The Horsemeat scandal is now Europe wide with more twists than a crime novel

“So far, we have unknown meat stored at unknown temperatures and appearing everywhere and anywhere throughout Europe. Wait there’s more. It turns out equine meat may contain phenylbutazone or ‘bute’, an anti-inflammatory given to horses to treat pain and fever. It’s banned in the EU because it can cause cancer and has other lethal effects in humans. All horses, ponies and donkeys in the EU are supposed to have a horse passport which shows the medicines they have received. But the issue of these passports is fragmented in the UK and there is no national database to track them. Even though the FSA says horsemeat in the UK is fit for consumption and is tested regularly, can the same be said of Romania or Cyprus or the Netherlands? And let’s not forget the FSA failed to pick up on the horsemeat contamination at Silvercrest, a UK meat production plant that supplied, up until a few days ago, Burger King according to the Health Sciences Institute, a publication of Agora Ltd.”