# Recall of all pork in public health alert



## Blinder (7 Dec 2008)

Story 





> The Government has announced a national and international recall of all Irish pork and related products in a serious public health alert.
> It follows confirmation that non-dioxin PCBs, which are organic pollutants, have been found in animal feed and pork samples.
> The news was confirmed in results from UK laboratories this afternoon.
> The levels of contamination have been found to be between 80 and 200 times higher than the recommended ammounts.
> ...


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## Brendan Burgess (7 Dec 2008)

This is a very serious issue. This topic will be restricted to practical questions and factual discussion of it. Letting Off Steam and hilariously funny puns have been deleted. If you want to Let Off Steam on the topic, do so in the LoS forum or even better, on some other website.

For the moment, we will allow limited discussion of the medical implications of this in this thread only. 

[broken link removed]

Helpline: 1890 33 66 77


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## Complainer (7 Dec 2008)

Conor Pope has a good Q&A on the Irish Times website at [broken link removed]

He notes that consumers are entitled to refunds for any returned products.


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## sandrat (7 Dec 2008)

It seems they suspected something last week but only recalled prodcuts yesterday. I have now read that PCB can be passed on to my baby through breastmilk. Why the date of the 1st september? Is it that long since they last tested pork?


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## ajapale (7 Dec 2008)

What is the situation with NI or (other parts of the UK) sourced pork?

I was looking forward to a M&S Puglian Style Pasta and Meatballs (Pork and Beef) for lunch today. I guess Ill defer until further notice.


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## europhile (7 Dec 2008)

I doubt somehow that they're made in Ireland.  Not much M&S produce is.


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## rob30 (7 Dec 2008)

PCBs are chemicals that are concentrated in body fats, as the are "lipophilic " chemicals. As a results, they are present in fatty secretions, such as breast milk. We are exposed to dioxins daily though our diet, albeit at hopefully low levels. 

This will hopefully just be another "scare", that will be limited in scope, and only have economic consequences, not a major public health effect.

www.fsai.ie has a good information leaflet and Q&A on dioxins.

Like other organic compounds, they become concentrated in animals the higher you go up the food chain. There is a big problem with dioxin toxicity now in sea mammals such as Beluga whales.

Dioxins got into the food chain in Belgium in 1999, via contaminated oil for animal feed. The irish incident obviously needs a full investigation, to see how it happened, see if guidlines were followed, and put in place structures to ensure it, or related contamination, does not happen again. 

Tis is an extract from a 2004 British Medical journal review article on environmental chemicals and human reproduction.

Link to full text of article http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/328/7437/447

Surveys show that the public suspects that synthetic (manmade) chemicals released into the environment, especially pesticides, have adverse effects on human health and cause disease, including cancer. In reality, few scientifically documented examples support this view, especially for effects on the general population. However, the observation that many synthetic chemicals have intrinsic hormonal activity—they are "endocrine disruptors"—has reopened this debate. Pressure groups have called for all synthetic environmental chemicals with the potential to cause harm to be phased out or banned, whereas the chemical industry argues that such action must be based on proof of harm. Vociferous cases have been made on both sides, each lacking definitive data. Yet it is clear that environmental and lifestyle factors are key determinants of human disease—accounting for perhaps 75% of most cancers. New understanding and emerging results are reshaping our thinking, as is the recognition that establishing cause and effect for environmental chemical exposures is a daunting task.


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## rmelly (7 Dec 2008)

Complainer said:


> Conor Pope has a good Q&A on the Irish Times website at [broken link removed]
> 
> He notes that consumers are entitled to refunds for any returned products.


 
Thanks, I was wondering if that was the case.

Does anyone know (the scientific reason possibly) why no beef seems to have been affected?

Is it time for the same level of tracability that exists for beef to be brought in, or would that be too expensive to implement?


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## ajapale (7 Dec 2008)

rmelly said:


> Does anyone know (the scientific reason possibly) why no beef seems to have been affected?



On the radio this morning the minister explained that pigs are fed a concentrated ration. Cattle on the other hand in Ireland eat grass and concentrates are only used on a small scale to supplement feed.

Incidenlty I found the response by the FG Agri spokesman to be opportunistic taking cheap shots at the agencies involved. (Im starting a LOS thread about this here. Pigmeat recall: Ml Creed FG Agri spokesman, cheap and nast shot on MI this AM)


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## Markjbloggs (7 Dec 2008)

Why has there been a news black-out on the source of the contamination - it is just adding to the sense of unease for a lot of vulnerable people, pregnant women especially. The reassurances regarding the health effects from the HSE are useless in this respect.  At this stage it seems that the commercial interests of the supplier and the unfortunate farmers are taking precedence over genuine health concerns.....


