Tainted Pet Food Went To Hog Farms

[edward]

Better hold the bacon on that BLT.

WASHINGTON – Pet food tainted with the chemical melamine was found in feed rations on a California hog farm and may show up on other U.S. farms, state and federal officials said Friday.

http://www.thestar.com/article/205623

On another side of the situation the FDA is wondering if the Chinese companies involved may have added the melamine intentionally. Apparently it makes protein content appear higher. it has also shown up in rice protein additives.

http://news.aol.com/topnews/articles/_a/pet-food-may-have-been-intentionally/20070412155809990001

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Also, there appears to be no reasonble explanation for how the melamine might have gotten into the gluten accidentally. I did hear something about the possibility that melamine was thought to quickly convert to protein once in the body, and that this may be what the manufacturer expected.

 

[Moonbear]

As for the feed contamination at the hog farm, I actually heard this news a while ago (last week perhaps). The most recent I had read on it this week was that all of the meat potentially tainted was recalled and testing to determine if the melamine actually got into the meat was being done (I don't know what happens to it once in the body, and what organs it might accumulate in, if any).

As for the not-necessarily-accidental contamination angle, it's not that it converts to protein, but that it can give a false positive on tests of protein content to make it appear there is more protein in the gluten than there really is. In other words, it's a way to cheat and make a low protein, poor quality product appear as though it is a better quality, higher protein product. At least, that's the version I've heard in the news.

The other possibility fell somewhere between accidental and intentional, and more in the area of negligence in trying to cut costs by reusing bags to package the gluten that had previously contained melamine (similar to the bag found containing the rice protein that has also been a source of additional recalls...the bag was marked melamine and a different color from all the others in that shipment, which got that entire shipment quarantined and tested by the shipper/distributor, and led to further testing of rice protein already distributed to pet food manufacturers).

I'm still wondering if any of this wound up in the human food supply? Wheat gluten is commonly added to baked goods to add elasticity to the dough (such as in bread baking). I don't know what else rice protein would be used for outside of animal feed manufacture, but I could imagine it might be added to something like vegetarian or vegan products in place of meat products to balance proteins. And until the results are back from the meat from those hogs, we don't know if there is potential for contamination from products from livestock fed contaminated feeds if that turns out to be more widespread.

Some pet food manufacturers are responding with statements that they either have never obtained any ingredients from China or that they have ceased obtaining ingredients from China, in order to ensure confidence in their products considering this is not an isolated incident with only one ingredient from one supplier.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

it's not that it converts to protein, but that it can give a false positive on tests of protein content to make it appear there is more protein in the gluten than there really is.

I realize that, but apparently some people either think or thought that it might readily convert to a usable protein. Whether or not this makes any sense is beyond the scope of this author. Nor was it known if this motivated the actions of the manufacturer, but it was suggested as a possible explanation.

 

[Moonbear]

I realize that, but apparently some people either think or thought that it might readily convert to a usable protein. Whether or not this makes any sense is beyond the scope of this author.

Okay...I hadn't heard that angle and thought you may have been confused on the point yourself. :uhh: So, that theory is that they still intentionally "spiked" the gluten with melamine, but for the wrong reasons (thinking they were cheating at increasing protein, not cheating at increasing apparent protein).

 

[Ivan Seeking]

That was the suggestion. It was made during a discussion with "experts" on CNN.

 

[edward]

I realize that, but apparently some people either think or thought that it might readily convert to a usable protein. Whether or not this makes any sense is beyond the scope of this author.

Beyond my scope too Ivan. I just read that South Africa is having a similar problem with corn gluten from China.

I also read a rather speculative article on another forum that said China has been experimenting with GM crops. The idea being to create a higher protein grain crop. According to the writer the crops contained melamine and were banned from sale in China.

A more realistic scenario is that melamine is cheap, about 60 cents per pound. The Chinese companies can purchase grain from the USA, add the melamine and sell the high protein gluten back to us.

Regardless the melamine has been found in corn gluten , wheat gluten , and rice protein concentrate, which all ended up in animal foods.

 

[Moonbear]

Regardless the melamine has been found in corn gluten , wheat gluten , and rice protein concentrate, which all ended up in animal foods.

