Pig cull ordered in dioxin scandal
Hundreds of pigs on a farm in Germany must be killed because their meat contains high levels of dioxin, a state agricultural minister has said.
Lower Saxony's agriculture minister Gert Hahne said the high levels of the cancer-causing chemical were found on a farm in the county of Verden.
The farm was being examined because it had bought livestock feed from the German firm Harles & Jentzsch, which had produced fat used in tainted feed pellets. Samples of the fat contained more than 70 times the approved amount of dioxin.
The scandal broke last week when German investigators found excessive levels of dioxin in eggs and then some chicken.
Authorities then froze sales of poultry, pork and eggs from thousands of farms. Some 558 remain banned.