020714 Britain to Test Chicken For Beef Additive

London - The Food Standards Agency said it will test chicken meat for beef protein powder in Britain after it was found in similar products in Ireland without being properly labeled.

"At this stage, no bovine material has been found in chicken in the UK. However, the agency will be conducting more sensitive tests to see if it is present," the agency said in a statement.

On Monday, The Guardian newspaper reported that frozen chicken sold in Britain could contain beef protein powder that was added to make the chicken meat absorb extra water so that it could be sold to consumers for greater profit.

The paper said Thai and Brazilian chicken breasts have been treated this way by processors in the Netherlands and exported to Britain for at least five years. The paper said food safety authorities have been aware of the problem since 1997, but only recently developed the DNA tests sophisticated enough to pinpoint the beef proteins.

Such imported chicken is widely used in British pubs, clubs and restaurants, and maybe even in state-run schools, The Guardian said.

Its front-page article said that such treatment of the chicken meat could theoretically subject consumers to the risk of mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy, a fatal illness that some people caught by eating beef in Britain at the height of the country's cattle epidemic in the late 1980s or early 1990s.

Mad cow disease is a brain-destroying illness that first surfaced in British cattle but later spread to cattle in much of Europe. A human form, referred to as vCJD, apparently spread by eating infected beef, has claimed more than 90 lives in Britain and parts of Europe.

In Britain and Ireland, it is legal to add such beef or pork protein to chicken products, as long as they are properly labeled. Such bovine materials should be subject to European BSE controls, the same ones that apply to all beef products sold in Britain.

"No tests have been conducted in Britain yet specifically for bovine material in chicken, and therefore it is not possible to assume that such products are available in Britain," an FSA spokesperson said in a telephone interview Monday night, speaking on condition of anonymity.

In December, the Food Standards Agency carried out tests in Britain that found traces of pork DNA in imported frozen chicken breasts.

The agency said the techniques it had used were then developed by its Irish equivalent, which said in May that traces of bovine DNA had been found in Dutch chicken in Ireland that were not properly labeled.

That led the British agency to decide to use the more sensitive tests in its planned program to further sample chicken meat in the United Kingdom.

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