Foot and Mouth Outbreak started by Chinese Smuggled Meat

29th March 2001
Jack Tan

On 27 March 01, Nigel Rosser from the Daily Mail reported that the foot and mouth outbreak started because of pigswill containing contaminated meat smuggled from Asia by a Chinese restaurant. Dimsum spoke to MAFF on 28 March 01, and asked if the claim was true. The press officer confirmed that there was a connection and that criminal investigations were being carried out by Northumberland County Council on the use of "unprocessed catering waste as feed".

When asked what evidence there was to connect the pigswill with the Chinese Restaurant, the press officer did not wish to comment for fear of prejudicing the result of the ongoing investigation. She stressed that MAFF was not singling out the Chinese restaurant and that all potential sources of contamination were being investigated.

Dimsum subsequently took this to Nigel Rosser and asked him why he had not mentioned the other sources of contamination in his article, instead singling out the Chinese restaurant. His response was that in the press briefing regarding the Northumberland investigation, it was MAFF officials that had informed the media about the Chinese connection. As far as he knew, no other potential sources were named.

It seems clear for the moment that no matter what the real circumstances of the investigation turn out to be, MAFF has not handled the dissemination of information fairly or competently. By singling out the Chinese restaurant to the media and alluding the unproven smuggling, MAFF surely has already undermined its own strictures of not wanting to prejudice the ongoing investigations.

More seriously, this episode demonstrates how careless government bodies can be about racially sensitive issues when it comes to the Chinese community. If any regard was given to the impact such information might have on the Chinese catering industry, the racial abuse that isolated Chinese establishments already suffer, and the public perception of the Chinese as a whole, this regard was obviously discounted.