Three horse carcasses that tested positive for the equine drug bute may have entered the human food chain in France, the British government said yesterday.
British Environment Minister David Heath told the House of Commons that eight horses from British abattoirs had tested positive for bute, and “three may have entered the food chain in France. The remaining five have not gone into the food chain.”
Heath said frozen lasagna sold under the Findus label in Britain had tested negative for bute. The product was removed from store shelves last week after tests found some of the meals contained more than 60 percent horsemeat.
Horsemeat itself is not dangerous to eat, but bute, or phenylbutazone, a painkiller and anti-inflammatory used on horses, is considered harmful to human health if ingested.
Authorities across Europe are testing for the drug after horsemeat was found in food products labeled as beef.
The EU’s executive called in Europe’s law enforcers and urged bloc-wide DNA food testing on Wednesday to restore consumer confidence in a widening scandal over horsemeat-tainted processed food.
“We do not know exactly what has gone wrong,” British Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Owen Paterson told reporters after emergency talks in Brussels and amid growing public anger over mislabeled meat products.
As he prepared to drive to the headquarters of the Europol law enforcement agency in The Hague, Netherlands, he said: “We have to get to the bottom of these cases.”
France and Switzerland have now joined Britain in finding horsemeat in frozen beef lasagne, while supermarket chains in Sweden, the Netherlands and Germany have pulled millions of frozen ready meals off the shelves.
The row has exposed the complex web of suppliers involved in the food chain, raising public fears about health, as well as suspicions of fraud.
British police on Tuesday raided two meat plants in their search for the source of horsemeat found in kebabs and burgers, and Paterson warned in Brussels: “This is a criminal conspiracy to defraud the public.”
European Commissioner for Health and Consumer Policy Tonio Borg, who joined eight EU nations at Wednesday’s talks, said Brussels was calling on all 27 EU states to carry out DNA tests on beef products to see if they contained horsemeat.
The European Commission would also urge checks in all European establishments handling raw horsemeat for phenylbutazone.
“No one has the right to label as beef something that is not beef,” he said after the talks involving Britain, France, Germany, Ireland, Luxembourg, Romania, Poland and Sweden. “Someone will be held responsible, even criminally responsible.”
Irish Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine Simon Coveney, who chaired the meeting, said: “It has become very clear that this is a European problem that has to be dealt with Europe-wide. We need to find out who is responsible, how it happened and make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
EU ministers had favored slapping a country-of-origin tag on processed meat products, which is currently only required on fresh meats, Coveney said.
Since Britain last week discovered horsemeat in frozen lasagne — made by French firm Comigel and sold under the Findus label — supermarkets across Europe have pulled millions of frozen ready meals from the shelves.
RETHINK? The defense ministry and Navy Command Headquarters could take over the indigenous submarine project and change its production timeline, a source said Admiral Huang Shu-kuang’s (黃曙光) resignation as head of the Indigenous Submarine Program and as a member of the National Security Council could affect the production of submarines, a source said yesterday. Huang in a statement last night said he had decided to resign due to national security concerns while expressing the hope that it would put a stop to political wrangling that only undermines the advancement of the nation’s defense capabilities. Taiwan People’s Party Legislator Vivian Huang (黃珊珊) yesterday said that the admiral, her older brother, felt it was time for him to step down and that he had completed what he
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
CHINA REACTS: The patrol and reconnaissance plane ‘transited the Taiwan Strait in international airspace,’ the 7th Fleet said, while Taipei said it saw nothing unusual The US 7th Fleet yesterday said that a US Navy P-8A Poseidon flew through the Taiwan Strait, a day after US and Chinese defense heads held their first talks since November 2022 in an effort to reduce regional tensions. The patrol and reconnaissance plane “transited the Taiwan Strait in international airspace,” the 7th Fleet said in a news release. “By operating within the Taiwan Strait in accordance with international law, the United States upholds the navigational rights and freedoms of all nations.” In a separate statement, the Ministry of National Defense said that it monitored nearby waters and airspace as the aircraft