Pig meat: a healthy option?

Newspapers are full of warnings to consumers to avoid Irish pork products due to possible contamination with dioxins, chronic exposure to which can cause cancer in humans. Levels of dioxins up to 200 times the legal limit have been discovered, prompting withdrawal of the meat from sale. While industry representatives are desperate to pass off this danger to human health as an anomaly, the sad truth is that the horrific conditions on factory farms are the perfect breeding ground for disease and contamination, as our recent pig farm investigation revealed.

The poor air quality, overcrowding and filthy surroundings mean that not only are the pigs distressed but that they easily succumb to diseases. Aside from the large numbers of dead animals who died from unknown causes, our investigation at pig farms around the country found pigs convulsing with suspected meningitis and suffering from respiratory conditions.

When Irish pork returns to supermarket shelves, it may be back within the ‘safe’ limits for dioxin levels, but it may still carry a host of disease-causing agents and will still be the product of unnecessary and unjustified disease, suffering and death.