No cause for health concerns, says watchdog

CONSUMERS should not be alarmed or concerned in relation to the potential risks from dioxins found in pork and bacon products, the Food Safety Authority of Ireland said yesterday.

It said the data in relation to health risks for people exposed to dioxins does not give cause for concern.

The Department of Health’s chief medical officer also moved to reassure consumers. He said any risk that arises to health from having consumed Irish pork products prior to the product recall is extremely low and there was no need for people to seek medical advice.

The authority said its view, based on an assessment of international and national data, continues to be that a short-term peak exposure to dioxins and PCBs does not result in adverse health effects.

It said scientific data and evidence does not support concerns on health effects to people exposed to dioxins at a high level over a short period of time, such as the Belgian dioxin incident.

The authority confirmed that its scientific experts have also consulted widely with experts in other agencies.

These include the European Food Safety Authority, the World Health Organisation as well as with counterpart health risk assessors in Britain’s Food Standards Agency.

The authority’s deputy chief executive, Alan Reilly, said data used to assess any health risk involves reviewing evidence that is available on incidents and exposure internationally.

He said a number of factors mitigate and reduce the potential for any health risk in relation to this recall. The dioxins in relation to the pork and bacon recall would have been concentrated primarily in the fat element of the product.

Pork is considered a healthy, lean meat product and only the visible fat element of the product would have potentially contained any contamination.

“Add this to the fact that only 10% of the product is suspected as being affected on the market and this reduces the potential exposure.

“Putting all this into perspective with the evidence of long-term exposure information we have, there is a low level risk of ill health — and that means for today, tomorrow or 10, 20 years from now.

“There is no scientific robust evidence to support any other viewpoint in our opinion,” he said.

Mr Reilly said bearing in mind all the factors and data, the authority’s view, even in any worst-case scenario where someone may have been exposed to a lot of contaminated pork, the possibility for an ill-health effect is very low.

“It is highly unlikely anyone in Ireland was continually exposed to large amounts of this pork given the pattern of pig production in Ireland,” he said.