Today's panic is.......

Dioxins in pigs..... PANIC NOW !

"Pork from the Irish Republic and Northern Ireland should not be eaten due to contamination fears, the Food Standards Agency has said.

The advice follows the Irish government's recall of pork products made in the Republic since September.

Dioxins were found in pigs thought to have eaten contaminated feed on 56 farms - nine in Northern Ireland.

The UK's Food Standards Agency said it did not believe at this stage that UK consumers faced any "significant risk"."




from EU Brussels, 20 July 2001

Fact Sheet on dioxin in feed and food

Dioxins are a group of chemicals. They are polychlorinated aromatic compounds

with similar structures, chemical and physical properties. They are not produced intentionally or deliberately, but are formed as a by-product of chemical processes.These range from natural events such as volcano eruptions and forest fires to man made processes such as manufacturing of chemicals, pesticides, steel and paints, pulp and paper bleaching, exhaust emissions and incineration. For example, when chlorinated waste is burned in an uncontrolled way in an incinerator, the emissions to the air contain dioxins.

scroll back in time to 2003 and we have this, from the BBC

Barbecue cancer warning

A health hazard?

Barbecues poison the air with toxins and could cause cancer, research suggests.

A study by the French environmental campaigning group Robin des Bois found that a typical two-hour barbecue can release the same level of dioxins as up to 220,000 cigarettes.

Dioxins are a group of chemicals known to increase the likelihood of cancer.

The figures were based on grilling four large steaks, four turkey cuts and eight large sausages.

This amount of cooking was found to release 12-22 nannograms of dioxins into the atmosphere.

The researchers also found that the average concentrations of dioxins in the vicinity of the barbecue ranged from 0.6 to 0.7 nannograms per cubic metre - up to seven times higher than the level authorised for public incinerators at the point of discharge from the chimney.

So, there we have it. Burning stuff produces dioxins.... these can, and do, get into the food chain. That apparently is bad. So make sure the pig is fed no dioxins and panic the average moron on the street that he will die if he as much as sniffs a sausage.

Dioxin free meat can then be bought, chucked onto a barbecue or cooked under a grill to produce dioxins.... which you eat.

Am I missing something here ?

Another point to ponder.

Cancer kills bar staff, so stop smoking in pubs, so pub trade goes down... start barbecue evenings to drum up trade.... feed them/make them breathe dioxins.... which cause cancer.

as I said, Am I missing something here ?