Scandal of horsemeat

The scandal of horsemeat in food products labeled as beef has spread to 16 member states of the European Union. To dispel doubts about the EU's food safety standards, a one-month campaign of safety tests has been launched by the European Commission. However, European consumers' doubts will not disappear overnight despite these efforts, says an article in Workers' Daily. Excerpts:

It is not harmful to eat healthy horsemeat. What has angered European consumers is that their long-held confidence in the EU's food safety procedures has been crushed by the scandal, which has exposed loopholes in the EU's supposedly unbreakable food supply chain. It has become the most serious food safety crisis in Europe since the outbreak of mad cow disease in the United Kingdom in the 1980s.