Police investigate source of Ireland's dioxin-tainted pork (Roundup)

Dec 8, 2008, 11:05 GMT

Dublin - Japan, Singapore and South Korea Monday suspended the import and sale of all Irish pork products as Irish police investigated the contamination of Irish pork with dioxins.

Pork products tainted with dioxins were exported to as many as 25 different countries from Ireland, the Food and Safety Agency of Ireland (FSAI) reported Monday, following the government's recall of pork products dating back to September 1.

Britain, which receives 40 per cent of Irish pork exports, has recalled all Irish pork from its supermarket shelves and Northern Ireland has taken the same precaution.

According to estimates by the Irish authorities, around 100,000 pigs will have to be culled as a result of the scandal, which is the worst to hit Ireland since the BSE crisis.

Food valued at around 125 million euro (159 million dollars) will have to be destroyed in Ireland and abroad. Irish pork exports are worth 250 million euros annually.

The recall followed the discovery in pork of potentially dangerous dioxins, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), which were initially traced to an unnamed meat plant in the republic.

The investigation found contaminated pork with dioxin levels of 80 to 200 times above the safety limits.

The dioxins have been traced to feed supplied from a County Carlow food recycling plant, 100 kilometres south of Dublin, Irish media reported.

The company at the centre of the pork contamination, Millstream Power Recycling Limited, has denied that industrial oil was used in the animal feed.

A spokesman told Ireland's national broadcaster RTE that oil was used to power machinery that processes the feed, but he added that he did not know yet if this could be the source of the contamination.

Police investigations Monday were continuing at 10 pig farms and 38 beef farms. The contamination is likely to have a severe impact on the 7-billion-euros Irish food industry.

Contaminated feed from Millstream Recycling has also been supplied to nine farms in Northern Ireland which now have been restricted.

According to the FSAI report, the tainted meat has already been detected in the Netherlands, France and Belgium.

Amid accusations that the government were too hasty in issuing the recall, Dr Patrick Wall, Associate Professor of Public Health at University College Dublin and former chief executive of the FSAI, said the chemical was illegal and that the government had been left with no choice.

'However, at these levels it's a technical breach rather than a health issue. The Belgium government said that at these levels it didn't cause a risk to public health. The evidence that dioxins cause harm come form situations where there are industrial accidents and people are exposed to huge doses.

'The chemical is toxic in massive doses. It has been found to be3 present, so the law has been broken. This is an economic tragedy for Ireland, rather than a public health problem,' he said.

Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Brendan Smith, was holding talks Monday with pigment processors about getting Irish pork back on sale following the scare.

The processors have warned that they will not resume slaughtering of pigs until they get financial help from the government towards the cost of the product recall.

When processing resumes, Irish pork products will carry a new label saying it was produced after 7 December, and therefore unaffected by the current product recall.

Ed Hicks of Hicks Pork Butchers in Dun Laoghaire, south of Dublin, said the scandal 'was a hammer blow' for butchers in the run-up to Christmas.

'There are obvious question marks about whether this was an over- reaction from government. It's a total mess,' he said.