[13
FEB 01]
WARWICKSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL NEWS
18,000 Drugged
Chickens Bring Fine For Owner
The
owner of a poultry farm near Coventry has been fined after allowing
dangerous antibiotics to possibly enter the human food chain through
chicken medicine.
Mohammed
Yaseen was been fined £3,000, with £3,012.50 costs, after admitting
six breaches of food safety rules at Atherstone Magistrates Court.
Animal
health officers from Warwickshire Trading Standards visited Kalyal
Poultry in Tamworth Road, Fillongley in the summer of 1999 to give
some routine advice.
They
learned that some of the birds were given feed including salinomycin
sodium, an antibiotic used to treat a parasitic disease called
Coccidiosis.
But
the officers discovered that some of Yaseen's chickens had been sent
for slaughter before the antibiotics had been given enough time to
pass through the birds systems.
The
law states that poultry must be kept free from the medicines before
they are slaughtered to make sure that there are no antibiotics still
in them.
This
is to stop antibiotics and other prescribed medicines from entering
the human food chain and weakening
the effectiveness of antibiotics prescribed to humans.
Yaseen,
aged 35, of Coventry Road, Small Heath Birmingham, pleaded guilty at
Atherstone Magistrates Court six offences under the Animal and Animal
Products (Examination for Residues and Maximum Residue Limits)
Regulations 1997, made under the Food Safety Act 1990.
The
total number of chickens involved was 18,874. Mr Yaseen did not offer
any mitigation and was fined £500 on each of the offences. His firm
has since ceased trading.
Magistrates
described the offence as “very, very, serious'”
Noel
Hunter, Director of Warwickshire Trading Standards said:
"Antibiotics
are an important weapon in the fight against disease.
"Unfortunately,
when antibiotics enter the human food chain in this way, they can
weaken the effectiveness of other antibiotics given to humans.
"This
is why we take these cases so seriously and why we felt it necessary
to bring this prosecution."
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