An Additional 934 German farms close on fresh dioxin discovery

These type of reports seriously shake my faith in humanity. It’s one thing not know that the food products you sell on the open market is tainted with dioxins, or with anything harmful to your fellow humans, but to knowingly hold back information like this from people you sell to, well, it’s criminal as well as unethical.

The 934 pig and poultry farms that were closed over the weekend are in addition to 4,000 farms closed at the end of December when it was revealed that Schleswig Holstein firm Harles and Jentzsch had mixed dioxin-tainted industrial fatty oils into animal feed. Dioxin-contaminated liquid eggs are known to have entered the food chains in the UK and Denmark.

The fact that this firm - Harles and Jentzsch - places its financial bottom line above the very health of others just sickens me. No pun intended.

Farms in Lower Saxony as well as in North Rhine-Westphalia, Bavaria and Brandenburg were all shut and banned from selling eggs and pork. But federal authorities stressed the levels of dioxin presented no immediate threat to human health.

Another disturbing statement that concerns me is “federal authorities stressed the levels of dioxin presented no immediate threat to human health”. We have been told for ages and it is a verified fact that dioxins are highly toxic and can cause reproductive and developmental problems, and can also cause cancer. But time and again, whenever the public learns of dioxins found in our food stream we are fed this standard industry-wide statement.

Dioxins are environmental pollutants. They have the dubious distinction of belonging to the “dirty dozen” - a group of dangerous chemicals known as persistent organic pollutants.

Saturday’s development came just 24 hours after federal ministry released an anti-dioxin action plan calling for the tightening up of rules on animal feed and food manufacturers and as it confirmed that the majority of affected farms had been re-opened.

The plan would compel manufacturers to have “strict separation of production flows” for materials for industrial and feed/food uses. It also proposes introducing a licensing system for oil and fat producers as well as extending legal requirements for the inspection and subsequent reporting on animal feed products.

Question: If this new plan will require “separation of production flows” between animal feed and the food we eat – given the fact that we eat food (chickens and pork) that is fed that animal feed, how is this expected to keep dioxins out of the food chain?

I’m just saying. Case in point: Proposals for stricter dioxin controls, Germany discovers tainted pork