[A-List] UK corporate state: BSE scandal

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

Britons 'ate 5,000 tons a year of beef slurry'
By Graham Hiscott
The Independent, 11 October 2002

About 5,000 tons a year of mechanically-recovered meat, thought likely to be
a significant cause of the human form of "mad cow disease", entered the food
chain for 15 years until it was banned, an official report said yesterday.

The beef was obtained by using a high pressure machine to strip bones after
the prime cuts had been removed.

Itwas mostly used in catering and economy brand foods such as burgers and
frozen or dried mince, according to the study by the Food Standards Agency.

Until it was banned in 1995, some of the mechanically-recovered meat (MRM)
came from vertebral columns, which may have contained traces of spinal cord.

It is thought the spinal cord could have contained high levels of bovine
spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) infection.

The Spongiform Enceph-alopathy Advisory Committee (SEAC), an independent
expert group advising the Government on BSE and variant CJD, commissioned
the report to examine how BSE may have got into food in Britain.

Of the 5,000 tons a year of beef MRM thought to have entered the food chain
between 1980 and 1995 it is estimated 40 per cent went into burgers and 40
per cent into frozen mince, some of which was used in hospitals and schools,
the report said. It added that fast food outlets did not use MRM in their
burgers.

Some baby foods may have contained MRM but information was "not conclusive",
according to the agency.

The major baby food producers claimed not to have used MRM because of
concern about bone fragments.

* Hospitals are running out of blood. The demand is rising because of an
ageing population but estimates suggest screening of blood for variant CJD
could cut donations by half, researchers say.