EFSA Plays Down Risk To Human Health In Dioxins Scare
EFSA has today published its statement in response to a request received from the European Commission on 8 December 2008 for urgent scientific and technical assistance following the discovery of dioxin contamination in some Irish pork.
The Commission asked EFSA to provide scientific assistance on the risks for human health related to the possible presence of dioxins in pork and products containing pork.
EFSA’s key conclusions are:
• In the most likely scenario, if someone ate an average amount of Irish pork each day throughout the period of the incident (90 days), 10% of which was contaminated at the highest recorded concentration of dioxins, the body burden would increase by approximately 10%. EFSA considers this increase to be of no concern for this single event.
• In a very extreme case, if someone ate a large amount of Irish pork each day throughout the period of the incident (90 days), 100% of which was contaminated at the highest recorded concentration of dioxins, EFSA concludes that the safety margin embedded in the tolerable weekly intake (TWI) would be considerably undermined. Given that the TWI has a 10-fold built in safety margin, EFSA considers that this unlikely scenario would reduce protection, but not necessarily lead to adverse health effects.
I think that the gist is, because dioxins accumulate in the fat of the animal not the meat, to stand a chance of suffering any ill-health you would have to have eaten nothing but pork fat morning, noon and night, exclusively from the worst contaminated animals for the last three months. I thought I was feeling a bit peaky.
The Commission asked EFSA to provide scientific assistance on the risks for human health related to the possible presence of dioxins in pork and products containing pork.
EFSA’s key conclusions are:
• In the most likely scenario, if someone ate an average amount of Irish pork each day throughout the period of the incident (90 days), 10% of which was contaminated at the highest recorded concentration of dioxins, the body burden would increase by approximately 10%. EFSA considers this increase to be of no concern for this single event.
• In a very extreme case, if someone ate a large amount of Irish pork each day throughout the period of the incident (90 days), 100% of which was contaminated at the highest recorded concentration of dioxins, EFSA concludes that the safety margin embedded in the tolerable weekly intake (TWI) would be considerably undermined. Given that the TWI has a 10-fold built in safety margin, EFSA considers that this unlikely scenario would reduce protection, but not necessarily lead to adverse health effects.
I think that the gist is, because dioxins accumulate in the fat of the animal not the meat, to stand a chance of suffering any ill-health you would have to have eaten nothing but pork fat morning, noon and night, exclusively from the worst contaminated animals for the last three months. I thought I was feeling a bit peaky.