15. 12. 08. - 15:00

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15. 12. 08. - 15:00

Contaminated Irish sausage sourced from Italy

Sausage made from dioxin-contaminated Irish pork had reportedly been imported into Tyrol from Italy.

The health ministry announced today (Mon) that 86 kilos of "problematic" mortadella had entered Tyrol last week and a small portion of it been sent to Vienna. The EU alerted the ministry to the imports through its early-warning system (RASFF) last Thursday.

Ministry spokesman Thomas Geiblinger said most of the mortadella was still in its original packaging in a warehouse and its sale had been banned, and only a small part of the amount sent to Vienna had been sold to consumers.

Austrian authorities have known since last Wednesday that 180 tonnes of possibly-contaminated Irish pork has been imported into Austria. They say one-third of it has gone on sale in the form of sausage and another third processed and then exported to Romania, Georgia and Germany.

The unsold Irish pork has been secured at four locations. Traditional Vienna meat dealer Radatz has 150 tonnes, meat producer Handl Tyrol has one tonne, a freezer in Upper Austria has 22 tonnes and a Styrian firm has ten tonnes.

The results of tests to determine whether any of the Irish pork imported into Austria contains dioxin will be available in a few days.

EU authorities have issued an all-clear for the meat, but Austrian authorities say that all of the Irish pork from animals slaughtered within a certain time frame will be returned to Ireland.

Dioxin is a cancer-causing substance, but small amounts in some of the meat are probably harmless.

Austria imports around 500,000 tonnes of pork annually.

Austrian Times

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