Fun_People Archive
29 Mar
More on Mad Cow Disease..

Date: Fri, 29 Mar 96 21:20:17 -0800
From: Peter Langston <psl>
To: Fun_People
Subject: More on Mad Cow Disease..

[You know about the incident with the E.Coli at Jack-In-The-Box, and the Mad  
Cow disease loose in England, don't you?  Sure!  Well, it's a good thing you  
eat at McDonald's; and in the good ol' U.S. ... huh?  -psl]

Forwarded-by: Dan Tenenbaum <dante@halcyon.com>
Forwarded-by: GAVIN <ggreene@eskimo.com>
Forwarded-by: dbriars@world.std.com
From: McLibel Support Campaign, London
	McLibel Support Campaign
	c/o 5 Caledonian Road
	London N1 9DX  UK
	Tel/Fax 0171 713 1269

PRESS RELEASE
24th March, 1996

WHY McDONALD'S WAS FORCED TO BAN BRITISH BEEF

Below is the briefing issued by the McLibel Support Campaign on Fri 22nd &
Sat 23rd March.  McDonald's announced late on Saturday that it has suspended
the sale of British beef products in all its UK stores due to concerns over
BSE and CJD.

"In the first week of our trial, we challenged McDonald's UK President, Paul
Preston, in the witness box over the BSE threat.  It seems that at no time
before or since has McDonald's implemented any BSE checks on its UK beef
supply sources.  In our opinion, the company's desire for profits has been
put ahead of its much-trumpeted 'concern' for customers' health.  It's this
profits-before-people mentality which is the cause of so many modern dietary
problems and is inevitably the focus of a wide range of criticism.  The
well-documented disregard of BSE whistle-blowers has now been exposed as a
scandal - attempts to use libel laws to suppress criticism of the food
industry will also fail.  We call for the widest possible public scrutiny
and debate about modern food production systems and about diet in general,
and we believe that society should choose healthy, organic alternatives." -

Helen Steel and Dave Morris, the McLibel Defendants

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BRIEFING
22nd March, 1996


McDONALD'S & BSE - THE FACTS
as established by McDonald's own representatives and experts in the McLibel
Trial - all facts and quotes from the daily official court transcripts


STOP PRESS:
(1)  On 22nd March 1996, McDonald's in Holland banned British beef.
(2)  Statement from the Director of the UK Consumers' Association, 22nd
March 1996: "Consumers who want to avoid the risk of BSE have no choice but
to cut out beef and beef products from their diet".

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Dave Morris, McLibel Defendant, questions McDonald's UK President Paul
Preston on Day 4 of the McLibel Trial (July 1st 1994) about BSE (from the
official court transcript):

Q. If the McDonald's Corporation, certainly in this country, felt there was
any risk to the public from eating beef slaughtered in this country, or
anywhere where mad cow beef is thought to be possibly present, would they
cease selling beef?

A.  If we thought beef was a health hazard to the citizens of the world you
may rest assured we would not sell beef.  We are not going to endanger our
reputation with our customers - under any way shape or form.  We are not
going to endanger people.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

- All McDonald's beefburgers are manufactured by McKeys Ltd (approx 1
million per day).  David Walker, McKeys owner, stated that they use some
beef from approx 1 in 12 of all cattle slaughtered in the UK.

- McDonald's expert witness Dr Neville Gregory stated that the abattoirs
supplying McKeys use mainly ex-dairy cows.

- Tim Chambers, Manager from Midland Meat Packers (the largest of dozens of
abattoirs supplying McKeys for McDonald's use) stated that they use cattle
'from all over the country'.

- McDonald's did not wish to identify specific abattoirs, but did admit to
being supplied by Midland Meat Packers (at Crick, Northants), ABP Ltd
(Wellingborough),and Jarretts Ltd (Bristol).

- Defence witness, Marja Hovi, was the official veterinary surgeon at
Jarretts slaughterhouse (which supplies McDonald's) in 1994.  She was sacked
after refusing to sign export certification verifying that Jarretts beef
supplies came from herds free of BSE for at least 6 years.  She stated that
there was no supporting documentation to enable such verification.
McDonald's UK didn't even demand the certification which was needed for
Jarretts' European customers.

- OF THE 40 CHECKS WHICH McDONALD'S UK CLAIM THEIR SUPPLIERS MUST CARRY OUT,
NOT ONE RELATES TO BSE CONTAMINATION OR SPECIFIES THAT THEIR RAW MATERIAL
SUPPLIES MUST COME FROM HERDS WHICH HAVE BEEN BSE-FREE FOR A NUMBER OF
YEARS.

- McDonald's claim that their supplies are subject to checks.  However, at
the Trial, David Walker admitted that beef supplies sampled and checked, and
found to have 'unsatisfactory' levels of bacterial contamination (over 10
million per gram) were in fact not rejected, and still used for McDonald's
burgers.  Likewise, he admitted that a second check was for raw beef arrival
temperatures which would receive a 'cast iron rejection' if over 4 degrees
centigrade - but when challenged with documents showing higher temperatures
accepted, he stated "the quality control officer receiving the meat would
make a management decision which was right for the company".


FOOD POISONING

The court heard that there had been several occasions when the authorities
had taken action against McDonald's for selling raw or undercooked meat
products including an incident in November 1994 when a 3 year old girl was
served undercooked Chicken McNuggets containing salmonella.  The McNuggets
were tested by local health officials and declared unfit for human
 consumption.

The court also heard how the company now admitted responsibility for a
serious food poisoning outbreak in Preston in 1991, when several customers
were hospitalised as a result of eating undercooked burgers contaminated by
potentially deadly E.Coli 0157H bacteria.  They also admitted responsibility
for a similar outbreak in 1982 caused by the same type of bacteria, which
affected 47 people in Oregon and Michigan, USA.

NB: McDonald's have refused to call their own expert witness on food
poisoning, Colin Clarke, who prepared a detailed report following a visit he
made to three company stores.  The court heard that, regarding the cooking
of hamburgers (which he had tested), Mr Clark "recommends that 73 degrees C be
the internal minimum temperature of the final product, and that their
temperatures were not reaching that in all cases.  The minimum was, in fact,
70  degrees C."

The Corporation's confidential Operations Manual for all stores world-wide
was quoted.  It set a minimum internal temperature to be reached of 64 degrees
C for a cooked burger.  Robert Beavers said the company was "maybe 99.8%" sure
this temperature was safe.  But he believed it had been raised a degree or
two following the deaths of two customers of Jack-In-The-Box a couple of
years back, in a similar incident to the 1982 McDonald's one.  He admitted
that this recent incident had "heightened the awareness of everyone in the
industry" and agreed that the US Government "was concerned" about internal
temperatures of cooked burgers and was considering introducing regulations
'if necessary'.


McLibel Support, c/o 5 Caledonian Road, London N1 9DX, UK.
Tel/Fax 0171 713 1269

- ENDS -

Best Regards,
David Briars

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
U.S. McLibel Support Campaign                              Press Office
PO Box 62                                        Phone/Fax 802-586-9628
Craftsbury VT 05826-0062                    Email dbriars@world.std.com
http://www.mcspotlight.org/




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             ***** PEOPLE BEFORE PROFITS ******
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