Contaminated horsemeat could harm health, environment secretary warns

[alp227]

Source: The Guardian

Contaminated horsemeat could prove "injurious" to people's health, the environment secretary Owen Paterson warned on Sunday as he served notice on the public to expect "further bad news" later this week.

Amid fears in Downing Street that the ministerial team at the environment department is struggling to take a grip of the crisis, Paterson said that "an international criminal conspiracy" may be guilty of introducing dangerous meat into processed food.

"We may find out, as the week progresses as the tests begin to come in, that there is a substance which is injurious to human health," Paterson told LBC 97.3 Radio. "We have no evidence of that at all at the moment. At the moment this is a labelling issue."

Patersons's remarks were the first time the government has acknowledged that there may be a threat to human health after the discovery that food labelled as beef contained horsemeat. The crisis escalated at the end of last week when it emerged that Findus lasagne contained up to 100% horsemeat.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/feb/10/contaminated-horsemeat-harm-health

---

[Tien1985]

1. I am not a vegartarian

But I am surprised at the reaction to horse burgers.

I believe we have the right to know what we eat and that we should not be mislead. On the other hand, I always kind of figured they would mislead is as much as they could without being caught.

Am I being more cynical than most? I can't be the only one who thinks they are likely feeding us rat and any other thing they can turn into ground meat.

[Buzz Clik]

2. I share your views.

I am 100% convinced Americans have been chowing down on horse in their processed meats, even more so with the recent spike in feed costs. We have only 10 times more cattle than horses in the US, and cattle operations slimmed down this past year. I don't recall hearing the demand for burgers declined. So ... where is the meat coming from?

[Rosa Luxemburg]

14. I wonder how much beef is disguise as horse in our supermarkets?

[Sunlei]

3. The uk has tightened their food quality regulations, their suppliers scam them, label change.

Cheap product received frozen from crappy foreign slaughterhouses can be mixed into their domesticly produced gold label meat supply.

They even cheat the export tax systems, ship a container of '5 cent a pound slaughterhouse scraps', pay almost no import/export tax. Then unpack and sell as prime quality meat at $50.00 a pound.(or more!)

The uk has glass walls in their slaughterhouses and each animal is microchipped, has a vet record passport and followed/tracked from farm to table.

Not so in most other countries. Even in America no one checks the slaughterhouse records and livestock is not microchipped or verified with attached lifelong Vet records. They let companies and slaughterhouses 'self regulate' an honor system. people cheat when they can get away with increasing profits and never getting caught.

The quality Ranches and Farms who produce organic prime quality meats should be outraged at the scams by the low class producers.

[KathieG]

6. Yep, and thousands of horses from the United States...

including culled ex-racehorses, culled breeding stock, former backyard pets, and former show horses that were medicated and treated regularly with multiple substances harmful to humans are processed in Canadian and Mexican slaughter plants for meat that is exported overseas for human consumption.

[Sunlei]

7. a lot of horses are stolen because of that horrible practice.

America should not let any of our countries horses be used as food. Then there would be no market for the American 'beef' scammers and horse thieves.

[bloomington-lib]

4. Horsemeat is not bad for your health (taste good too) but contaminated any meat is.

How many times have you heard of people getting sick by contaminated cow meat.

[dipsydoodle]

5. At issue

is whether or not horses classified as not fit human consumption due to treatment with bute / phenylbutazone were used.

This news is actually from January 24th when it first became apparent : Contaminated horsemeat sold for food, FSA admits http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21181499 It just happens it was re-discussed today on the radio.

[alfredo]

9. I think I've eaten horse meat, but memory fails me.

We need to have open season on wild pigs. They are destructive and delicious.

[awoke_in_2003]

10. I have no problems with..l

consuming horse, but I do want truth in advertising.

[alfredo]

8. What the hell are we eating here. I'll eat just about any as

Long as I know what I am eating. I draw the line at those pink slime hot dogs.

[CanSocDem]

11. If you haven't already been brought to your knees...

...by the Industrial Beef Industry with its potpourri of drugs and steroids and mass marketing, you will probably survive a little horse meat in your diet.

Unless of course, the mere thought of eating your daughters pet makes you sick.

.

[Crepuscular]

12. When asked

When asked for a comment on whether it was likely that horse has been included in meat products sold in the United States, the USDA spokesman replied.............Neigh!

[DeschutesRiver]

13. That was funny, but I'd heard that Tesco and Aldi's are related companies. So were any of

these products sold in the U.S.? Inquiring minds want to know!

The way I see the problem is that this is no longer about garden variety fraud, ie someone paid X for beef meat in a product and was given a cheaper Y meat without their knowledge.

It is that the cheap Y meat was cheap because it was contaminated...and so not only was the type of meat misrepresented, that company didn't even use meat that was safe for human consumption.

Goodness, that is a double whammy now. Triple if it has already hit our shores and we haven't been told yet.