Sick cattle slaughtered for human consumption

Shocking undercover footage of extremely ill cattle being slaughtered for human consumption has emerged in Poland – one of the European Union’s largest meat exporters.

The video shows what appears to be extremely sick cows – too ill to even stand up – being dragged out of trucks with winches and ropes and smuggled into a slaughterhouse. The video, which was taken by an investigative journalist from Poland’s TVN 24 channel, has raised alarms about the standards of red meat production in the country.

The slaughtering allegedly took place at night in the central Polish region of Mazovia with the intention of being sold without thorough veterinary inspection, therefore presenting potentially serious health risks.

There has been no official explanation of possible diseases in the cattle yet, but experts have urged the Polish government to investigate the claims immediately in order to notify all other states about the potential health hazard of imported meat from Poland.

Poland is the seventh largest producer of beef in the EU, which, according to official statistics, exported more than 415 million kilograms of beef, worth more than $1.5 billion in 2017.

Turkey is one of the countries that has bought meat from Poland over the years. Turkish media claimed that Ankara had imported nearly 3,000 sick cattle from Poland between 2011 and 2012. These reports came after Polish authorities asked for assistance, in 2018, from their Turkish counterparts, as part of an investigation into ‘sick cows’ in the country.

Mad cow disease

The cattle were reportedly carrying Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathies (BSE), also known as mad cow disease.

Ahmet Eşref Fakıbaba, then Minister of Turkish Food, Agriculture, and Livestock, denied the allegations in 2018. “Within the context of the investigation, there is no analysis report that shows a sign of BSE, and so far, the meat imported from Poland, EU countries, and other countries, no diagnosis of BSE disease has been made,” Fakıbaba said.

“BSE is frequently caused by animals eating food mixed with giblets, nails, bones and other parts of dead animals, which is not fit for human consumption,” Associate Professor Doctor Bülent Şık wrote on Bianet. “Feeding this to animals can cause what is known as a Prion disease, which gradually becomes BSE,” explained Dr Şık. According to experts, BSE causes human brain tissue degeneration and the loss of basic motor skills.  

Undercover recording

According to Patryk Szczepaniak, a reporter from Superwizjer (an investigate TV programme), he started working undercover at the slaughterhouse in order to take the video. He claimed that a veterinarian in the workplace signed off the health certifications of the meat without even inspecting it. This beef was to be sent to consumers within and out of the country, the Polish journalist alleged.

Szczepaniak stated that employees had to try to remove evidence of illness, such as sores, from the carcasses by scrubbing the various areas. “I was ordered by my supervisors to mark the meat as healthy, and basically to make it prettier. It was horrible, believe me. The smell of rotting meat just makes you puke. I had to make it prettier by scrubbing it with my knife.”

The police have initiated an investigation over the claims, local media reported.

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from IPA NEWS https://ipa.news/2019/01/29/sick-cattle-slaughtered-for-human-consumption/