Hi, it’s your old friend Eric here…coming up from air from the annual edition.
I’ve been late getting onto the Irish pork story, you know, the dioxins that they found. Finally an article sent to me tonight by Carol van Strum, my mentor on this issue, got my attention: the dioxins they are talking about are really PCBs. This was news to me but not news; it’s been out for about a week, but I want to tell you why I think it’s significant. [You can read about the history of PCBs here.]
Dioxins are not manufactured; they have no useful purpose. They are byproducts created when you burn things that have chlorine, or use chlorine for manufacturing other things, such as vinyl. And they were created at the time PCBs were manufactured, often contaminating those products. But many more dioxins are created when PCBs burn or break down from use. Or when you fry them in bacon.
PCBs were manufactured till the late 1970s in the United States (I don’t know until when in Europe but I am sure it was close to the late 1970s). After that, the only PCBs that remained were either those already in use, and those in waste landfills (official toxic waste landfills, and garbage dumps, where they don’t belong). Because PCBs are no longer manufactured, and because most of the PCBs in use have been taken out of use, there are not a lot of places to find them. Currently exist many more sources of dioxins.
Both the dioxin story and the PCB story were pretty much dead until this disaster happened, and I assure you it is a disaster. A lot of people have been exposed. The contaminated feed went to 46 farms. Nine were pig farms and 37 were beef farms; but the Irish government has not recalled any beef products. Consumers were told to destroy pork products purchased as far back as September — three months ago! That means these products have been on the international market for at least three months. This is not funny. What is funny in that gallows humor way is that health “experts” are claiming that there is no risk to consumers. The same article says “deadly dioxins found” and then someone says “but there is no risk.” This is what you always hear any time PCBs or dioxins are in the neighborhood.