Prev: Bird flu spread - UK Turkey King Sent Meat To Hungary AFTER H5N1
Next: Fruitarian diet and other subjects
From: pearl on 14 Feb 2007 09:26
The Independent Online Edition
14 February 2007 14:11

Bernard Matthews firm could face prosecution over
bird flu outbreak
By Nigel Morris, Home Affairs Correspondent
Published: 12 February 2007

Lorry-loads of poultry products could have been
transported out of the British farm which suffered a
major outbreak of bird flu, the Government has admitted.

An exclusion zone was put in place around the Bernard
Matthews plant in Holton when the deadly strain of H5N1
was identified last week. But a diplomatic row was brewing
last night between London and Budapest after Hungary said
that tons of meat had been sent from Holton to the central
European country since the restrictions were imposed.

Lajos Bognar, Hungary's chief vet, told Channel 4 News:
"I can say that from the protection zone, from the UK,
six trucks arrived from there last week to Hungary."

His claim brought a bizarre new twist to the avian flu
saga as experts believe that the Suffolk cases can be
traced directly back to an outbreak of an identical strain
of the H5N1 virus in Hungary. The Department of
Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) conceded
such shipments out of Holton could have taken place
since the avian flu outbreak.

A spokesman said: "Depending on the type of product,
date of slaughter and which farm it originated on, it is
possible that poultry product from the Suffolk plant
could have met the licensing requirements for movement
outside the restricted area."

Channel 4 claimed that the decision to grant the licence
would have been made before it was clear that poultry,
rather than wild birds, was the likely source of the infection.

The Government was also forced to defend a decision to
continue allowing imports of turkey meat from Hungary
after the H5N1 virus was discovered there. Chris Huhne,
the Liberal Democrat environment spokesman, called for
a Commons statement on Defra's effort to protect the
public from "what would be a devastating mutation into a
virus contagious between humans".

But Defra insisted that it had been legal to import the meat
as it originated from outside the "restriction zone" around
the Hungarian infection. David Miliband, the Environment
Secretary, said that blocking imports from a wider area
would have been a breach of EU rules and could have
invited a devastating continent-wide retaliation against the
UK poultry industry.

Meanwhile, the Government hinted that Bernard Matthews
could be prosecuted over the bird flu outbreak as fears
grew that infected turkey could have entered the human
food chain. Ministers said it was now clear there had
been a "biosecurity lapse" at the Suffolk plant.

Investigators are focusing on the import of turkey meat
by the company from a slaughterhouse 30 miles from the
source of the Hungarian outbreak of avian flu. One
possibility is that the meat became cross-contaminated
in the slaughterhouse with the virus and brought small
doses of it into the UK. It could then have been
transferred at Holton into sheds housing live birds.

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/article2261556.ece


From: Jim Webster on 14 Feb 2007 10:58

"pearl" <tea(a)signguestbook.ie> wrote in message
news:eqv5sg$an7$1(a)reader01.news.esat.net...
> The Independent Online Edition
> 14 February 2007 14:11
>

funnily enough the rest of us can read newspapers as well pearl


From: Dave J. on 18 Feb 2007 06:32
In MsgID<53gpt3F1slqr7U1(a)mid.individual.net> on Wed, 14 Feb 2007 15:58:19
-0000, in uk.current-events.bird-flu, 'Jim Webster' wrote:

[...]

>funnily enough the rest of us can read newspapers as well pearl


The CPs you can object to, but many of the groups I lurk/participate in
have a convention of relevant articles being mirrored. I find, on days
where I don't have enough spare time to browse search and read, that such
groups make handy 'one stop shops' for recent updates.

I certainly find excessive CPing annoying. As someone else pointed out
here (see attribution) bird flu will affect listeners to radio4 but no one
thinks it necessary to CP to uk.media.radio.bbc-r4.

Many people have anti-troll filters which will automatically bin (unread)
all messages crossposted to silly numbers of groups so it's actively
counterproductive when it comes to audience size. It also sometimes smells
of a desire to cause inter-group strife at a time when pettiness like that
is *least* called for.

FU set to uk.CE.bird-flu



As an attempt to drag this topicward, does anyone have any bookmarked
analyses of the logistics (both economical and physical) of feeding people
under various foodschemes + methodologies? By that I mean battery farmed,
vegetarian, reduced meat, vegan, particular staples etc.

The imminent HN51 disaster looks to me like a strident wake-up-call..
Thorough prosecution of the Matthews' firm might be a handy way to start.

--
Dave J.

Expect slow response right now. Recent family tragedy is my primary focus.
--
Support a referendum on UK ID cards before they are
inflicted at stupendous cost for negligible reward.
http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/IDreferendum/
From: pearl on 18 Feb 2007 09:12
"Dave J." <requiem(a)freeuk.com> wrote in message news:er9df8$u6h$1(a)news.datemas.de...
> In MsgID<53gpt3F1slqr7U1(a)mid.individual.net> on Wed, 14 Feb 2007 15:58:19
> -0000, in uk.current-events.bird-flu, 'Jim Webster' wrote:
>
> [...]
>
> >funnily enough the rest of us can read newspapers as well pearl
>
>
> The CPs you can object to, but many of the groups I lurk/participate in
> have a convention of relevant articles being mirrored. I find, on days
> where I don't have enough spare time to browse search and read, that such
> groups make handy 'one stop shops' for recent updates.
>
> I certainly find excessive CPing annoying. As someone else pointed out
> here (see attribution) bird flu will affect listeners to radio4 but no one
> thinks it necessary to CP to uk.media.radio.bbc-r4.
>
> Many people have anti-troll filters which will automatically bin (unread)
> all messages crossposted to silly numbers of groups so it's actively
> counterproductive when it comes to audience size. It also sometimes smells
> of a desire to cause inter-group strife at a time when pettiness like that
> is *least* called for.

