ANALYSIS:Irish authorities had no choice but to act as they did at the outset of the pork contamination crisis. Their rapid reactions have contained a disaster, writes Pat Wall.
ON THE BASIS of the available scientific literature and on the outcome of a very similar incident in Belgium in 1999, where livestock were fed a contaminated ration, and no adverse human health effects were seen, the health of Irish consumers has not been put at risk during the continuing pork and beef crisis.
The EU dioxin experts, rapidly convened by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), reported the results of the risk assessment yesterday at noon and have concluded there is no risk to public health.
With the intense media coverage in Ireland, Irish consumers, while unhappy and angry, now understand it is illegal to have these chemicals in food but, at the current concentrations, they pose absolutely no risk to their health. However, many are very angry that so much good food is being destroyed and money, that could be spent in the health and education sectors, is very likely to be diverted to prop up the agri-food sector.
Some people don't understand why the Government took the draconian option to recall all pork products. Other Irish consumers are questioning the morality of wasting all this food when one-third of the world is starving. In other jurisdictions, because this is not a major national issue for them, the same media coverage has not been devoted to explaining what these findings mean in terms of human health - and, as a result, confidence in Irish product has suffered major damage. Hopefully the EFSA opinion will ally the fears of anxious and confused consumers throughout the member states and in countries outside the EU who received Irish product.
In 1979 the Belgian government took the decision not to inform the public there were low levels of dioxin in their food supply as they considered the risk was minuscule. However the information subsequently leaked out and their politicians were crucified for concealing these facts. The minister for agriculture was forced to resign, then their minister for health and, finally, the whole government fell.
They were accused of concealing information from the public and wholesale panic ensued regarding the safety of all Belgian food. Belgian chicken poultry and dairy products were withdrawn and the US banned certain categories of food from the entire EU. Even Belgian chocolates were withdrawn.
The Government here took the opposite approach and went public as soon as it was made aware there were dioxins in a subset of our pork output. It adopted a precautionary approach and now is being accused of going over the top. It was between a rock and a hard place - damned if it did, damned if it didn't.
Irish pigmeat and fat from Irish pigs is exported to the EU and farther afield. One food processor in Belgium, which provides pig fat to the manufacturing industry, had noticed an increase in PCBs (polychlorinated byphenels), in composite samples containing pig fat from several member states since September. They were trying to identify the country from which the contaminated fat had come.
France and the Netherlands had also identified PCBs in product they suspected had come from Ireland. Once the Irish had shared their findings with them, this confirmed their suspicions and they would have alerted the EU public, if Ireland had not done so.
On top of that, the commission would have introduced safeguard measures to restrict the export of pork and pork products from Ireland, pending investigation of the situation, similar to the measures they introduced in the Belgian crisis. So the Government had to take decisive action or it would have been on the back foot. The European Commission is satisfied with the measures taken by the Irish authorities.
The traceability systems for processed pork, sausages, salamis, bacon etc, is not the Rolls-Royce system many believe it is. Once pigmeat enters the processing sector and becomes sausages and processed meats, even some hams, traceability to the processor, and perhaps the day of production, may be possible but not all the way back to the farm.
There are 400 pig producers in Ireland and, although only nine pig farms fed the contaminated ration, the meat from the other 391 was also caught up in the recall.
On December 9th, the Irish authorities clarified that any product still in the distribution network or in processing, where verifiable information could demonstrate that it came from pigs that did not eat the contaminated meal, could go on sale. In addition, pigs, where it can be proven they did not come from a farm where the contaminated meal was fed, can be sent for processing.
The level of PCBs in food may be an indicator of the amount of industrial pollutants in the food chain or the environment. Until this incident, because Ireland has no such heavy industry, we had no PCBs in our food supply. A surveillance programme in dairy cattle undertaken on behalf of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from 1991-2008 has confirmed extremely low levels (about 1/10th of the acceptable statutory limit - EC No 1883/2006) of dioxins and dioxin-like PCBs in milk.
While the levels detected in Irish pork may not cause any illness, they are above the permitted legal thresholds and placing meat with this level on the market is a breach of the law.
The EFSA is a consumer protection agency and its opinion that there is no risk to public health, and that the product is safe, does not absolve Ireland from the responsibility of complying with EU food law. On December 9th, the results became available from samples taken from cattle on 11 of the beef farms where the contaminated ration had been fed. Traces of PCB were found in fat from animals on three of them. Most of the cattle (some 9,530) that had eaten the ration are still alive on the farms and have not been, and will not be, sent for slaughter. Some 3,000 cattle that may have eaten the ration have been slaughtered since September 1st.
However, beef is not cured like hams, or smoked like bacon, and a large proportion of it works rapidly through the food chain and is consumed within a fortnight. Because of the BSE crisis, there is more comprehensive traceability of beef than pork - carcass quarters and primal cuts are very easy to trace and the destination of most of the other carcass components can be ascertained.
The industry has moved to detain all easily identifiable output from the 45 implicated herds still in the supply chain. The 3,000 cattle come from only 45 farms but there are 110,000 beef farmers in total in Ireland.
The strategy now is not rocket science. We have 100 per cent of the implicated farms locked up and we have recalled all that is practically possible to recall. Now we must take action and destroy all product that can not be sold (where there is no verifiable proof that it did not come from the implicated farms).
Chillers and freezers in the pig processors are blocked up with product that can't be traced to farm level and this needs to be rendered to free up space to resume production.
At another time with healthier banks, cash flow might not be the problem, so an emergency fund needs to be set up by the Government to enable businesses resume processing. We should take the short-term pain, as every day Ireland Inc is out of business compounds the economic disaster and our customers at home and abroad will source product elsewhere.
There are up to 40,000 tonnes of product that cannot be traced to farms of origin that will have to go for rendering. This should be dealt with first to enable business recommence. Process-specific claims and downstream consequential liability claims for which the processors are seeking compensation can be assessed on a case-by-case basis over the coming weeks.
The EFSA was created while David Byrne was commissioner, as a consequence of the BSE debacle and the Belgian crisis. It has demonstrated its worth and delivered an opinion in two days. We were heading for a Belgian situation repeat as Irish food of all types has been detained in several member states and third countries. I hope EFSA intervention will stop this scare from escalating. If pig slaughtering does not resume, pig farms will become overcrowded with pigs and we will be all over the global media again.
When we get Ireland out of this economic crisis, then we will have time for the inquisition. But, for now, everyone should put their shoulder to the wheel.
• Dr Pat Wall is associate professor of public health at the school of public health in University College, Dublin, and a former head of the Food Safety Authority