The Belgian dioxin crisis

Concerning what really occurred during the so-called " Belgian chicken diox in crisis", many uncertainties remain. It is certain that it happened in Be lgium, and we know for sure that it was PCBs that were introduced in the al imentary chain. The crisis lasted at least until the 23 of July 1999 on the market through contaminated pork. The fact that the "dioxin chicken crisis " ended up as a "PCB pork contamination" may need some explanation. This pa per intends to describe this alimentary crisis, using the following differe nt public sources, namely the official report of the "Parliamentary Dioxin Commission", four articles in the medical literature, numerous reports on n ewspaper and radio or television for which we used only the material publis hed on their web site as record of radio and television news. First we desc ribe the crisis itself, the contamination and its evolution, then in the se cond part we analyse the events, and the management of the health consequen ces on the Belgian population by the Belgian Authorities and the Belgian sc ientific community.