Denmark-Health concerns in meat.

DENMARK-MORE FEAR MONGERING FROM VESTED INTERESTS.

Medical experts say there is a serious problem with Danish pork products

Four elderly people have died as a result of eating Danish ’medister’ sausages contaminated with salmonella poisoning since October, according to national disease control centre Statens Serum Institut.

Two large outbreaks since that time have hospitalised 79 people with stomach infections stemming from salmonella bacteria U288 and U312. Researchers were able to trace the bacteria to sausage from two pork slaughterhouses, one on Zealand and one in Jutland.

However, Dr Kåre Mølbak, a consultant with the epidemiology department at Statens Serum Institut, said they had not identified which slaughter houses or which specific pork products were the main cause of the problem.

In a statement Mølbak was able to say that ’there are grounds for concern and this time we are in no doubt that the salmonella comes from Danish pork’.

Mølbak went on to say, when asked if there was a problem with Danish pork products, ’yes, I would say so as so many people are made ill as a result of consuming these products’.

According to parliament’s Food Standard Regulation and Control Committee, the entire national food inspection system is failing.

Committee chairman Jørgen Højmark said more co-operation and a willingness to eradicate further problems between the authorities and slaughter houses and butchers could help to solve problems with food poisoning.

In a statement from the Danish Meat Association, deputy director Erik Bisgaard Madsen said that he was ’99 percent certain’ that the problem did not stem from an association member.

In addition to the two outbreaks this past autumn, a salmonella outbreak during the spring and summer of 2008 sent over 1200 people to hospital, six of whom died.