Ministers from the member states of the European Union are meeting in Brussels today to discuss the consequences of a health scare thought to have originated with pharmaceutical waste from a factory in Newbridge, Co Kildare. The alert has now spread to 11 of the 15 EU countries.
The Minister for Agriculture, Mr Walsh, briefed his EU counterparts last night and promised more information today. He said that the Irish authorities were still investigating the management of waste material from the pharmaceutical sector.
The scare began when illegal growth-promoting hormones were found in pig feed. The hormone, medrosyprogesterone acetate, was said to have been found in sugar water, a waste product from the process used by Wyeth Laboratories to coat contraceptive pills. The waste was exported by Cara Bio-environmental, which is based in Dublin, to a firm in Belgium, Bioland, which in turn supplied the Dutch feed manufacturers.
Mr David Byrne, the European Commissioner for health and consumer protection, urged ministers to share information on tracing animal feed and meat which may have been contaminated.