When it's multiple products, multiple crops, multiple suppliers, multiple importers (even different countries receiving the products) all destined for food products (doesn't matter to me if it's human or animal, both are supposed to meet the same food safety requirements...people have been known to eat pet foods before) especially when it continued AFTER the first case of contamination was identified, and last I heard, China STILL hadn't provided the official letters of invitation to allow FDA inspectors to see the plant conditions for themselves, I think it's time to stop all imports of food products from China. We have to be able to trust imports as much as we can trust our own food supply, and it must be as open to inspection as our own plants. Until they clean up the food supply and have a completely open-door policy for inspections, why should we or anyone else trust them and allow any food products to be imported? Other countries have prohited US imports of food based on mere suspicion (i.e., mad cow disease) without any evidence of actual contaminated food ever being sent there, so when there are multiple incidences of contamination identified, then that seems good grounds to refuse their exports. I think any country would be wise to follow suit; this isn't just the US that has been affected, it has been Canada and South Africa as well (at least as far as we know). That's not a minor, isolated incident or something that we can expect to be quickly remedied. We're not talking defective electronic components in stereos that cost money but not lives, we're talking food supply.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I have a buddy who has been warning about the dangers of wheat gluten for some time now. The claim is that all sorts of problems can be traced back to this, and gluten is now being dumped into our food in large quantities as filler or whatnot.

For the record, he was also warning about the dangers of prions long before it became an issue.

 

[edward]

If we die from this stuff will we be buried in a Pet Sematary?

CBS News has learned that the tainted wheat gluten used in pet food was human grade — meaning nothing but luck kept it from being used in the food people eat, too.

 

[edward]

I have a buddy who has been warning about the dangers of wheat gluten for some time now. The claim is that all sorts of problems can be traced back to this, and gluten is now being dumped into our food in large quantities as filler or whatnot.

For the record, he was also warning about the dangers of prions long before it became an issue.

Yipes, speaking of prions the link below presents a theory on mad cow disease. it suggests cattle food in England may have contined contaminated human remains.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4201072.stm

 

[Moonbear]

Some recent articles have revisited the idea of viruses being responsible for tranmissible spongiform encephalopathies (like Mad Cow).

http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/abstract/112784723/ABSTRACT?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0
Manuelidis, L. 2007 A 25 nm virion is the likely cause of transmissible spongiform encephalopathies Journal of Cellular Biochemistry 100: 897 - 915

http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/104/6/1965
Manuelidis L, Yu Z-X, Barquero N, and Mullins B. 2007 Cells infected with scrapie and Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease agents produce intracellular 25-nm virus-like particles. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 104: 1965-1970.

And if you have access to Nature, this complete news story on the controversy is worth a read:

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v445/n7128/index.html
Nature 445, 575 (8 February 2007) | doi:10.1038/445575a; Published online 7 February 2007
Virus paper reignites prion spat
Heidi Ledford

Abstract
Neuroscientist challenges conventional wisdom on brain disease.

Mention the name Laura Manuelidis to a prion researcher, and you will almost certainly get a strong reaction. For years the Yale University neuropathologist has ruffled feathers by arguing that a virus causes neurological conditions such as Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease in humans and scrapie in animals, rather than an infectious protein, or 'prion', as most researchers believe.

That argument is decades old, and the prion hypothesis has been steadily winning converts. But the publication of a paper from Manuelidis in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences last week served as a reminder that the debate is not over1. The paper, which shows pictures of virus-like particles in infected cells in culture, hardly overturns the prion hypothesis, but it does show how hard it can be to pin down the source of a disease.

There was a time when the tables were reversed. Stanley Prusiner from the University of California, San Francisco, fought for years to win acceptance for his idea that a misshapen protein was the cause. When he got a Nobel prize in 1997, the fight for public opinion was won but scientific skirmishes continued.

There's good evidence for both sides of the argument, so it's really not resolved yet.

 

[edward]

It appears that all imported gluten is considered to be food grade.

About 70 percent of the wheat gluten used in the United States for human and pet food is imported from the European Union and from Asia. Because wheat is the primary source of starch in those countries, food manufacturers there are able to extract it more easily and cost-effectively. By contrast, corn is the primary source of starch in the United States, where we can make it in this country at lower prices than overseas. The U.S. market doesn’t produce enough wheat gluten to meet the demands of the food industry

http://www.petfoodinstitute.org/wheatgluten_melamine_info.htm

I had no idea that of all the gluten used in this country for both human and pet food, 70% is imported.