No inter-group strife intended. Topic concerns all groups in CP.

> FU set to uk.CE.bird-flu

Jim is posting from uk.business.agriculture. Crosspost restored.

> As an attempt to drag this topicward, does anyone have any bookmarked
> analyses of the logistics (both economical and physical) of feeding people
> under various foodschemes + methodologies? By that I mean battery farmed,
> vegetarian, reduced meat, vegan, particular staples etc.

'October 2006
...
More than 852 million people -- about 13 percent of the world
population -- do not have enough food each day to sustain a
healthy life, according to the Rome-based Food and Agriculture
Organisation (FAO).

Of this, about 815 million people live in developing countries,
28 million in "transition" countries of the former Eastern Europe
and ex-Soviet republics, and about nine million in the industrialised
world.

"It is a shame on humanity that in a world that is richer than ever
before, six million children due of malnutrition and related illnesses
before they reach the age of five," Ziegler said.

The study, which goes before the current 61st session of the
General Assembly, points out that the majority of the hungry
live in Asia and Africa, while about 80 percent live in rural areas
and depend on agriculture and pastoralism to survive.

"They are hungry because they do not have enough work, or
access to productive resources like land and water sufficient to
feed their families," it says.
....'
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=35166

'Livestock now use 30 percent of the earth's entire land surface,
mostly permanent pasture but also including 33 percent of the
global arable land used to producing feed for livestock, the report
notes. As forests are cleared to create new pastures, it is a major
driver of deforestation, especially in Latin America where, for
example, some 70 percent of former forests in the Amazon have
been turned over to grazing.
.....'
http://www.fao.org/newsroom/en/news/2006/1000448/index.html

'As stocks run out and harvests fail, the world faces its worst crisis
for 30 years

By Geoffrey Lean
Published: 03 September 2006

Food supplies are shrinking alarmingly around the globe, plunging
the world into its greatest crisis for more than 30 years. New figures
show that this year's harvest will fail to produce enough to feed
everyone on Earth, for the sixth time in the past seven years.
Humanity has so far managed by eating its way through stockpiles
built up in better times - but these have now fallen below the danger
level.
....'
http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article1325467.ece

From Technological Trajectories and the Human Environment.
1997. Pp. 56-73. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.
"How Much Land Can Ten Billion People Spare for Nature?"..

'By eating different species of crops and a more or less vegetarian
diet people can change the number that a plot can feed. And large
numbers of people do change their diets. The calories and protein
available from present cropland could provide a vegetarian diet to
ten billion people. A diet requiring food and feed totaling 6,000
calories daily for ten billion people, however, would overwhelm
the capability of present agriculture on present cropland. The
global totals of sun, CO2, fertilizer, and even water could produce
far more food than what ten billion people need.
...'
http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=4767&page=56

> The imminent HN51 disaster looks to me like a strident wake-up-call..
> Thorough prosecution of the Matthews' firm might be a handy way to start.

'Bernard Matthews turkey factory squalor
by SEAN POULTER -
Last updated at 12:12pm on 17th February 2007

The factory farm at the centre of the bird flu alert was a haven
for scavenging birds and rats, while the turkey sheds were filthy
with dilapidated roofs.

The damning picture emerged from an official inquiry into the
outbreak on a Suffolk farm at the heart of the Bernard Matthews
turkey meat empire.

Now the company faces prosecution and fines for a series of
shocking failures that appear to have allowed the bird flu virus
to spread and thrive.

The interim report into the outbreak of the deadly H5N1 virus
shines a light on the horrifying reality of factory farming in Britain.

The company ignored repeated warnings that meat trimmings
from a processing plant on the site were being left in open waste
bins where they were picked over and eaten by hordes of gulls.

It is believed the gulls carried the virus from infected meat in these
bins to their roosts on top of the turkey sheds.

Holes in the roof of the sheds allowed the virus to be washed in -
falling on to the turkeys - whenever it rained.

Government experts believe the bug was brought to the UK in
a consignment of infected turkey meat imported from a Bernard
Matthews subsidiary in Hungary.
....
It is understood the MHS warned Bernard Matthews on several
occasions about leaving the processing plant waste bins open.
Now the organisation is investigating prosecuting the company
under the Animal By-Product Regulations 2003 for failing to do
so. Such a prosecution would be likely to involve a substantial
fine, but the maximum penalty is two years in jail.

The most likely source of the infection is believed to be an
abattoir run by Gallfoods at Keczemet in south-east Hungary.
This is some 30 miles from a goose farm where there was an
outbreak of bird flu in January.

The report found that Gallfoods sent 11 shipments of turkey to
Bernard Matthews in January, totalling 82,400 kilos.

There were another 14 shipments from Saga Foods, a Hungarian
subsidiary of Bernard Matthews, involving another 174,000 kilos.
Government officials admit there is a chance that infected meat
went into supermarkets in January and early February.
...'
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=436648&in_page_id=1770&ct=5



From: Jim Webster on 18 Feb 2007 10:01

"pearl" <tea(a)signguestbook.ie> wrote in message
news:er9ms2$huf$1(a)reader01.news.esat.net...
> "Dave J." <requiem(a)freeuk.com> wrote in message
> news:er9df8$u6h$1(a)news.datemas.de...

>
> Jim is posting from uk.business.agriculture. Crosspost restored.

wrong again as usual

when are you going to advise people not to eat this dangerous houmous muck
that is rotten with salmonella?


Jim Webster


 |  Next  |  Last
Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Prev: Bird flu spread - UK Turkey King Sent Meat To Hungary AFTER H5N1
Next: Fruitarian diet and other subjects