December 17, 2013
France arrest 20 people for horsemeat use
Twenty people, including meat producers, traders and veterinarians, have been arrested across France over a food scam which allegedly saw horsemeat, which had been used in animal experiments, being sold for human consumption.
A spokesman for pharmaceutical company, Sanofi Pasteur, said it had used the horses to incubate antibodies to manufacture serums for rabies and snake bites, and the horses were not certified as fit for human consumption though they were in good health.
Butchers and traders were said to have been sold the left-over meat from some 200 horses used for vaccine experiments in laboratories run by Sanofi.
The mark-up was allegedly about 300 times what horse dealers had paid for the meat.
France's Consumer Affairs Minister, Benoit Hamon, said the operation stemmed from closer monitoring of the industry after a French meat processing firm was at the centre of a Europe-wide scandal earlier this year involving frozen meals containing horsemeat instead of beef.
Animals involved in medical testing cannot be sold off as food under French law. However, traders falsified veterinary documents so they could be used in the food chain.