Were our pets the proverbial canary in the coal mine?

 

[Moonbear]

It gets worse. Turns out they DIDN'T find all the hogs before meat went to market, and the source was not direct from the wheat gluten distributor, but from the recalled pet food sent to hog farms! HOW was that allowed to happen?!

WASHINGTON (AP) - Several hundred of the 6,000 hogs that may have eaten contaminated pet food are believed to have entered the food supply for humans, the government said Thursday.

No more than 345 hogs, from farms in three states, that possibly ate tainted feed are involved, according to the Agriculture Department. It appears the large majority of the hogs that may have been exposed are still on the farms where they are being raised, spokeswoman Nicol Andrews said.

Salvaged pet food from companies known or suspected of using tainted ingredients was shipped to hog farms in seven states for use as feed. A poultry feed mill in an eighth state, Missouri, also received possibly contaminated pet food scraps left over from production. The fate of the feed made from that waste was not immediately known.

http://apnews.excite.com/article/20070426/D8OOGLSG0.html

 

[GeorginaS]

They sold and shipped the tainted pet food to pig farms for pig feed? That's beyond comprehension.

 

[Moonbear]

They sold and shipped the tainted pet food to pig farms for pig feed? That's beyond comprehension.

That's what it sounds like happened. I still can't fathom how anyone thought that was a good idea. It should have been destroyed. I wonder if knowingly selling it after a recall would count as criminal negligence? I also wonder if the hog farms knew it was the tainted feed they were getting? If so, they are just as guilty here. It's hard to imagine they didn't know, unless it was sent to them before the recalls were widely publicized.

 

[GeorginaS]

Which leads my mind to the question, then, is it normal practise to sell dog and cat food as pig feed?

Knowingly selling and buying the products after the recall would appear to indicate foreknowledge and therefore deliberateness to their actions.

Artificially jacking protein read-outs on pet foods isn't new to the pet food industry. What qualifies as "by products" for food for pets is beyond disgusting. There is a tiny bit of regulating of the pet food market that says the foods must meet some basic requirements, so if you read the "crude analysis" box on the label of any pet food, it will read virtually identical whether you are purchasing a low-cost garbage product or a high quality, expensive product. The industry hasn't been beyond adding parts like tumours from sick animals to the food mix because tumours are high in proteins. Animal foods are a horror.

However, back to the idea at hand, I think that might well be a very apt comment someone made back on the previous page regarding our pets possibly being the proverbial canaries in the coalmine. What a price to pay, though. Still. The pet and human food industries aren't so far removed from each other that we can rest easy that the human supply is safe.

This whole thing has me heartsick and boggled.

 

[edward]

Agriculture officials in Utah are taking this seriously.

SALT LAKE CITY About 2,500 hogs from four farms in Utah will be euthanized because they may have eaten contaminated pet food.

http://www.kpvi.com/Global/story.asp?S=6433693

The FDA should have required that the pet food be buried, instead, someone tried to make a buck off of it. In addition the FDA is spending a lot of money testing the 6000 suspect hogs.:grumpy:

Edit: Whoa

Federal officials alerted authorities in seven states Thursday that swine fed tainted pet food will not be approved to enter the human food supply.

Officials at the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration expect that approximately 6,000 hogs, now under quarantine, will be euthanized even as they announced that the likelihood of illness after eating pork from the animals is very low. The affected hogs are in California, North Carolina, South Carolina, New York, Kansas, Oklahoma and Utah.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-070426petfood,1,5582245.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed

That is going to mean a lot of big holes will be dug.

 

[Moonbear]

Can they just bury them, or do they need to incinerate them? I would be concerned that if they are contaminated with melamine, then burying them would lead to soil contamination for any future crops on that property.

In answer to G's question, a lot of things are sold as hog feed. Outdated human foods, or restaurant food scraps are commonly used. It's all reprocessed to sterilize it again. It doesn't look pretty, but the hogs don't seem to care, and as long as it provides all their nutrient requirements, it's not a big deal...except when the source is known to be contaminated, of course.

