page_title: 2008 Irish pork crisis
section_title: Health effects of dioxins and PCBs
hierarchical_section_title: 2008 Irish pork crisis / Pork / Health effects of dioxins and PCBs
caption_attribution_description: English: Olympic Pool in Munich Español: Piscina olímpica en Munich.
context_page_description: The Irish pork crisis of 2008 was a dioxin contamination incident in Ireland that led to an international recall of pork products from Ireland produced between September and early December of that year. It was disclosed in early December 2008 that contaminated animal feed supplied by one Irish manufacturer to thirty-seven beef farms and nine pig farms across Republic of Ireland, and eight beef farms and one dairy farm in Northern Ireland, had caused the contamination of pork with between 80 and 200 times the EU's recommended limit for dioxins and dioxin-like PCBs i.e. 0.2 ng/g TEQ fat. The Food Safety Authority of Ireland moved on 6 December to recall from the market all Irish pork products dating from 1 September 2008 to that date. The contaminated feed that was supplied to forty-five beef farms across the island was judged to have caused no significant public health risk, accordingly no recall of beef was ordered. Also affected was a dairy farm in Northern Ireland; some milk supplies were withdrawn from circulation.
context_section_description: Dioxins and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are two groups of predominately man-made toxic chemicals which, when consumed, affect both the immune and reproductive systems and are classified as probably carcinogenic by the World Health Organization and in the United States by the National Cancer Institute and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. The toxicity of dioxins and dioxin like PCBs is mediated by their ability to bind strongly to the aryl hydrocarbon cell receptor that is present in most animals.
  Several epidemiological studies have observed a correlation between high levels of dioxins and PCBs in humans and a wide variety of adverse health effects e.g. chloracne, lowering of IQ, dysfunction of the thyroid gland and reduction of thyroid hormone levels, elevated rates of endometriosis in women, higher levels of diabetes in women, precocious puberty in females and subtle developmental delay in children, as evidenced by altered play activity. Males appear to be more sensitive to poisoning by high levels of dioxins & dioxin-like PCBs and are more likely to develop severe symptoms e.g. young men poisoned by TCDD (the most toxic dioxin) are less likely to father boys. See Geusau et al. (2001) who describe the clinical manifestations of two extremely severe (and probably criminal) dioxin poisoning cases.
  Much of the hazard posed by dioxins and PCBs comes from their environmental persistence and their lipophilic nature, resulting their propensity to accumulate in the food chain, particularity in the fat of animals. About 80% of human exposure to dioxins and PCBs comes from animal derived foods e.g. poultry, beef and dairy. However, the health effects and risks of long-term, low-level exposure to the general public cannot be observed directly, and are highly controversial. It is not known if the dose response relationship at low-levels of exposure is sub-linear or linear, or has a threshold i.e. harmless at very low levels. Risk assessments are further complicated by the observation that contamination typically involves a complex mixture of related chemicals, the toxicity of each varies and has to be factored according to its Toxic Equivalency Factor (TEF) (where TCDD = 1). The product of TEF is the Toxic Equivalent Quantity (TEQ), and it is this value that is used in risk assessments (an on-line Toxic Equivalency Quantity Calculator).
  The European Union (EU) uses a linear dose response curve at low-levels of exposure, below the point where there are epidemiological data. In other words, the EU assumes there is no safe level of dioxins and PCBs. Accordingly, the European Union sets extremely stringent limits for dioxin and dioxin like PCBs in food, set just above the usual background levels found in various food categories e.g. fish, poultry, beef, pork etc. The limit set for dioxins in pork fat and meat is 1 pg/g TEQ i.e. 1 parts per trillion (ppt) (see swimming pool illustration). The maximum dioxin contamination measured in Irish pork was 0.2 ng/g TEQ fat (200 ppt), equivalent to dispersing 10 drops of TCDD throughout a 2.5 million litre Olympic sized swimming pool.
caption: 1 part per trillion is approximately equivalent to dispersing one-twentieth of a drop of water throughout this 50-metre Olympic sized swimming pool.
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