THE level of toxins in the pig feed that caused last week’s €220m-plus recall of pork products was more than 5,000 times the EU limit.

Such was the concentration that scientists at the UK’s Central Science Laboratory (CSL) in York were initially unable to quantify the level, which went “off the scale”.

Feed samples taken from Millstream Recycling in Carlow were so badly contaminated that all the equipment used in the laboratory had to be “scrupulously cleaned” afterwards, causing a “logistical nightmare” for the scientists.

“We weren’t expecting it to be anywhere near the level that we found,” said Martin Rose, head of the Environmental Contaminants team at the CSL. “It saturated the detector. We injected the sample into the machine and it went off the top of the paper. It was off the calibration range. We knew it was over 2,000 times over the limit, but we could tell that it was probably much higher than that.”

After alerting the Irish authorities to the extreme contamination of both the feed and pig-fat samples, which had 80-200 times the EU limit for dioxins, Rose’s team conducted further tests on the feed. The concentration of chemicals in the samples meant it was too high to measure.

So the scientists had to water down the specimen before attempting to re-analyse the dioxin levels. “We diluted the extract and calculated that there was in excess of 5,000 nanograms of dioxins per kilogram present,” said Rose.

The revelation of such severe contamination in the animal feed raises further serious questions about the source of oil used by Millstream Recycling, and the feed-processing procedures used by the owner of the plant, Robert Hogg. Investigators are examining how close the feed got to the low-grade heating oil which was burned to dry it.

Gardai suspect the oil was smuggled from Northern Ireland, and are assisting the Environmental Protection Agency and the agriculture department officials in their investigation of the plant.

Because neither the Irish authorities nor the CSL had anticipated the extreme levels of contamination, no advance warning had been given to Rose and his team. Normally, samples with such high levels of toxicity would be dealt with in a separate containment laboratory to avoid cross-contamination.

“If we had known that the samples were in the order of magnitude such as this, we would have taken necessary precautions,” said Rose. “We would have been warned and we would have done the analysis in a separate facility. I don’t think anybody expected it to be that high.”

After conducting the second analysis, a full clean-up of the laboratory had to take place. “If you have something with that sort of contamination going through the laboratory, it’s a logistical nightmare,” said Rose. “Afterwards, we had to make sure everything was scrupulously cleaned, because there was a real fear that we could cross-contaminate other samples. We’re taking the precaution of analysing blank samples, to make sure there’s no trace of the dioxins there.”

Linda Birnbaum, a senior toxicologist with the US Environmental Protection Agency, said that the results were a cause for concern. “[Those] levels are extremely high, and you certainly don’t want people eating food linked to that level of dioxins,” she said. “It is very fortunate that the source has been discovered, but the question now is, how did it get so high?”

Doug Powell, scientific director of the International Food Safety Network based at Kansas State University, said the drastic action taken by the Irish government was justified. “When you get those numbers the response should be ‘let’s pull everything’, because you can’t mess around and not just because of the scientific data. If the public perceive the authorities knew there was a risk and didn’t do anything, then they’d be crucified.”

Irish pigmeat processors and farmers could share up to €30m in further EU compensation following discussions at the EU summit in Brussels.

Brendan Smith, the agriculture minister, has already promised an €180m bailout to offset losses in the pork and bacon processing industry.

Mariann Fischer-Boel, the European commissioner for agriculture, promised up to €15m in aid to private storage funds to allow processors to store unsold pork and bacon products until markets recover. A further €8-10m is expected to be agreed by government for the nine pig farmers whose herds had to be slaughtered.

Additional reporting by Stephen O’Brien

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