Europe-wide alert over Pill hormone in animal feed

New fears over food safety were raised yesterday when it was revealed that a hormone used in the contraceptive pill had contaminated animal feed, affecting meat products in Britain and 10 other European Union countries.

The Food Standards Agency said meat from 300 pig carcasses supplied by a Belgian farm which used the contaminated feed has entered the food chain. The agency added that 15,000 tons of molasses which may have contained suspect glucose had also been destroyed in Hull.

The agency insisted that the quantities of medroxy- progesterone acetate (MPA) which could have been consumed were not sufficient to affect human health. But the saga highlights the difficulties of controlling health risks within the EU's single market.

The contamination began at a pharmaceutical plant operated by an Irish subsidiary of the US company Wyeth, which makes hormone-based drugs.

Water left over from the process which gives the Pill a sweet coating was shipped from the plant in Newbridge, County Kildare, via a waste brokerage, to a Belgian reprocessing company Bioland, which supplies glucose syrupto animal feed makers.

Bioland exported large quantities of potentially contaminated products to animal feed-makers in the Netherlands and from there, the feed has been sold to other European countries.

Some 7,000 Dutch farms have been placed under surveillance with animal movements restricted; 800 are being kept under watch in Belgium and another 2,100 in Germany.