German fast food reacts to 'mad cow' scare

The latest "mad cow disease" scare in Germany got a boost over the weekend after reports that the McDonald's fast food restaurant chain in Germany had pulled beef from circulation, Reuters Health reports.

Matthias Baumgarten, spokesman for McDonald's Germany, told Reuters Health that the company pulled the beef after learning that the shipment had not been properly tested for bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), commonly known as mad cow disease.

The beef shipment had been tested in the state of Baden-Wurttemberg at a private laboratory, which was later found to have conducted tests improperly. Baumgarten said that McDonald's pulled the beef from its distribution system immediately upon learning it had been tested by the suspect laboratory.

None of the beef had been sold to customers. But until company officials had determined that the suspect beef was still contained safely in storage, at least a dozen of McDonald's 1,200 restaurants in Germany on Friday stopped selling Big Macs and other hamburger products for several hours.

The latest mad cow scare in Germany started in January when the German Agriculture Ministry acknowledged some 40,000 beef carcasses may have been improperly tested by an unauthorised laboratory in Bavaria. Early in February BSE testing started to turn into a scandal when news broke that a private lab in Rhineland-Palatinate was not conducting tests properly.