GAINESVILLE, FL -- Tainted pork from genetically altered pigs stolen from the University of Florida showed up in sausage served at a funeral in High Springs, university police said.
For months, university officials said they had recovered and incinerated all of the meat from the experimental pigs stolen in January.
But police said the meat from the pigs, which had been genetically altered and injected with enough barbiturates and chemicals to kill a 500-pound pig, was ground up and made into sausage by a butcher in High Springs, finally making its way to a funeral service there.
Kenny Atkins was fired from his position as an animal technician there after admitting to stealing three of six dead pigs that were to be incinerated.
Atkins gave two of the pigs to Norman Blake of Alachua and sold one for $65 to Joe Darling of High Springs. Dave Washington, the butcher who dressed Blake's pigs, told university police he made sausage from the meat, kept some and brought some to a funeral dinner. He said he and his brother sampled the sausage but threw it away because "it didn't taste right."
The stolen pigs were genetically engineered to develop a disorder similar to diabetic blindness in humans. University officials do not know what effect, if any, the treated meat could have on people who eat it.
The pig incident is one in a series of missteps at the university's Animal Resources department which oversees the treatment of biomedical research animals.
Last June, the director of Animal Resources, Jerry Davis, was fired after the unit was put on probation in the wake of an annual inspection that found problems with routine care of research animals and the oversight of the program.
Federal regulators are currently investigating complaints about the facility's animal care procedures.
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