'No harmful effects' from contaminated pork

Toxic substances found in pork products will have no harmful effects, health experts have said.

Chief medical officer Dr Tony Holohan said some types of dioxins can cause cancer, but stressed that would only happen after prolonged exposure to higher levels.

“The levels of exposure are not of a level that will be a concern to their health,” he said.

“It would be exposure over years for levels to build up to cause the kind of health effects that could occur, like cancer.”

Alan Reilly, of the Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI), said the safe levels of these dioxins are set over a full life time of exposure.

“You’d have to be eating products containing these levels for 40 years before you’d show any signs of illness,” he said.

“It’s like smoking a cigarette.

“If you smoke one cigarette you’re unlikely to get cancer but if you smoke 20 cigarettes every day of your life by the time you’re 50 or 60 you have a high risk of getting cancer.

“It’s the same type of thing with these particular chemicals. Short exposure over a short period of time is not going to have any ill or harmful effects.”

Chris Elliott, Professor of Food Safety at Queen’s University Belfast, said the monitoring for dioxins and other chemicals in foods was a difficult and expensive task.

He stressed more thought must be given to try and identify such problems before food reaches the supermarket shelves.

“While consumers want, and deserve, food free from chemical contaminants, in this case there does not appear to be any significant risk to health from consumption of the tainted pork products,” he said.

“The contamination of the animal feed itself appears to be the cause of this food scare, as is often the case; it also appears to be limited to the product of one supplier and it should therefore be a quick and simple task to track down the cause of the problem.

“However, the effects on the Irish pork industry in relation to the loss of consumer confidence will not be so easy to resolve.”

An estimated €125m worth of Irish pork and bacon products will have to be destroyed following the confirmation over the weekend that feed made by a leading supplier has been contamination with dioxins.

The levels of contamination are 80 to 200 times above the acceptable maximum.

Anyone with concerns can contact a special helpline on 1890 33 66 77.

The National Consumer Agency, meanwhile, says anyone who has recently purchased pork or bacon products is entitled to a refund.

A receipt is usually necessary, but the agency is urging retailers to be reasonable.