Bute horse corned ‘beef’ in British Walmart

From daily The Morning Star in Britain:

Asda recalls corned beef after drug traces found

Wednesday 10 April 2013

Supermarket Asda

owned by Walmart in the USA

recalled all corned beef from its budget range today after traces of veterinary drug bute were found in some batches.

The Food Standards Agency has confirmed that “very low levels” of the painkilling medicine were detected in Asda’s Smart Price corned beef.

Customers who have bought the tins, with any date code, have been urged not to eat its contents but to return it to one of its supermarkets.

Asda withdrew the product on March 8 after it was found to contain more than 1 per cent horse DNA. Bute was detected in some samples.

Shadow environment secretary Mary Creagh said: “This product was withdrawn from sale on March 8 yet has only been formally recalled now, after testing positive for bute, meaning people could have unwittingly been eating meat containing this drug for the last month.

“This exposes the weaknesses in the government’s handling of the horsemeat scandal where products were withdrawn but in some cases not tested either for horsemeat or bute.”

Veterinary drug bute found in Asda corned beef: here. And here. And here.

Retail giant Walmart was fined £54 million on the 29th May after it admitted dumping chemicals: here.

30,000 LOSE HEALTH CARE AT WALMART “Walmart Stores, the world’s largest retailer and the nation’s largest private employer, said on Tuesday that it would terminate health insurance coverage for about 30,000 part-time workers, joining a string of retailers that have rolled back benefits in response to the Affordable Care Act. Starting on Jan. 1, Walmart will no longer offer insurance to employees working less than an average of 30 hours a week, a move the retailer said was in response to an unexpected rise in health care costs.” [NYT]

Walmart’s financial problems are above all a reflection of the devastating impact of years of wage-cutting and austerity on its largely working class clientele: here.

Related articles

• Horse drug found in Asda corned beef tins (metro.co.uk)
• New horsemeat scandal as banned drug found in Asda corned beef (yorkshirepost.co.uk)
• Asda corned beef recalled after horse painkillers found (standard.co.uk)
• Horsemeat scandal returns: 50,000 tonnes of meat recalled by authorities (express.co.uk)
• Horsemeat found in tins of sliced beef from batch made in Romania (theguardian.com)
• Horsemeat found in tinned beef (bbc.co.uk)
• Discount store withdraws beef product after horse DNA traces found (news.stv.tv)
• Horsemeat found in tinned beef (belfasttelegraph.co.uk)
• Horsemeat is found in cans of beef: Thousands of tins on sale in discount shops removed from shelves after discovery (dailymail.co.uk)
• Horsemeat discovered in tinned beef product, says Food Standards Agency (theguardian.com)
• Horsemeat is found in cans of beef: Thousands of tins on sale in discount shops removed from shelves after discovery (dailymail.co.uk)