EVIRA: chance of contaminated Irish beef having made it into Finland non-existent

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According to the Finnish Food Safety Authority EVIRA, the Irish beef sold in Finland will probably not be withdrawn from the market.
      “It is highly unlikely that the beef imported into Finland should be contaminated by dioxin”, says Jaana Husu-Kallio, Director-General of EVIRA.
      The Irish authorities reported on Tuesday that toxic dioxins have been discovered in Irish beef as well as in the pork coming out of the country. By the evening, however, it seemed that the problem is limited to only a few herds.
      Over the weekend dioxins were discovered to have spoiled Irish pork, and on Monday EVIRA withdrew a 30,000-kilogram batch of Irish pork from the market in Finland as a precautionary measure.
     
Since September, around 200,000 kilograms of Irish beef has been imported into Finland. EVIRA has knowledge of the importers of the beef, but not of what the beef was then used for.
      “The amount in question is so large that basically it may have been used for almost anything. If necessary, we can start immediately looking into the delivery chain. The Finns need not be worried”, Husu-Kallio affirms.
     
According to the preliminary information, the dioxin levels discovered in beef were only two to three times above the legal limit, whereas the amounts found in pork were up to 200 times greater than the highest permissible limit.
      “If the amounts found in beef remain this low, the health risks related to pork are in a totally different class. If one eats large Baltic herring (Clupea harengus membras, a Finnish staple) with the skin and all, we are already talking about larger quantities of dioxin”, Husu-Kallio notes.
     
The Finns are indeed exposed to dioxins on a daily basis, especially if they eat fish from the Baltic Sea.
      Dioxins can cause for example cancer. One neverthless has to be exposed to them for quite some time before they represent a health risk.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  No Irish pork containing dioxins was imported into Finland (9.12.2008)

Links:
  Dioxin (Wikipedia)
  EVIRA

Helsingin Sanomat