LONDON — Two months after a horse meat scandal first gripped Europe, tests conducted by European Union countries showed on Tuesday that France had found the most beef products containing horse DNA, while Britain had detected the most traces of a painkiller banned from the human food chain.
Results from more than 7,000 tests carried out by the 27 countries in the union found horse DNA in about 5 percent of samples, while phenylbutazone, the banned drug used as an equine painkiller, was discovered in about 0.5 percent of samples.
The figures, published by the European Commission, gave the first detailed picture of the extent of the problem.
Tonio Borg, the European commissioner for health and consumer policy, said the findings showed that it was “a matter of food fraud and not of food safety.”
Continue reading the main storyBut he added in an e-mail statement: “Restoring the trust and confidence of European consumers and trading partners in our food chain following this fraudulent labeling scandal is now of vital importance for the European economy, given that the food sector is the largest single economic sector” in the European Union.
Mr. Borg said the commission would propose new regulations in the coming months. The scandal led to products worth millions of euros being withdrawn from stores. It has also highlighted the inability of producers to guarantee the ingredients in processed meat products.
Because the statistics were supplied by food safety authorities in individual nations, which sampled different numbers of beef products, there was not sufficient data to make comprehensive comparisons.
France, however, tested 353 products labeled beef, of which 47 contained horse DNA; Greece tested 288 products and found horse meat in 36; and Germany tested 878 samples and detected horse meat in 29. Britain found the highest level of the equine painkiller — in 14 of 836 samples.
About 20 percent of horse meat sold and used in Europe comes from horses imported from North America, and the Humane Society of the United States warned that testing only for phenylbutazone was inadequate to ensuring food safety.
The animal rights organization maintains a 29-page list of other drugs given to horses in the United States that either are a threat to or have not been tested for their impact on human health. The European Union, for example, bans from meat production animals treated with thyrostats, which are licensed for use in horses for respiratory infections but also to promote the growth of lean tissue.
Another example, Firocoxib, is specifically labeled, “Do not use in horses intended for human consumption.” Veterinarians in the United States recommend it to treat or prevent inflammation in horses.
“The European Union has failed to seek tests for a whole host of other banned veterinary drugs which are commonly administered to horses and is thereby failing the public by allowing meat from those animals to be sold in the European Union in contravention of its own food safety and consumer protection regulations,” the Humane Society said in a statement.
The program of tests was agreed to after the discovery of horse meat in frozen lasagna in February. The maker of the lasagna, Findus, said it withdrew the product after Comigel, its French supplier, raised concerns about the type of meat used. Meatballs sold by Ikea were also withdrawn.
Over all, the European Commission said 7,259 tests were conducted. In all, 193 tests, or 4.66 percent, revealed traces of horse DNA, and 16 showed positive traces of the painkiller, equivalent to 0.51 percent of the samples, the commission said.
The findings increased pressure for tighter regulation of the food industry. Though rules require fresh beef to be labeled with its origin, these do not apply to processed products.
“We urgently need to put E.U. rules in place on ‘country of origin’ labeling for meat in processed foods,” said Glenis Willmott, the food and health spokeswoman for the British Labour Party in the European Parliament.
“It’s only this kind of regulation which will force manufacturers to get a grip on their supply chain,” she said, adding that it was “shocking to see how widespread the horse meat scandal is.”
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