This video from Britain is called Horse meat scandal hits Findus.
By Rory MacKinnon in Britain:
Unison blames horse meat scandal on inspector cuts
Friday 08 February 2013
The national horse meat scandal cantered on today as Unison highlighted cuts to inspections and Britain’s consumer watchdog alleged “highly likely” organised crime.
The Food Standards Authority said it was ordering a swathe of food manufacturers to test DNA in their beef products after examiners found some Findus-brand lasagne was almost entirely horse.
Irish inspectors found that of 18 Findus samples, 11 contained between 60 to 100 per cent horse meat.
The authority’s chief executive Catherine Brown told reporters: “I have to say that the two cases of gross contamination that we see here indicates that it is highly likely there has been criminal and fraudulent activity involved.”
But the Unison union representing inspectors blamed the industry itself, saying dodgy beef burgers were not the only toxic cuts.
The number of analysts has dropped by two-thirds since 2000 to just 32 people, while independent inspections fell by 29 per cent between 2008 to 2010 – with the industry given even more leeway following the Con-Dems‘ “bonfire of the quangos.”
National officer Ben Priestley also said most of the mislabelled horse meat has been found in “budget” food, targeted at the poorest members of our society.
“It is a scandal that the safety of people, whose choice is limited by their income, has come second to the private profit.”
He also said the authority’s cuts to inspectors’ pay and pensions announced this week were the last straw.
“The attack on food inspectors’ pay, at a time when their work has never been more needed, is poorly timed in the extreme and astonishingly insensitive.”
Update October 2013: here.
Related articles
- Meat industry under scrutiny as horsemeat scandal spreads (cnn.com)
- You: Horsemeat scandal now across Europe (edition.cnn.com)
- Top News: Horsemeat scandal blamed on international fraud by criminals (guardian.co.uk)
- Findus knew a week ago that meals contained horse meat (telegraph.co.uk)
- Cameron condemns ‘shocking’ horse meat scandal (abc.net.au)
- ‘Highly likely’ horsemeat contamination was due to ‘criminal activity’ says Food … – The Independent (independent.co.uk)
Dear Kitty. Some blog 
woow : /
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I hope the criminals in this case will be apprehended.
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Hello,
I have nominated you for The Versatile Blogger Award. Please check http://www.TheReporterandTheGirl.com for award rules and a list of nominations which include you! Congratulations, you worked very hard and you deserve it, happy weekend and great blog!
TheGirl
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Thank you so much, TheGirl, for nominating me!
Congratulations with your award!
I will blog about this, though not immediately 🙂
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Hi Petrel, No prob! Thanks
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Unbelievable!!
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But, sadly, true. I hope indignation about this will lead to preventing this in the future.
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I think you post these just for me, dear, because you know how passionate I am about this issue 🙂 and you know it gets me going LOL 😀
Why is no one giving a crap about this and doing something about this??? Is the bute and the other possible chemicals not scaring them enough by now if the moral and ethical reasons of the act of slaughtering and eating a horse alone is not enough for them to stop??? It is the MONEY and the GREED I tell you! That is what it is. Someone is line these twat’s pocket’s and making them blind to what was is really going on what in front of them. It is going to mass mass sickness, contamination of the food supply. I mean thousands, 10s of thousands from eating contaminated horse meat and then finally, maybe they will open up their bloody eyes and take off those bloody blinders and see the wrong that is in front of them. I am LIVID at this point. This shouldn’t have happened. They shouldn’t have started slaughtered horses years ago before I was born.
And I want to know how the flip you cannot tell the difference between horse meat and beef??!! Really!!! You would have to be blind not to tell the difference! I have not seen horse meat in person and I could tell the difference between the two. You cannot sit back and tell me that cuts in food inspectors made this happen. That is a load of rubbish! Lacking food inspectors does not mean that you do less of a job when you are trying to inspect for for a whole country for millions of people! If you do that, Lord only knows what else has gone through that shouldn’t have. That cuts of beef or pork or chicken that aren’t usually sold to the public, expired meat, etc.
They better bring those people, those inhuman slime, up on the highest crimes the court allows and punish them well, as much as the law allows. Jail them for a couple hundred years and keep them in there so they can think about what they have done. They can think about the horse’s lives they took. Those horses that will never run free again in the green fields. That will never carry a laughing child on their back again. That will never carry an Olympic rider over a jump again and win ribbon. That willl never chomp on a sweet apple or a peppermint again. My heart just breaks in a million shards for those lives that were taken for no reason except for money and for people who think it is a freakin delicacy to eat that meat when there are thousands of options of things to eat for a delicacy. The can all just sod off for all I care! A senseless genocide if you really look at it at young, old, mare, stallion, gelding, whether they were wanted, unwanted, or swindled. Dosen’t matter. They all lived, breathed, thought, felt, cared, cried. Sod off, inspectors! Oh yes, I am mad as all bloody hell now! You can bank on this! I will be going on for days now. I just commented on another blog who has been posting about this as news comes out who specifically posts about the slaughter issue.
I am sooooooooo freakin’ mad I just want to take my guns and take care of whoever is responsible and put THEM through the slaughterhouse, the torture, the agony at gunpoint and see how they like it. Enough is enough. This needs to stop one way or another. I’ve had it. Other people have had it. Let’s do something about it. What say you? Obviously laws on paper aren’t going to stop them. Or words. Something physical must be done at this point. Grrr
(Plz note that I am a really uber nice, lovely person. I am just really, really uber mad but I would never shoot anybody or hurt anybody in anyway. I just love horses and there is only a few people I would lay down my life for 1. Christ, 2. My family(depends who and 3. My horse. No one else. Oh my bff and her baby would be 4 of course . Just sick and tired of my friends, my lovely dears, the horses being slaughtered. It really hurts and breaks my heart is all. 🙂
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Hi Serenity, thank you for your extensive, heartfelt comment!
I do think that the government’s decreasing of the number of inspectors has contributed to this scandal. If there is less chance of getting caught because of lack of inspectors inspecting meat samples, then criminals will tend to use horse meat more often.
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Pingback: British Horse Meat Scandal…The Rabbit Hole Gets Deeper « Serenity's Musings
I agree that poor consumers are the worst hit, because they’re more likely to buy budget foods. But why do you say that their safety has been put at risk?
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Hi argylesock, the quote about the safety of consumers of horse meat is not by me, but by Ben Priestley, quoted in the article. Very probably, he says so because horse meat (also if criminals are involved) may contain phenylbutazone which harms human health.
See
http://www.foodproductiondaily.com/Quality-Safety/Tainted-US-horse-meat-puts-world-consumers-at-risk-welfare-body
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Yes you (and he) have good point about the risk of ‘bute’. In a more general way, I think that we consumers are at risk any time there’s an ingredient in our food which can’t be easily traced.
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Yes, I agree.
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Horse isn’t the only false advertising going on
Saturday 16 February 2013
The scandal over horse meat dressed as beef reminded me of a letter I wrote to the Star in 2010, part of which read:
“I think I am right in supposing that if I ordered and paid for a selection of vegetarian foodstuff and an assortment of meats was included I would be entitled to have the order replaced, or a refund, and likely compensation.
“Millions of people voted tactically for the Liberal Democrats thinking they were opposing the Tories but it turned out they were supporting them.
“This situation cannot continue to be tolerated in a supposed democracy.”
One hundred per cent beef turns out to be horse meat and the Liberal Democrat manifesto 100 per cent horse shit!
Paul Miller
Barnstaple
http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/news/content/view/full/129539
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