Switzerland has banned Austrian pork as the growing scandal over the supply of illegal drugs to Austrian pig farmers claimed its first ministerial resignation, the BBC reports. Bavarian health minister Barbara Stamm resigned in a scandal that has caused campaigners to say the dangers to humans from eating pork contaminated with the drugs could be greater than the risks involved in eating BSE-infected beef. German vets had been selling hormones, antibiotics and banned vaccinations to middlemen who then supplied them to around 1,200 farmers, mainly in Austria, the German newspaper Der Spiegel wrote this week. Currently seventeen farms have been closed in Austria and the offices of 20 vets in southern Bavaria are under investigation. Some experts believe that the use of hormones and antibiotics could cause cancer in people who eat meat from treated animals.