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## Ancutza (7 Dec 2008)

Considering that they are withdrawing all products manufactured since 1st September then surely a lot of people, potentially, have already eaten affected pork products.


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## bskinti (7 Dec 2008)

The Celtic Hamper has just been delivered today and it has loads of bacon,sausages,hams,etc, all frozen foods, Are we to throw this out? after paying for it for the last 11 month's,. Answers Please?


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## Brendan Burgess (7 Dec 2008)

The guy from the food safety authority was very good on the radio this morning.

He said that eating this infected pork is like smoking. Smoking one or two cigarettes will not do you any damage. Smoking 20 a day for 20 years will increase your chances of getting cancer. Likewise, occasionally eating this infected pork will do you no harm. However, eating it for years would do you potential harm. 

Based on that, those of us who have eaten rashers and sausages over the past few months have absolutely nothing to worry about. 

Brendan


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## Ancutza (7 Dec 2008)

I've got 3 pounds of sausages in the freezer. Should I chuck them or eat them?  Given that the problem has been identified and dealt with (i.e. probably won't happen again) then it would seem that I'm unlikely to be exposed to dioxins again in the near future. If I consider the assertion that only long-term, not one-off, exposure to dioxins will do me harm then probably it's not a huge risk to eat them.  

I think that many of these issues have the danger attached blown out of proportion.  Just consider the salmonella in eggs scandal for example.

Am I a total idiot for thinking i'll just fry them up anyway?  I'm not inclined to be overly cautious but I'm also not totally reckless.


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## Complainer (7 Dec 2008)

Superquinn are doing refunds, no questions asked. It does seem a bit of a shame to see the trolley loads of sausies and rashers which will presumably have to be destroyed, but I'm not taking even a small chance with my family's health.


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## mcaul (7 Dec 2008)

Ancutza said:


> I've got 3 pounds of sausages in the freezer. Should I chuck them or eat them? Given that the problem has been identified and dealt with (i.e. probably won't happen again) then it would seem that I'm unlikely to be exposed to dioxins again in the near future. If I consider the assertion that only long-term, not one-off, exposure to dioxins will do me harm then probably it's not a huge risk to eat them.
> 
> I think that many of these issues have the danger attached blown out of proportion. Just consider the salmonella in eggs scandal for example.
> 
> Am I a total idiot for thinking i'll just fry them up anyway? I'm not inclined to be overly cautious but I'm also not totally reckless.


 
I'd eat them.

My guess is the total recall has been done to avoid an outcry from the usual suspects - Evening Hysterical, Daily Muck & jooooe Duffy, whereby if a total recall was not done, everyone would be confused and eventually a total recall would be done.

In the overall scheme of things, the cost is quite small and gives people conficence in the irish food inductry - unlike what hapened in Britain with BSE, where they waited til it caused ill health before they did anything.

The german bratwusrts in Lidl are gorgeous for those craving their sausages!  

As for me, I have a lovely fillet of ham in the oven as we speak.


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## europhile (7 Dec 2008)

I'd eat stuff I'd already bought.  In fact, I did.


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## Smashbox (7 Dec 2008)

Anyone know if all supermarkets are giving refunds?

M&S only seems to have withdrawn their pock chops, bacon and sausages.

Pre cooked stuff like bacon/sausage wraps, pork pies, packets of ham, quiches etc were still on the shelves.

Super Valu had everything gone.


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## europhile (7 Dec 2008)

Smashbox said:


> M&S only seems to have withdrawn their pock chops, bacon and sausages.
> 
> Pre cooked stuff like bacon/sausage wraps, pork pies, packets of ham, quiches etc were still on the shelves.
> Super Valu had everything gone.



Presumably, made in the UK.


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## Guest128 (7 Dec 2008)

Dunnes doing refunds, no questions asked, didnt even ask for a receipt


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## Ancutza (7 Dec 2008)

Thanks lads! I'm going to eat 'em!  Too good to waste...


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## MaryBe (7 Dec 2008)

I was in our local Valu Centre shopping today.  All the fridges with pork products were sealed.  The other fridges containing Hams were not sealed.  I lifted a nice piece of smoked ham with the intention of buying and then asked my hubbie "how come the ham is available and yet the pork is not, given the present problem"?  Before he could answer a shop assistant came over and asked was I buying the ham to which I replied 'yes' and he said 'I suppose it's ok but we are clearing all the shelves in this section!!!!! Needless to say I didn't buy the ham.


