polygonum writes:
On 15/02/2013 14:35, wrote:
On Friday, February 8, 2013 12:46:45 PM UTC, Dave Liquorice wrote:
What I find rather disturbing is that no one in the whole long supply
chain, from abattoir to retail outlet, appears to have been routinely
testing that a batch of meat or product called "beef" really is 100%
beef.
PCR assays for horse could be made cheap enough for widespread surveillance,
but it's not really the right approach. If you have to figure out after the fact
what animal it came from, you really don't know enough about the suppliers.
What's the next yucky thing going to be that we then have to check all meat for?
Leo
Isn't that arse about face? We shouldn't be checking that beef isn't
horse - but that beef positively is beef! Anything else is not acceptable.
I suppose that some non-beef DNA is bound to be present. Plant DNA from
wheat/spices/whatever will also get multiplied by the PCR.
Maybe they could take just a few samples, every few months, and subject
them to rigorous analysis to identify every kind of DNA. That would be OK
for many purposes because no one will be poisoned in the intervening
months.
But also do frequent widespread checks for the presence of a wide range
of noxious substances. Iodine 131 from Chernobyl (or Japan?), growth
hormones, antibiotics fed to cattle, etc.
Those checks would likely be much simpler than a detailed DNA analysis.
--
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