Source: By STEPHEN CASTLE of the New York Times
“Eight horses slaughtered in Britain for human consumption tested positive for bute…”
Smoked horse meat in package, bought in a Dutch supermarket (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
LONDON — After disappearing briefly from public view, the scandal over horse meat sold as beef re-emerged on Wednesday with an alert over 50,000 tons of meat sold across Europe and an earlier recall of a product in Britain containing a veterinary drug banned from the human food chain.
The Dutch food safety authority said it was trying to trace meat sold to 130 companies in the Netherlands and 370 in 15 other countries, including France, Germany and Spain. The Dutch suppliers of the meat were unable to say where the 50,000 tons in question originated, said Tjitte Mastenbroek, spokesman for the Netherlands Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority.
“There is no specific indication that this is a danger to the public,’’ Mr. Mastenbroek said, ‘’but the company cannot give the origin of the meat, so we cannot give a guarantee.”
The food safety authorities in the 15 countries have been notified about the concerns, and the Dutch companies that bought the meat will be asked to remove it from sale if it can still be traced. The two Dutch meat suppliers were named as Wiljo Import en Export B.V. and Vleesgroothandel Willy Selten B.V.
Late Tuesday in Britain, the Asda chain, which is owned by Walmart, announced a recall of Smart Price Corned Beef. The product was withdrawn from shelves in March after it was found to contain traces of horse meat, and further tests showed that the banned drug, known as bute, had been detected in very small doses, the company said.
“Asda is recalling this product and anyone who has Asda Smart Price Corned Beef should not eat it,” said a statement on the company Web site, which added that the risk to health was extremely low. Consumers were asked to return the product to stores.
The announcement is a new development in the scandal over horse meat in beef products, ranging from frozen lasanga to Ikea’s Swedish meatballs. Until Tuesday, there had been no suggestion that any item sold in Britain posed a health risk.
Eight horses slaughtered in Britain for human consumption tested positive for bute, and although some of that meat was exported to France, none of it was used in British food, according to the authorities.
Tests to detect bute take longer than those for horse DNA, which is why the Asda product was withdrawn from shelves last month well before the discovery of traces of bute that prompted the recall.
A second Asda corned beef product that also contained horse meat traces and had been taken off supermarket shelves is also being recalled as a precaution, although no bute has been discovered, the company said…(CONTINUED)
Click (HERE) to visit the Times and to read the story in it’s entirety
Related Articles
- Phenylbutazone detected in corned beef product (horsetalk.co.nz)
- New horsemeat scandal as banned drug found in Asda corned beef (yorkshirepost.co.uk)
- Horse-meat scandal resurfaces in Europe (seattletimes.com)
- Dutch authorities recall 50,000 tons of beef over horse meat suspicions (metro.co.uk)
- Asda corned beef recalled after horse painkillers found (standard.co.uk)
- Supermarket withdraws corned beef products over bute scare (yorkshirepost.co.uk)
Categories: Horse News, Horse Slaughter
Straight from the Horse's Heart 
Will they never “get it”?
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Doesn’t seem so, but the bad press on this topic hopefully will sink in eventually.
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I blew a gasket after the first 3 paragraphs.
Just exactly HOW can a food purveyor, that has food purity issue THAT ARE SCIENTIFICALLY DOCUMENTED say:
(1) We don’t know where it came from (WTH?!????); and,
(3) There is no risk! Seriously????? Another WTH moment.
I’ll return to the story after I’ve calmed down.
And don’t think the same sloppy food production IS NOT going on here in the US.
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So did I Denise! If these people are so damn complacent, they shouldn’t be in the food business, to begin with! It’s time to get serious and show responsibility for the public’s health or go into another professsion! And yes, you’re right. it can happen here!
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MMMMM BUTE….it is what is for lunch in EU. IT may be the only thing to save America’s horses. I will make sure all of mine get it. Shameful for our politicians…they are no better than China sending out lead based toys and tainted dog food or dog treats.
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so glad to finaly see media get fixated on a story that is approtiate for them to be fixated on!!! Is this a correllary of the old maxim that nothing can resist the power of an idea whose time has come? We can hope…..
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More details..according to this article the horse meat substitution in this case started back in Jan. 2011 and cont’d right thru Feb 2013! http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/horsemeat-scandals-prime-suspect-revealed-1826120
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They need to put him away and throw away the key!!!!!
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PRISON TIME!
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kinda looks like the market for horse meat, is a false demand market with so much being used as an undeclared & intentionally hidden substitution for beef…..
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The PEER white papers revealing BLM’s upper management strategic planning on disposing of their excess wild horses contained an offering statement by one of their members. Her statement was that she had a buyer in Demark who wanted at least 10,000 of our wild horses. This was back in 2008/09.
Is there a connection? No paperwork of origin of the horsemeat? No market other than cuttinef products?
BLM where are your fingerprints in this mess?
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They have definitely been culpable, Jan, but probably not for tainted meat. The horse racing “industry” is largely responsible, however. Mafia all over the place.
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Judy…you are incorrect that the “racing industry” is “largely responsible.
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Oh…and DOI/USDA give prohibitive drugs to wild equines that make them ineligible for food processing. Racing helps, but their numbers are nothing compared to the AQHA and private competition (nonracing) and pleasure equine owners.
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From Meduna to Tom Davis to vanishing numbers of disappearing and dead wild equines, the DOIs, USDAs, Farm Bureaus, meaters et al finger prints are all over this.
But the only ones that get tagged are sociopaths like Meduna. He got those equines (mostly wild) from some government agency.
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Needs to go to prison. Fraud! Intentionally aware of this!
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Perhaps they will actually finally get it!!!! Horses are not to eat or kill…and no most of the time
they have no idea where these horses are coming from, what there background was and what
med’s they have had in there lifetime. Come on a horse belongs in a stable not the table.
Is this possible a wake up call yet….STOP HORSE SLAUGHTER.
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The world food supply is a disaster. We have no idea what we are eating and what our food is made up of! Antibiotics, hormones, drugs, GMOs, pesticides, etc. No wonder cancer has become the most prevalent disease. It scares the hell out of me so I buy local as much as possible so that I have some control.
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If this is not a wake-up call, I don’t know what is?!!! Is it any wonder and rightly so, people are becoming more and more vegetarian. We should not have to worry about the quality of meat we consume, but unfortunately it’s becoming prevalent in Europe, which can also happen here. For this reason, it is imperative that we take action now to prohibit horse slaughter, once and for all!
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From what I read this morning the horse may actually save the Biofuel industry. It seems that the horse produces in its gut a enzyme that could hold the secrets to streamlining biofuel production.
This just came out in Science Daily that I subscribe too. “Stepping into unexplored territory to use corn stalks, grass and other non-food plants to make biofuels, scientists have described the discovery of a potential treasure-trove of candidate enzymes in fungi thriving in the feces and intestinal tracts of horses. They reported on these enzymes–the key to economical production of biofuels from non-food plant material–at the 245th National Meeting&Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS) currently going on in New Orleans.
You can read the rest of it if you go to Science Daily. This is something they don’t have to kill the horse to get, just feed it.
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Like what they probably said about the P drug, just water ’em
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