Irish Times [edited]
<http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2008/1206/breaking44.htm>
All Irish pork products have been recalled tonight [6 Dec 2008] because of fears that animal feed has been contaminated with harmful toxins.
The Food Safety Authority of Ireland made the announcement shortly before 8 pm after pig meat on a number of farms was found to have had between 80 and 200 times more dioxins that the recognized safety limit.
The recall affects all products produced since 1 Sep 2008, and the public have been advised to destroy all pork bought since that date.
The recall will have very severe repercussions for the State’s pork industry, which is worth close to half a billion euros [USD 500 million] annually.
The announcement was made at a joint press briefing held by the FSAI and the Departments of Health and Agriculture.
The contamination 1st came to light last Monday but was only confirmed by Government officials today [6 Dec 2008].
Agriculture Minister Brendan Smith said an “intensive investigation”
had been underway this week. He said 47 farms, including 38 beef farms, had been restricted because they were identified as having received possibly contaminated animal feed. There was only one feed supplier involved, he said.
“Full prohibition of animal movement from these herds is in place.
We’ve outlined the actions that we’re taking on recall of pork and bacon following the receipt of the laboratory results earlier this evening. The issue of beef involvement is very different. Our assessment on the basis of advice from the Food Safety Authority of Ireland is that no further action at this stage other than what we have done in prohibiting movement off the farms is required. Testing is, however, taking place on a precautionary basis in line with our overall approach to this problem.”
Earlier this week, restrictions were placed on a number of pig farms after organic pollutants known as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), which are linked to dioxins, were detected in pork fat during routine monitoring.
Dioxins are complex organic compounds released into the atmosphere from fires and other forms of combustion. They are naturally occurring and accumulate in the fat of animal or in plant tissue.
They are mostly found in insignificant levels, but a small number are highly toxic and can cause a range of ailments from cancer to skin diseases and damage to the reproductive and immune systems.
Consumption of dioxins above safe levels over a lifetime may result in an increased risk of cancer. The World Health Organisation and the European Union’s Scientific Committee for Food have determined the levels of exposure to dioxins which are safe. The pork tested this week had up to 200 times more dioxins than is considered safe.
Rod Evans, a spokesman for the FSAI told Irishtimes.com that the health risks were likely to be “very small” and said a short period “of higher level exposure to the dioxins is unlikely to have any health consequences.”
The Minister for Health, Mary Harney, said she and Ministers Smith, Sargent and Wallace had spent the day in discussions with experts.
“I think we’ve acted in a timely fashion given that the confirmation happened at 3.40 this afternoon [6 Dec 2008] from the laboratories in York in the UK,” she said.
“From now on, those products will be withdrawn from the market obviously here and internationally. We hope that non-contaminated pork products can be very quickly back on the market … provided they operate to the highest possible standards as far as public health is concerned.”
The president of the IFA Padraig Walshe said the recall was “an absolute disaster” at an “important time of the year for the pig sector.” Speaking on RTE television, he said he expected “perfectly safe” pork from Irish producers to be on sale again by the middle of next week.
Tonight’s [6 Dec 2008] recall involves retailers, the hospitality sector and the Irish pig processing sector, and the FSAI advised people “as a precautionary measure not to consume Irish pork and bacon products at this time.”
The statement said investigations involving the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (DAFF) and the FSAI were continuing to determine the extent of the contamination and to identify the processors and products involved. It said that updates about the extent of the risk from human consumption would also be made available.
In recent years, there have been a number of dioxin contamination incidents of food worldwide. In 1998, dioxin-contaminated citrus pulp from Brazil was used in feed for dairy animals in France and resulted in contaminated milk. A year later in Belgium, dioxin-laden machine oil contaminated animal feed, affecting poultry, eggs, red meat and milk, which caused a major food crisis.
The pig farming industry is the 4th largest sector in Irish agriculture, and some 400 pig farmers are operating in the sector.
[Byline: Conor Pope and Mary Minhan]
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Communicated by:
ProMED-mail Rapporteur Mary Marshall
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[2] Europe ex Ireland
Date: Sun 7 Dec 2008
Source: AFP [edited]
<http://www.google.com:80/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hxbM5LQKLljqnPfx4CdsCOHL-A-A>
Ireland launched an intensive investigation on Sunday [7 Dec 2008] to establish the source of a toxic substance that forced the recall of all Irish pork products, the country’s food authorities said.
The Irish government ordered the recall on Saturday [6 Dec 2008] of all pig meat products made in the Republic of Ireland after dioxins were discovered in slaughtered pigs thought to have eaten contaminated feed. The recall included products sold in Ireland and abroad.
Contaminated Irish pork was found in France and Belgium, but the Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI) said the problem was restricted to “Irish pig meat related to an Irish feedstuff.” The European Commission said it was closely monitoring the situation.
The FSAI said it was almost certain that the source of the contamination was oil which mistakenly found its way into pig feed made at an Irish factory.
Dioxins are toxic chemicals that can have serious health effects, including causing cancers, if there is long-term exposure to them at high levels.
FSAI deputy chief executive Alan Reilly said dioxin levels found in meat samples were “between 80 and 200 times” above the legal limit.