And, actually, the low cost product and the high price product will read the same in most nutrients because they ALL need to provide a balanced diet if that's what they say they are. Cost really doesn't necessarily mean it's better, though sometimes it does mean more care is taken into not just providing the nutrients, but also ensuring palatability and satiety (so the animal doesn't feel hungry and over eat even after getting all the nutrients they need for the day). Some have things like food colorings added more to please the owner's sense of taste than the pet's.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

BEIJING (AP) - Chinese feed businesses say it's routine to add the mildly toxic chemical melamine to animal feed in order to boost the product's value. [continued]

http://www.wistv.com/Global/story.asp?S=6449596&nav=menu36_3

Based on the reports coming out today, and given that even food known to be contaminated was fed to pigs, I think its likely that we have all been eating melamine for some time, and I really have to wonder now about my buddy's crusade against wheat gluten.

 

[turbo]

I saw that in today's paper, Ivan. The gluten producers in China add melamine to the gluten, so that when it's assayed, it tests higher for nitrogen content. The implication of the high nitrogen reading is that the gluten contains more protein than it actually does, resulting in a higher market price. I'm glad that my wife and I do not eat much processed food (aside from breads and crackers, which certainly contain gluten:grumpy: ), and we'll be reducing even that small amount now, since it's a virtual certainty that adulterated gluten is in our food supply, not just that of our pets.

 

[Moonbear]

The concern is that even if you generally avoid processed food, even home bakers add wheat gluten to some breads (like whole wheat which often doesn't have enough of it's own gluten), so it's not just something added to processed foods.

The latest news out is that it also wound up in chicken feed, and all the broilers fed it back in February have long since been processed, so indeed, it has wound up in the human food supply.
http://www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/NEWS/2007/NEW01621.html

At this time, the investigation indicates that approximately 30 broiler poultry farms and eight breeder poultry farms in Indiana received contaminated feed in early February and fed it to poultry within days of receiving it. All of the broilers believed to have been fed contaminated product have since been processed. The breeders that were fed the contaminated product are under voluntary hold by the flock owners.

As with exposure from hogs fed contaminated pet food and for similar reasons related to the dilution of the contamination, FDA and USDA believe the likelihood of illness after eating chicken fed the contaminated product is very low. Because there is no evidence of harm to humans associated with consumption of chicken fed the contaminated product, no recall of poultry products processed from these animals is being issued. Testing and the joint investigation continue. If any evidence surfaces to indicate there is harm to humans, the appropriate action will be taken.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I think this all speaks volumes wrt the dangers of globalization. I am all for a global economy...in the long run, but everyone has to play by the same rules or it makes no sense. We can't just farm out industry to the cheapest bidder and expect effective controls. Hopefully this particular situation won't get any worse, but then I doubt if anyone really knows what the results might be. It seems that little is actually known about melamine consumption. And ironically, there is still debate about whether or not this actually killed the dogs and cats that became ill.

Anyway, it has certainly gotten everyone's attention.

Speaking at a congressional hearing, former FDA Commissioner David Kessler said major improvements were needed from Congress, the industry and the FDA.

"The food safety system in this country is broken," Kessler told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

Kessler said the FDA needed more money for food safety efforts and should make it a higher priority.[continued]

http://money.cnn.com/2007/05/01/news/newsmakers/fda_czar.reut/

 

[Mk]

What about the dosage? The dosage of toxins needed to kill pets (how many pets died?), is less or irrelevant in some cases, to the dosage needed to harm or kill a human.

 

[edward]

It tastes like chicken

WASHINGTON - Federal officials on Friday placed a hold on 20 million chickens raised for market in several states because their feed was mixed with pet food containing an industrial chemical.

http://www.dailynews.com/news/ci_5823298

There has to be some humor in this somewhere. Perhaps they should have fed it all to the chickens first and then let the hogs eat the chickens?

If anyone starts pooping plastic cups your body may be contaminated.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

...Dr. Perry Martos and colleagues from the Agriculture and Food Laboratory at Guelph's Laboratory Services announced Friday [last week] they have discovered a dangerous reaction when melamine and cyanuric acid - the two contaminants found in the imported wheat gluten used in the pet food -- are combined. [continued]

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20070427/petfood_guelph_070427/20070427?hub=SciTech

 

[edward]

Thanks Ivan

That is the first I had heard of the cyanuric acid. I try to keep the level of the stuff low in my pool so that I can use the backwash water to irrigate my mesquite trees. If it gets over about 300ppm it tends to act like an herbicide.

