Dutch farmers to seek damages from Ireland

DUTCH farmers yesterday began slaughtering 50,000 pigs feared contaminated with an illegal hormone, and a group said it would seek compensation from two Irish companies.

Pig farms around the Netherlands were shut temporarily after infertile pigs on one farm were found last month to have been exposed to the hormone MPA, or Medroxyprogresterone acetate, used as a human contraceptive or hormone replacement in menopausal women.

The potential exposure was narrowed to pigs on 27 farms which had been fed a syrup containing the hormone that originated in Ireland and was made into a feed additive in Belgium.

All pigs on those farms are to be destroyed over the next 10 days, and their bodies disposed of as waste material.

Dutch Agricultural and Horticultural Organisation spokesman Jack Luiten said total damages to the farmers would include the cost of the wasted pork, and the closure of most of the 14,000 Dutch pig farms during the past month.

“Costs will be in the tens of millions of euros at least, and probably over 100 million,” Mr Luiten said.

“We have decided to look where blame can be laid, and that is with those who are responsible for introducing MPA into the food chain,” he said.

The hormone’s path into pig feed has been traced to Ireland’s Wyeth Medica, a pharmaceuticals manufacturer.

In sugar-coating pills, Wyeth produced hormone-laced waste water, which it turned over to Dublin-based waste management company Cara Environmental Technology for disposal.

Cara sold the water to a now-bankrupt Belgian company called Bioland, which in turn passed it on as treacle to Dutch feed companies.

However, it remained unclear who in that chain knew the sugar water contained the hormone, and when.

Mr Luiten said the farmers’ organisation believed Wyeth and Cara should have ensured the water was disposed of properly, and that it had sent letters to the two companies saying it held them responsible for the farmers’ damages.

He said the companies had both denied responsibility in initial replies.

Wyeth spokesman Peter O’Brian said his company properly informed Cara that its waste water contained MPA.

Cara could not immediately be reached for comment, but has told investigators from the Irish Environmental Protection Agency it informed Bioland the water contained MPA.

In a report, the EPA said there was no evidence of this.

Wyeth Medica is the Irish subsidiary of US pharmaceutical company Wyeth, which was known as American Home Products until this year.