But he said the risk to public health was “very, very low. “You would have to be eating products containing these chemicals for 40 years before you would show any signs of illness.”
Rhodri Evans, FSAI chief toxicology specialist, told AFP that oil was the most probable cause of the contamination and that it was “possibly” diesel oil at a plant in Ireland that used recycled bread and dough to make a pig feed. The feed plant supplied 9 pork producers. “The profile of the dioxin we have seen would indicate it is usually associated with some sort of oil contamination,” he said.
Ireland’s chief medical officer, Dr Tony Holohan, said the withdrawal of all pork products from the market was “a precautionary public health measure.”
The recall involves pork meat, bacon, pork sausages, sausage meat, gammon steaks, offal from pigs, salami, ham, sausage rolls, black pudding and white pudding. The products concerned were all made since September 2008, because scientific evidence suggests the contamination was recent.
Ireland is a major exporter of pork with products sent to Britain — the main destination — and countries including Japan, Germany, Russia, France and the United States.
Laboratory tests in Britain had confirmed the presence of dioxins in both pig meat and pig feed samples. Evans said tests in France and Belgium had also revealed contaminated Irish pork products. Both countries had received products from a processing plant in the Netherlands where sides of pork from Ireland were boned and processed before being shipped on. “The initial detection was by the French authorities at import control. They did routine testing and saw a result,” Evans said. “When they saw the result, they went back to the Netherlands processor and asked what’s happening, where did this come from?” Evans said the problem only involved “Irish pig meat related to an Irish feedstuff.”
The crisis is another blow to recession-hit Ireland, with the agriculture ministry saying about 5000 people work in the pig meat industry, which is worth about 400 million euros [USD 500 million] a year.
Ireland’s Europe Minister Dick Roche said the contamination was “a shock to the system” for Irish agriculture.
The European Commission said in a statement it was “closely following up this contamination incident and the actions taken to withdraw any potentially contaminated pork meat and pork meat products from the market.”
EU food safety experts were to discuss the incident by telephone on Sunday [7 Dec 2008], and experts from countries that may have received contaminated shipments would meet on Tuesday, said commission spokesman Pietro Petrucci.
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Communicated by:
Sabine Zentis
Castleview Pedigree English Longhorns
Gut Laach 52385 Nideggen, Germany
[Mod.TG recently wrote: "Although there seems to be no doubt in the lay press about dioxin's status as a carcinogen, there seems to be some controversy in the toxicology literature (Bertazzi PA, Bernucci I, Brambilla G, Consonni D, Pesatori AC: The Seveso studies on early and long-term effects of dioxin exposure: a review. Environ Health Perspect 1998 Apr; 106 Suppl 2:625-33, available at <http://www.ehponline.org/docs/1998/Suppl-2/625-633bertazzi/abstract.html>)."
For WHO's Fact sheet N225 "Dioxins and their effects on human health," updated November 2007, go to <http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs225/en/index.html>.
- Mod.AS]
[Another news story communicated by ProMED-mail Rapporteur Mary Marshall <http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081207/ts_nm/us_ireland_food_recall>
states that tainted pork products from Ireland may have reached 20-25 countries. - Mod.LM]
[see also:
Dioxin, buffalo mozzarella cheese - Italy: (Campania) 20080327.1146
2006
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Dioxin, animal feed - Belgium (02) 20060206.0390 Dioxin, animal feed - Belgium 20060130.0303
2004
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Dioxin, feed contamination - Netherlands (02): exported 20041110.3042 Dioxin, feed contamination - Netherlands 20041106.3009
2003
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Dioxin, feed contamination - Germany (Thuringia) 20030210.0363
2001
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Dioxin food levels, WHO statement 20010108.0065 2000
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Dioxin contamination, fish - Europe 20001218.2213
1999
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Dioxin in meat, poultry, eggs banned again - Belgium 19991109.2006 Dioxin & PCB contam., food - Belgium: update 19990729.1281 Dioxin in meat, poultry & eggs - Belgium (06) 19990630.1101 Dioxin food contamination, international response (06) 19990617.1032 Dioxin poultry ban lifted - Belgium (02) 19990613.1011 Dioxin & PCB contamination of food - Germany 19990613.1010
Dioxin: websites available 19990611.1002 Dioxin food contamination, international response (05) 19990611.1001 Dioxin & PCB contamination of food - Belgium 19990610.0999 Dioxin poultry ban lifted - Belgium 19990609.0989 Dioxin food contamination, international response (04) 19990609.0987 Dioxin health assessments (02) 19990609.0986 Dioxin food contamination, international response(03) 19990609.0980 Dioxin in meat, poultry & eggs - Belgium (04) 19990608.0978 Dioxin contamination of meat: USA response (02) 19990607.0967 Dioxin food contamination, international response(02) 19990607.0966 Dioxin contamination of meat: USA response 19990605.0941 Dioxin food contamination, international response 19990604.0930 Dioxin health assessments 19990604.0929 Dioxin contamination, pigs - Belgium 19990604.0928 Dioxin, chicken & eggs contaminated - Belgium 19990531.0913] ……………………………………………arn/msp/lm
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