It appears that the melamine and the cyanuric acid are in the gluten for the same reason. They both give an apparent increase in protein levels during standard tests. Those bastards have been spiking our food.:grumpy:

Because they consider all wheat gluten to be food grade, In addition to chasing hogs and chickens around, the FDA better be checking on what goes into our general food supply. .

Our pets may well have been the canary in the coal mine.

http://www.forbes.com/forbeslife/health/feeds/hscout/2007/04/24/hscout604007.html

 

[Ivan Seeking]

It appears that the melamine and the cyanuric acid are in the gluten for the same reason. They both give an apparent increase in protein levels during standard tests. Those bastards have been spiking our food.:grumpy:

From Forbes

...On Monday, however, China finally gave U.S. regulators permission to enter the country to investigate whether Chinese suppliers had exported contaminated pet food ingredients to the United States this year, The New York Times reported.

Previously, China had barred FDA representatives from entering the country despite evidence that the contaminant in the U.S. pet food supply came from Chinese exporters of wheat gluten and other animal feed ingredients, the Times said. [continued]

It is craziness. In the US the food industry is tightly regulated. And it has to be. Where there is food, bacteria and other bad things are soon to follow. Of course meat plants are probably the worst and are easily the most tightly regulated. But I can say that while spending more time in food processing plants than I care to remember, I was often impressed by the close attention paid to food safety. For example, I was once nearly kicked out of a Frito-Lay plant for going into a food area with rolaids in my pocket. The way that they reacted, you would think I was carrying nuclear waste. But I would bet nearly anything that any person in the US would be shocked and horrified if they walked through a food processing plant in China. There are good reasons why it cost more to manufacture in the US than elsewhere, and it ain't all wages.

 

[Astronuc]

I just heard on CNN of another contamination problem! Some glycerine from China may be contaminated with diethylene glycol. Don't know yet if it substatiated, or a rumor.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

... Panama is the most recent victim. Last year, government officials there unwittingly mixed diethylene glycol into 260,000 bottles of cold medicine — with devastating results. Families have reported 365 deaths from the poison, 100 of which have been confirmed so far. With the onset of the rainy season, investigators are racing to exhume as many potential victims as possible before bodies decompose even more.

Panama’s death toll leads directly to Chinese companies that made and exported the poison as 99.5 percent pure glycerin.[continued]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/06/world/americas/06poison.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Farmed fish given meal tainted with melamine
WASHINGTON - Farmed fish have been fed meal spiked with the same chemical that has been linked to the pet food recall, but the contamination was probably too low to harm anyone who ate the fish, federal officials said Tuesday.

...“What we discovered is these are not wheat gluten and rice protein concentrate but in fact are wheat flour contaminated by melamine,” Acheson said.[continued]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18556690/

 

[Ivan Seeking]

...Toxic syrup has figured in at least eight mass poisonings around the world in the past two decades. Researchers estimate that thousands have died. In many cases, the precise origin of the poison has never been determined. But records and interviews show that in three of the last four cases it was made in China, a major source of counterfeit drugs. [continued]

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/05/06/news/toxic.php

Also a recent story"

The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) issued recalls due to high lead for over 1 million toys in March and February 2006 alone. That’s one million children innocently playing with hazardous substances. And one child died from lead poisoning after swallowing one of these now recalled toys. It makes me wonder how much undetected lead is out there there is in children’s jewelry and other toys...

...All six of the recently recalled toys were made in China, and there are 20 times more recalls of toys made in China for choking hazards due to small parts. About 75% of U.S. toys are now made in China. [continued]

http://www.silentscourge.com/EnvironmentalBlog/Environmental%20Blog/Environmental%20Blog%20/551C256A-C110-11DA-ACA3-000A95E68474.html

And another recent story

...Testing commissioned by the center revealed that one of the Baby Connection brand vinyl bibs, which were sold exclusively at Wal-Mart stores, had a lead level of 9,700 parts per million, more than 16 times greater than the legal limit for lead in paint.

...Above all, she said, one should buy American and be suspicious of imports, especially from China. [continued]

http://www.dailyherald.com/news/cookstory.asp?id=309369&cc=c&tc=&t=

late edits

 

[turbo]

It's interesting that cheap wheat flour adulterated with cheap melamine can be marketed as expensive gluten and rice protein and they can slide right through the inspection processes "protecting" our food supply. Is a lack of oversight to blame for the holes, or can we expect that money has changed hands to prevent inspections? The former is inexcusable, and the latter is abjectly criminal.