EU states urged to block imports of Irish pork

The European Commission today urged member states to block all shipments of Irish pork products but stopped short of calling for a complete ban on pork exports from Ireland.

"Member states are requested to detain pork meat and products from Ireland and to control for the presence of dioxin and dioxin-like PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls)," EU health commissioner Androulla Vassiliou told a press conference in Brussels.

The 12 EU countries affected are the UK; Belgium; Cyprus; Denmark; Estonia; France; Germany; Italy; Poland; Portugal; Sweden and the Netherlands.

The nine states outside the European Union are Canada; Japan; Russia; Singapore; South Korea; Switzerland; China and Hong Kong and the United States.

Commission health spokeswoman Nina Papadoulaki told the conference the measures taken by Irish authorities were considered to be sufficient at this stage.

“The Irish have blocked sales and removed pork from the shelves and done everything necessary, and it is too early to talk about a ban," she said. “But there will be meetings this week of European veterinary officers and experts on food health to monitor the situation.”

In a statement earlier, the Commission said Brussels was monitoring the contamination incident closely “to ensure public health protection”.

It said possible adverse human health effects from dioxins and PCBs were related to long term high level exposure.“A short term peak exposure to dioxins and PCBs does not result in adverse health effects,” it added.

However, the Commission insisted adequate measures have to be taken to remove highly contaminated products from the food chain to limit human exposure as much as possible.

It said details of possibly contaminated pork meat and pork meat products to other member states and third countries would be provided to the Rapid Alert System for Feed and Food (RASFF) on the Commission website.

It also said it would organise a meeting with the relevant authorities from affected member states “to share information and to ensure a harmonised enforcement approach across the affected member states to ensure a high level of human health protection”.

China said today it had placed a ban on the import of Irish pork and feed and had recalled more than 2,000 tonnes of pork imported into China since September 1st.

Singapore and South Korea also suspended the import and sale of all Irish pork products with immediate effect.