A consignment of 20 tons of turkey was imported last Tuesday from a slaughterhouse in Hungary, three days after avian flu was confirmed at the Bernard Matthews plant in Suffolk.
Government inspectors knew in advance that Bernard Matthews intended to import the meat from a slaughterhouse only 30 miles away from the Hungarian outbreak – but did nothing to stop it.
A spokesman for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) admitted on Saturday that it had the power to block such meat imports but had decided not to do so.”
“It meant that meat potentially carrying the flu virus was carried straight through protective cordons set up around the Suffolk plant to prevent the spread of avian flu.
The Hungarian meat was then processed at the plant in Holton, where a near-identical strain of the H5N1 bird flu virus had led to the cull of nearly 160,000 turkeys.
Investigators from the Food Standards Agency were this weekend checking to see if any of the processed imported meat had been distributed to shops. The investigation could lead to a mass recall of Bernard Matthews products.”
“On Tuesday the vets were notified by Bernard Matthews about a new consignment of 40 tons of poultry from Hungary. Half was from the company’s headquarters in the northwest, but the other half was from the slaughterhouse in the bird flu-hit southeast of the country.
Despite the fact that the slaughterhouse in Kecskemet was just 30 miles from the restricted zone, and despite the suspicions over its link to the British outbreak, vets decided not to block the imports.
On Tuesday the vets were notified by Bernard Matthews about a new consignment of 40 tons of poultry from Hungary. Half was from the company’s headquarters in the northwest, but the other half was from the slaughterhouse in the bird flu-hit southeast of the country.
Despite the fact that the slaughterhouse in Kecskemet was just 30 miles from the restricted zone, and despite the suspicions over its link to the British outbreak, vets decided not to block the imports.”
“Mr Miliband denied misleading Parliament about the suspected Hungarian link to the Suffolk bird flu outbreak, insisting that he kept MPs informed of the latest advice the Government was receiving from scientists. He said it was now clear that there had been “a bio-security lapse” at the Suffolk factory farm which allowed contamination to get from a processing plant into the sheds housing live birds.
A Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs spokesman said that the import of the 20 tons of meat was “perfectly legal”, as it came from outside a 10km exclusion zone and a 30km restriction zone around the site of the Hungarian case.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/health/article1364673.ece
Unbelievably..
Werner
Post edited by: Werner, at: 2007/02/11 21:09