Massive Protest in Berlin over Dioxin-Tainted Food

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Over the weekend, a massive protest took place in Berlin on Saturday where organizers say 22,000 people took part in a demonstration entitled “We are sick of it. No to genetic engineering, animal factories and dumping exports.”

More than 120 groups representing farmers, animal rights activists and food businesses organized the demonstration. With 80 tractors leading the way through central Berlin, the German protesters marched in objection to factory farming, GM technology, and a food scandal that has since spread across Europe in which cancer-causing dioxin was found in German eggs, poultry and pork. The protesters planned to march from Berlin’s main train station to the Brandenburg Gate.

The anger on behalf of German GMO protesters were no doubt compounded by the recently leaked Wikileaks cable disclosing that the Bush administration formulated battle plans to extract revenge against Europe for refusing to use genetically modified seeds. The then-U.S. ambassador to France Craig Stapleton, conspired to retaliate against European countries for their anti-biotech policies.

Dioxin Scandal

More than 8,000 chickens have been culled, 100,000 eggs destroyed, and nearly 5,000 farms were shut down throughout Germany; and sales of poultry, pork and eggs from farms were suspended.

“We had such softening of environment and animal standards in the past years, said Reinhild Benning of Germany’s Friends of the Earth. “That’s a risk for consumers — as we are seeing now with the dioxin scandal — and something they don’t want.”

Germany has filed criminal charges against the firm Harles & Jentzsch because they did not immediately inform the agricultural ministry that levels of cancer-causing dioxin in 150,000 tons of their feed surpassed the allowed amount.

Despite criminal charges being filed, Spiegel Online indicated officials with the European Union told reporters they had held a “disappointing” meeting with industry representatives because “no concrete proposals were presented” to prevent further contamination in the future.

The contaminated feed was sent to 25 distributors in Germany and from there to thousands of farms.

China, South Korea and Hungary have imposed restrictions on German meat imports and Russia held talks with German officials. Britain and the Netherlands are making inquiries to determine if the contaminated eggs from Germany have found their way into mayonnaise and other egg enriched products like pastries and processed food.

German officials said dioxin-tainted pork may have already been sold in supermarkets; officials said it was possible that the meat went to consumers before the recall. Pork represents two-thirds of all of the meat consumed in Germany.

Massive US Egg Recall

Just last summer a massive U.S. egg recall took place involving over a half-billion eggs contaminated with salmonella traced to Wright County Egg and Hillandale Farms.

Austin “Jack” DeCoster, the man who owns Wright County Egg, was responsible for 380 million of the 550 million recalled eggs; DeCoster is a habitual offender who has for two decades committed a series of egregious food related violations in several US states.

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