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>>>>Market rumor has it that a bone-in piece of veal may have been included in a sample shipment to a Japanese supplier.

http://www.hs.fi/english/article/1101820799720

Two veterinarians face charges for BSE test sample switch

Two slaughterhouse veterinarians in Pietarsaari are on trial for deliberately using the wrong samples for a BSE, or Mad Cow Disease, test. The charges are related to events at the Snellman slaughterhouse in this west coast city.

According to the indictment, the veterinarians, who worked as inspectors for the National Food Agency, had switched damaged samples from animals undergoing tests for ones that had been taken from younger animals and frozen.

It was feared that the National Veterinary and Food Research Institute of Finland (EELA) would have rejected the damaged samples. If this had happened, the carcass that the bad sample was taken from, and three others, might have been destroyed.

One of the two veterinarians admitted to having switched two damaged samples for ones that had been taken from other animals as part of training for laboratory assistants.

The practice samples were then stored in the slaughterhouse’s freezer, and some of them were used when more recent samples were not seen to be good enough.

Three witnesses were heard at the trial in Pietarsaari: an inspector veterinarian who had informed authorities about the sample-switching, a veterinary student, and the laboratory assistant who had taken samples. All three confirmed the practice of sample switching.

The laboratory assistant refused to switch samples, but went on sick leave. The inspector veterinarian reported the practice, and was sacked. The student felt that the practice was wrong, but obeyed the orders.

Finland’s only case of BSE was found on a cattle farm in Kärsämäki in December 2001. Since then all cattle over 30 months of age that are slaughtered for meat have been inspected for BSE.

Each year EELA checks 130,000 samples for signs of the feared disease.