An equine drug that can harm humans has been found in horse carcasses exported from Britain to France and may have entered the human food chain, a British minister said Thursday. But agriculture minister David Heath said the drug phenylbutazone, which can cause a serious blood disorder in humans in rare cases, was not found in tests on products made by Findus, the food giant embroiled in a Europe-wide horsemeat scandal.

Ministers from Britain and Ireland called Wednesday for DNA checks on processed foods as part of a rapid EU response to the horsemeat scandal widening across Europe. "We need a solution fast," said Britain's Owen Paterson, London's food and environment minister, on arriving in Brussels for crisis talks on the food scandal. "We've got to think of the consumer, the consumer is being defrauded."

The European Commission said Monday that Europe's horsemeat scandal appeared at this stage to be a labelling problem and definitely not a question of food safety. "We're not talking about a food safety issue," Commission spokesman Frederic Vincent said on being queried at a news conference on the possibility of a British ban on EU meat exports. "Nobody got sick as far as I know. It's just a labelling issue. So at this stage a ban on anything would not be appropriate."

US air safety investigators have identified how a battery fire on a Boeing 787 Dreamliner occurred last month but have not discovered the cause, the head of the NTSB said Thursday. National Transportation Safety Board chairwoman Deborah Hersman also faulted in the battery's certification process under the Federal Aviation Administration, which approved the all-new 787 for flight. Hersman said evidence pointed to a single cell on the eight-cell lithium-ion battery on a parked Japanese Airlines 787 at Boston's Logan airport.