Interdependent Contagion

Henry C.K. Liu hliu at mindspring.com
Sun Jun 6 08:25:21 PDT 1999


Saturday June 5 1999 South China Morning Post - Hong Kong

Food scare in four countries

AUDREY PARWANI

Pork and poultry products imported from four

European countries will be withdrawn from

sale after the worst food scare in Europe since

mad cow disease.

The (HK) Department of Health asked retailers and

wholesalers yesterday to withdraw pork or

poultry products imported from Belgium,

France, Germany and the Netherlands.

The announcement was made after

information showed animal feeds used in these

countries might have been contaminated by the

cancer-causing chemical dioxin.

Chickens on about 400 Belgian farms had

been given contaminated feed, it emerged last

week.

The European Commission yesterday

extended a ban on sales of chicken and eggs

from affected farms to cover pork, beef and

dairy products after advice from Belgium that

more farms than thought may have received

tainted feed.

On Thursday, major Belgian supermarkets

cleared their shelves of chicken and egg

products.

The United States has said it will ban poultry

and pork imports from the EU.

In Hong Kong, more than 14 per cent of

frozen or chilled pork is imported from the

Netherlands.

About three per cent of imported pork and its

products comes from Germany, with the

percentage from France and Belgium 0.83 and

0.4 respectively.

The largest quantity of frozen poultry - five

per cent - imported from the four European

countries comes from the Netherlands

followed by 1.4 per cent from France.

The department said it was urging the food

trade to take the products off the shelves as a

precautionary measure.

"The latest information indicates that feeds

used on pigs may also have been affected," a

government spokesman said. "We therefore

have to apply similar measures to pork and its

products from these countries as we have to

poultry, eggs and their products."

He said traders and retailers had been

co-operative over the withdrawal, and the

department would step up inspection of retail

outlets. The department is working with the

countries' consulates to establish which

products are safe or had not been imported to

the Hong Kong SAR.



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list