Read Jamie Doward's article and you'll see his statement that "Much of it is smuggled from ... China," is not backed up in the article. And I've never heard of T-bone steaks in Britain costing £40-50 each as is claimed, unless it is at the sort of joint where a Home Affairs ed might care to bump up his expenses.

Is this a warm-up for the Beijing Olympics? Or something worse? There's nothing about illegal meat from China on the DEFRA site, and despite DEFRA minister Ben Bradshaw's quote in the article citing 104 tons of illegal meat last year, DEFRA can't tell me what how much of it was imported from China, if any, and what it consisted of. Their figures are for general geographical areas only - there are no figures for China. So why has Doward focused on China?

Doward has form. In The Observer in 2005, he tried to link the Chinese to the Foot and Mouth Disease outbreak despite the apology from MAFF and no scientific proof.
He writes:

"Customs have also been plagued by tones [sic] of illegally imported canned meat entering the UK from China, a country which doesn't meet a number of hygiene requirements." (Note the use of the buzzword, "plagued.")

and ...

"Following the foot and mouth outbreak in 2001, which cost the UK £8 billion and was the result, many experts believe, of infected pork being smuggled into the UK where it found its way into the animal food chain, the government promised to get tough on the illegal meat trade."

What actually emerged at the time was the lack of any evidence that infected pork smuggled into the UK from China had started the outbreak. MAFF considered the problem to be the feeding of unprocessed swill to pigs. So what is Doward and the Observer's agenda?

The late, great Hugo Young put his foot down over the unfounded accusation when it appeared in the Guardian in 2001. What's going on at the Obs? It is of concern to see genuine public health issues hijacked and used to scapegoat a specific minority. If we are going to have this ill-informed, bigoted crap recycled every few years perhaps certain journos should take to wearing swastikas because the tone of this reminds me of how another group in the not-so-distant past was linked to filth and pestilence by malign forces.

 

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Dominique Delva - GroundHogs Posted 23:09 on 31 October 2007 I need to see a pictur eof a groundhogs food chain. I'm having a hard time finding this. Reply | Quote

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