Source: U.S. Reuters story by James Davey
“Everything that touches predatory horse slaughter is rooted in crime and corruption!”
LONDON, July 16 (Reuters) – The contamination of meat products with horse DNA was most likely due to fraud and prosecutions should be pursued, a second British parliamentary report into the scandal said on Tuesday.
“The evidence suggests a complex network of companies trading in and mislabelling beef or beef products which is fraudulent and illegal,” said Anne McIntosh, a legislator who chairs the cross-party Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, which published the report.
Europe’s horsemeat scandal broke in January when traces of horse were found in frozen burgers sold in Irish and British supermarkets, including those run by market leader Tesco , raising questions about the safety of the European food supply chain.
“We are dismayed at the slow pace of investigations and seek assurances that prosecutions will be mounted where there is evidence of fraud or illegality,” said McIntosh.
The report was critical of retailers, arguing they should have been more vigilant against the risks of adulteration, especially where meat products were traded many times.
It recommended retailers carry out regular DNA tests on meat and meat-based ingredients which form part of processed or frozen meat products, reporting results to the Food Standards Agency (FSA).
The additional cost of this testing should be borne by retailers and not passed on to consumers, it added.
“Consumers need to know that what they buy is what the label says it is,” said McIntosh.
Britain’s grocers have responded to the scandal by increasing testing, while Tesco, for example, has pledged to be more open about its supplier base.
FSA CRITICISM
The FSA did not escape criticism from the report.
“There has been a lack of clarity about the responsibility of the FSA in this incident. This must be rectified,” the report said, adding the FSA must be seen to be independent of industry and given powers to compel industry and local authorities to carry out food testing.
The report did, however, conclude that the scandal, was not as extensive as originally feared. A study by the same parliamentary committee in February said the contamination discovered by that date was likely to be the “tip of the iceberg”.
The new report said testing of processed and frozen beef products sold in Britain since January found horsemeat contamination was limited to a relatively small number of products with more than 99 percent of those tested found to be free of horse DNA.
It said tests across EU member states found 4.66 percent of products tested contained over 1 percent horse DNA.
However, in separate EU-mandated tests for the presence of veterinary drug phenylbutazone (bute) in horses slaughtered for human consumption, the UK had the largest number of positive results.
The committee said a newly introduced system for testing horses for bute before they are released to the food system must continue with government and industry sharing the cost.
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Categories: Horse News, Horse Slaughter
Straight from the Horse's Heart 
When you consider this whole dirty business, it certainly leads to uncertainty that this problem will be rectified. As there are always those that will try to buck the system, those kind of practices seem to really run rampant within the horse slaughter industry and it can’t be trusted. Knowing the limited number of people in countries around the world that consume horsemeat along with the gross number of animals already being raised and slaughtered for food, you have to ask yourself, is all of this really necessary? It seems to me that horse slaughter, for the most part, is strongly disapproved by most people and not a main staple on most people’s diets. It is usually considered a delicacy, not a necessity. So, what’s the point in all of this. Since horses are viewed and owned by most people as companion animals and are given all of these drugs that are banned for use in food animals, it just doesn’t make any sense to me that these issues concerning slaughtering horses for human consumption should even exist. As we are experiencing a health epidemic around the world concerning obesity and increases in serious diseases like type II diabetes, heart disease, and cancer, many people are beginning to choose a more vegetarian/vegan lifestyle or learning healthier choices in their diets. Many are choosing to rid their diets totally of red meat and are choosing to buy locally grown/produced foods and more humanely farmed animal products. This is my prediction for the future as so many people that have been kept in the dark by corruption within the agriculture industries are now beginning to see the truth behind food production methods like those associated with Monsanto and GMO’s. People say that we are powerless against these agriculture giants. That couldn’t be further from the truth. It’s called, boycott those products. Educate yourselves on which companies produce these biologically health-destroying products and then don’t buy them. Pass this along to anyone and everyone you know and encourage them to do the same. We have choices and it’s that one simple thing that will turn this potentially devastating agriculture industry around.
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I agree 100% with Susan. Here in Washington state where I live the super markets are buying more and more fresh vegetables from local farmers. Fred Meyer, one of the markets even has signs hanging on the displays naming which farm it comes from. The local ranchers supply the markets with local beef so at least you know where it is grown and what it has been fed. The Wal Mart Chain sources its beef where ever it can get it. This is what I was told when I called customer service. This is another reason to buy local if its available. You have to pay a few pennies more but that’s Ok with me. Almost all of packaged meat of all kinds is so full of salt and chemicals to preserve it that its garbage that I will not get near. All of the canned food from soup to all canned vegies is also loaded with salt if not fat. Dry boxed cereal is also loaded with salt. This is something I didn’t believe until I started looking for salt free boxed cereal. All of the cheerios, all flakes sugar coated or not has salt. No wonder you seeing kids with high blood pressure eating this cereal. Read labels.
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Good the FSA is being drawn into this. I’m hopping that it crushes the beef and the pork industry since they are such heavy duty promoters of horse slaughter. Yrs drag them into the dust…
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Boycott the meat industry, en masse! – 80% of the American population opposed to Horse Slaughter & Transport, about 251,000,000 people – that’s a lot of money down the drain for the beef industry.
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Kim, I agree with you! Even my 16 year old daughter is ready to give up meat, at least beef products. She used to like beef jerky, until a peer told her you never know what they put in that stuff! You’d think the beef industry would also be against horse slaughter, especially for consumption. It would be in direct competition with them, it would & could definitely tarnish or ruin their reputations & put them out of business, mainly because people will be afraid of what happened all over Europe, & may stop buying beef. And, horses & cowboys are what made the beef industry what it is today, least they forget. If not for smart, dependable & hard-working cow-pony’s, how could they have ever even started or managed , between rounding up, driving the cattle, cutting & sorting & roping for branding, & so on. They need to remember & respect this animal that made them who they are, more than the cattle themselves. I’ve already stopped eating any & all meat products, as a personal protest to all the horrific suffering & abuse those animals are subjected to.
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