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## ajapale (7 Dec 2008)

Our local Dunnes was selling half price pork steaks most of the day on Saturday. Did they know something?


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## ahha (7 Dec 2008)

All I know is the effects of dioxin are being hushed up... http://www.idph.state.il.us/envhealth/factsheets/dioxin.htm


"In animal studies, dioxins have caused nerve damage, birth defects, increased incidence of miscarriages and significant changes to the immune system. Studies have shown that reproductive, immune and nervous systemsof the developing fetus and children are more sensitive and susceptible to dioxin toxicity. Exposure to large amounts of dioxins over a short period of time, or continuous low-level exposure over an extended period can cause cancer and other severe immune deficiency effects in animals; however, there is not sufficient information from human studies"

How can the government be expert advisers?


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## Padraigb (7 Dec 2008)

ahha said:


> All I know is the effects of dioxin are being hushed up... http://www.idph.state.il.us/envhealth/factsheets/dioxin.htm



Who is hushing them up? All this stuff is widely available, and much of it was mentioned or indicated by the Food Safety Agency today. There is a problem with pork products; we don't need a conspiracy theory as well.


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## ahha (7 Dec 2008)

You can lead a horse to water..... Seems the rest of the world is taking it more serious....

The Dutch blew the whistle yesterday and then the Irish government told us at 8pm we had a problem emm eh just observation. Now top scientists are appearing and saying what the government are saying is bull.... lets watch it play out.

The danger is being played down truth is they haven`t got a clue... some experts now saying short term exposure means 30 days not months or lifetimes...really depends how much pork you eat so some may have been exposed to larger quantities and what about those who were handling the feed?


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## Padraigb (7 Dec 2008)

ahha said:


> The danger is being played down truth is they haven`t got a clue... some experts now saying short term exposure means 30 days not months or lifetimes...



The issue is not time, but total quantity -- high levels in a short time, or low levels over a long time.

You are scaremongering.


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## ahha (7 Dec 2008)

Did I miss something or was I just listening and watching facial expressions when the government officials sat down for the press release on saturday night...

"The levels of dioxin found are very high" and in the next breath "the levels of dioxins are extremely high" ?


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## Padraigb (8 Dec 2008)

ahha said:


> Did I miss something or was I just listening and watching facial expressions when the government officials sat down for the press release on saturday night...
> 
> "The levels of dioxin found are very high" and in the next breath "the levels of dioxins are extremely high" ?



I don't know what you saw or didn't see. The FSAI says : "any possible risk to consumer health is extremely low" ( [broken link removed] ) and I would accept that more readily than than your interpretation of what you saw.


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## ahha (8 Dec 2008)

PB that was a direct quote direct from the Irish official from the EU meeting with Mary Harney sitting at the desk 3 chairs down.....its been running all day...hello..

very high and extremely high were the exact words used.....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnQ57M7tBXA from the fsai....

Head of BioCHEMISTRY at UCC has accussed the government of spouting pure opinion (propaganda) and not hard fact..emm nothing new there.... think he knows what he`s talking about he is into Biochemical Toxicology incase you feel like questioning him. [broken link removed]


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## SlurrySlump (8 Dec 2008)

ajapale said:


> Our local Dunnes was selling half price pork steaks most of the day on Saturday. Did they know something?


 
Same thought crossed my mind. They had two for one packets of ham plus another two for one packets of ham bundled together as a special offer late last week. Unfortunately sitting in my fridge today and not on their shelf.


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## Padraigb (8 Dec 2008)

I have followed all of ahha's links.

The first one, accompanying the post alleging a cover-up, says nothing new, and nothing about cover-ups.

The second one has been quoted by ahha in a misleading way: the levels of dioxins were described as "very high" and "extremely high" in the *feed*, not in the pork.

The third link simply tells us what Prof. Heffron's specialisms are, not what he said about the question under discussion.

As I said in an earlier post: scaremongering.


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## ahha (8 Dec 2008)

PB the levels of PCB found in the pig fat sample were 200 times acceptable limits. (1 anadin cure headache 200 anadins knock you flat.)

Italians reported this problem 3 months ago hence our governments date Sept 1, on Saturday the Dutch reported Ireland to the EU, 5 minutes later we have an Irish press conference before the Dutch report gets out...

Irish government are assuming by the belgian outbreak that everything is cool (unproven assumption), its not in belgium the levels (industrial oil in feed) were only 100 times the WHO acceptable level? All farm animals pigs cows chickens etc were slaughtered they all eat the same feed. 1999 scandal were ministers resigned not the incident in 2006 referred to on Q&A which was mingled to paint rosy picture.

