EU health concerns grow over tainted German eggs (VIDEO)

Europe's health chief said he would explore ways to strengthen food monitoring after officials confirmed that dioxin-tainted eggs from Germany had entered the U.K.'s food system.

And German authorities said they had filed criminal charges against a company which they say knew for months that the fatty acid it was delivering to animal-feed makers was contaminated with dioxin.

Germany has stopped more than 4,700 farms from selling their meat and eggs and begun criminal proceedings against the company at the heart of a growing scandal over animal feed contaminated with cancer-causing chemicals.

Dioxin can cause severe health problems in humans, including cancer and miscarriages.

Germany's Agriculture Ministry said Friday it had no immediate reports of health problems connected to the contaminated products.

The scandal broke on Monday, when excessive dioxin levels were discovered in eggs from chickens in western Germany, and has continued to spread. Eggs were contaminated after 3,000 tonnes of tainted animal feed was shipped to German poultry and hog farms. Eggs from those farms were sent to the Netherlands for processing and then exported to the U.K.

German media, meantime, reported that the contaminated feed had been given to livestock for months before the dioxin was discovered.

The agricultural ministry in the German state of Schleswig-Holstein said criminal charges had been filed against the company Harles and Jentzsch "because they did not immediately inform" the agricultural ministry that dioxin levels surpassed the allowed amount, CNN reported.

Gerd Sonnleitner, President of the German Farmers’ Association, told the New York Times on Friday that the estimated loss to the industry was between $52 million and $70 million a week.