Abattoir fraud could bring BSE back to Britain

Meat contaminated with BSE may be on sale throughout Britain because of widespread fraud at abattoirs, according to inspectors. Slaughterhouses are accused of swapping samples from carcasses to stop them failing tests to detect the disease.

The brain stems of all cattle more than 30 months old should be checked for contamination, but some abattoir owners are suspected of substituting the brains of younger animals to ensure the meat is sold.

Earlier this month, beef was removed from supermarket shelves across Britain because of the failure to test just one cow's brain for BSE.

People eating products infected with BSE can develop the incurable degenerative neurological disorder variant-CJD, which attacks young people in particular.

Inspectors believe that fraud is most likely when the animal sample is damaged during removal. Such material is regarded as untestable and the carcass and those that might have come into contact with it must be destroyed. This can cost the companies involved up to £4,000.

Inspectors say the alleged fraud means meat is entering the food chain without being properly checked.

Inspectors belonging to the public service union Unison have reported the alleged practice at two British slaughterhouses, but believe the fraud may be widespread.

A union spokeswoman refused to name the plants concerned because abattoir managers "routinely attempt to intimidate inspectors for doing their job".

A third case is also under investigation in Northern Ireland, where a laboratory reported after DNA testing that samples taken from two cows could not come from animals more than 30 months old.

Ben Priestley, Unison's national officer for the Meat Hygiene Service, said the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) had acted on evidence of fraud to tighten up procedures, but that the measures did not go far enough. He said inspectors should be allowed to supervise all brain-stem removals. Currently, where large batches are concerned only one in 10 is monitored.

The spokeswoman for Unison said the trend towards self-regulation in the meat industry was leaving the door open to fraud. Until earlier this year, there was a ban on slaughtering animals more than 30 months old for human consumption, because of an increased risk of BSE. The prohibition was lifted, but only on the basis that the brain stem was removed and sent away for testing.

A spokesman for Defra said so far the union had produced no evidence to support the claims of fraud.

A devastating disease

BSE stands for bovine spongiform encephalopathy, which is also known as "mad cow disease".

It can be passed to humans through the food chain in the form of variant-CJD, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. It has a degenerative effect on the brain and is incurable. The average age of death from the disease is 29.

Early symptoms of CJD include minor lapses of memory, but within weeks an infected person may become unsteady and exhibit slurred speech. Eventually the person is no longer aware of their surroundings or disabilities. People affected by CJD usually die within six months, often from pneumonia. There is some evidence that the number of deaths from variant CJD has reached a peak. Up to December last year there had been 153 deaths from the disease in the UK and it is now in decline.

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