There is pigs being slaughtered/ binned on farms around us that never received the feed. Today right now this is happening. People in local supermarket crying about there whole lives being destroyed, as they had invested so much in herds.

Now lets discuss PCB`s you will find a report from 2001 on the FSAI sight monitoring high levels of PCB`s in the cork harbour area due to chemical companies the pcb`s were found in cows (milk) around the area, now lets go back a couple of months about reports of elevated levels of cancer in that exact area... ding ding..... PCB`s are lethally dangerous.

Just my observations based on fact.

Some people may have consumed hugh levels while others did not consume any... so how can you make a blanket assumption on everbodies health??? You can`t...


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## Padraigb (8 Dec 2008)

ahha, I just don't understand your agenda. You play fast and loose with facts; you shift your emphasis; you provide links that do not support what you say; you make other claims that you do not back up.

So I hold to my judgement that all you are doing is scaremongering.


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## dockingtrade (8 Dec 2008)

There are layoffs because of this issue and the pork people are looking for compensation from the govt.

Surely the layoffs are temporary?

Why arent the pork folk looking for compensation from the offending supplier?

Thanks


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## Padraigb (8 Dec 2008)

dockingtrade said:


> Why arent the pork folk looking for compensation from the offending supplier?



I suspect that the scale of the problem is so great that it is beyond the resources of that supplier to pay more than a tiny fraction of the losses.


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## Complainer (9 Dec 2008)

Padraigb said:


> I suspect that the scale of the problem is so great that it is beyond the resources of that supplier to pay more than a tiny fraction of the losses.


Would suppliers not have insurance against such losses?


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## sandrat (9 Dec 2008)

how did they figure out the existence of a problem and the source at the same time?


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## Padraigb (9 Dec 2008)

sandrat said:


> how did they figure out the existence of a problem and the source at the same time?



Not quite the same time, but very soon after. This is "all that bureaucracy" that people so often complain about. The dioxins were found in a meat sample from a particular producer. Producers have to keep records of the feedstuffs they buy in, and samples of those feedstuffs are also taken for testing. So once the meat sample showed problems, there was a trail that led back to the feed supplier, and then forward to the other pig producers who had been supplied from the same operation.

Yet if it was not for events like this, where the systems proved to be useful, people might continue to carp about the paperwork burdens imposed on farmers and others. When this story dies down, the carping about bureaucracy can resume.


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## z103 (9 Dec 2008)

> Yet if it was not for events like this, where the systems proved to be useful, people might continue to carp about the paperwork burdens imposed on farmers and others. When this story dies down, the carping about bureaucracy can resume.


Isn't it the case that another country alerted Ireland to the problem (Italy was it?) and _all_ Irish pork products are to be destroyed? With that in mind, it was appear to me that the Irish systems did not prove to be useful. In fact, they would appear to be a complete waste of time and money.


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## Padraigb (9 Dec 2008)

leghorn said:


> Isn't it the case that another country alerted Ireland to the problem (Italy was it?) and _all_ Irish pork products are to be destroyed? With that in mind, it was appear to me that the Irish systems did not prove to be useful. In fact, they would appear to be a complete waste of time and money.



What's the origin of this claim that the problem was discovered in Italy? I have seen nothing to support it.

See [broken link removed] . This says that the problem was unearthed by our own procedures, and that then authorities in other countries provided further information about finding dioxins in pork fat (which, I gather, they had not been able to trace back to the country where they originated).


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## sandrat (9 Dec 2008)

rte news now has something on about beef


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## ahha (9 Dec 2008)

There is no risk to public health with beef as its currently only 2 to 3 times levels of dioxin unlike the pork levels....PB direct from o` reilly` s mouth.

On Q & A last night you were misinformed by the government guy sitting far left 3 ministers in belgium resigned in 1999 were the animals were slaughtered and not the 2006 incident which he mingled in to the story.

PB my agenda is public health and total transparency something which lacks on our emerald island.

Trevor Sergant should keep quite, its not financially feasible to test these feed suppliers guess the 500 million plus thats going down the tube plus our reputation isn`t worth a few testing kits.

PS. I wouldn`t believe the Irish Government giving me the weather forecast. At least they have appointed Heffron guy from UCC onto the board.


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## Complainer (10 Dec 2008)

Complainer said:


> Would suppliers not have insurance against such losses?


The Irish Times answered my question this morning;

[broken link removed]


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## Caveat (10 Dec 2008)

_UPDATE: LUNCHTIME NEWS TODAY_

...looks like Irish pork could be about to get the all clear from the EU.


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