Printable View
About 50% of US wheat production is exported.
This is an assumption, however....
Normally when a raw material (wheat) is exported, and a finished product (wheat gluten, etc) is imported, it is due to the fact that production of the final product is cheaper overseas than it is in the US.
After all of the lawsuits get settled it will be interesting to see how "cheap"Quote:
Originally Posted by Lady's Human
and what a good buy that wheat gluten was!
:( I just read on MSN that FDA is investigating Chicken Feed now & say its all tainted.. I am beginning to wonder if this was intended by someone on purpose poisioning all the foods.. :mad:
I got this in my email today, I get alerts almost daily on the recalled pet food. Its a mess that's for sure.
By Lisa Wade McCormick
ConsumerAffairs.Com
May 1, 2007
Entrepreneurs in China have -- for years -- secretly added the chemical at the heart of the nationwide pet food recall into animal feed in that country.
It’s been done to artificially inflate the protein levels in the feed. That’s the startling discovery made by reporters for The New York Times.
The Times reported that powdery scraps of melamine -- a chemical used to make plastics and fertilizers -- were secretly mixed into animal feed in China.
“The melamine powder has been dubbed ‘fake protein’ and is used to deceive those who raise animals into thinking they are buying feed that provides higher nutritional value,” The Times reported.
The newspaper also said the practice is widespread in China, which has little regulatory supervision.
Now the question is: Did the Chinese companies that supplied the wheat gluten and rice protein used in pet foods in America follow this same practice?
Did those companies intentionally spike these ingredients with melamine to dupe U.S. importers that the products had higher protein contents?
U.S. food inspectors heading to China this week will try to answer those questions when they examine the facilities that manufactured these tainted ingredients, which are linked to the illnesses and deaths of scores of pets in the Unites States, Puerto Rico, and South Africa.
The president of Menu Foods -- the first of several companies to recall pet foods -- is convinced that’s what happened.
“What this appears to be is a case of deliberate contamination of wheat gluten in order to pass off substandard products,” the company’s Paul Henderson told a U.S. House committee last week. Menu Foods recalled 60 million containers of pet in March after learning dogs and cats suffered kidney problems or died after eating the foods.
“For a seller who knows how industry testing methods work, this would allow them to cheat the buyers,” Henderson said.
The Chinese government disputes reports that melamine-tainted products from its country caused pets to die. But on Friday, that country banned the use of melamine in wheat gluten, rice protein, and other vegetable proteins exported from China or used in domestic food supplies.
Meanwhile, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) says the California company that imported tainted rice gluten from China has done business with that overseas supplier since August 2006. Wilber-Ellis, however, says it did not learn the products were tainted until this month.
Swimming Pool Chemical
FDA officials confirmed the rice protein is contaminated with melamine and a second chemical — cyanuric acid.
That second contaminant -- detected in the rice protein and wheat gluten in some pet foods -- is used to boost the protein content of foods, FDA officials said. It’s also a stabilizer in outdoor swimming pools and hot tubs.
"The combination of melamine and cyanuric acid is of concern to human and animal health," said Captain David Elder, director of the FDA's Office of Enforcement Office of Regulatory Affairs. "Melamine, at detected levels, is not a human health concern.”
Meanwhile, the FDA is tracing all the pet food and animal feed made with the rice protein Wilbur-Ellis has imported since August 2006.
More Recalls
As the investigation continues, so do the recalls. Two more pet food companies have recalled their products because they may contain adulterated rice protein imported from China.
And that tainted ingredient, the companies say, was added without their consent.
Sierra Pet Products recalled its Harmony Farms canned dog and cat foods and Health Bar biscuits.
“The manufacturer of all Harmony Farms cans and biscuits informed (us) that they had been adding rice protein concentrate to Harmony Farms canned dog and cat foods without (our) approval,” Sierra Pet Products said on its Web site.
The company added: “It appears that American Nutrition, Inc. (ANI) had been adding the unauthorized rice protein concentrate to Harmony Farms products for some time and only told (us) when the FDA was about to conclude that some of ANI’s rice protein concentrate (supplied by Wilber-Ellis) was contaminated with melamine.”
Sierra Pet Products said it has stopped doing business with ANI. The company also said none of its products have tested positive for melamine and it has not received any reports of illnesses linked to its foods.
“We intend to re-introduce our canned products and dog biscuits as soon as we can obtain a manufacturing partner who shares our values of honesty and integrity,” the company said.
Natural Balance Pet Foods also recalled more of its food after learning ANI added potentially-tainted rice protein to four of its canned products—without the company’s knowledge or consent.
Those recalled products are:
• Chicken Formula Canned Dog Food 13 oz;
• Lamb Formula Canned Dog Food 13 oz;
• Beef Formula Canned Dog Food 13 oz;
• Ocean Fish Formula Canned Cat Food 3 oz & 6 oz
Natural Balance says there are no reports of illnesses linked to these foods.
“To make sure that this does not happen in the future, we are demanding from each of our co-manufacturers daily production record of all of our formulas before they are shipped to us and written certification of NO rice protein or any deviation of our formulas,” the company wrote on its Web site.
“We have reviewed all of our other products and determined that they are free of rice protein concentrate and that all of our other product labels are accurate.”
Here is the link to the whole article:
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news0..._recall39.html
So if I'm reading that article correctly, what appears to have happened is that melamine has been added to gluten products in China for years. And it's gone unnoticed because melamine alone didn't produce sudden death (although who knows whether it has contributed to chronic kidney problems).
But someone apparently got extra greedy and decided to also add cyanuric acid as well. And the combination of melamine and cyanuric acid is lethal.
And now everyone's passing the buck like mad. But the U.S. manufacturers have no excuse for failing to test their ingredients. All they cared about was that they could buy the ingredients cheaply and turn a fat profit.
This is the response that I have received from Trader Joes.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dear Virgina,
Thank you for contacting Trader Joe's regarding products from China. We
appreciate your concern and feed back. Our buyers have strong
relationships with our vendors. Trader Joe's is committed to bringing in
great products from around the world for over forty years.We require FDA
regulated GMP (Good Manufacturing Practices) and HACCP (Hazard Analysis
and Critical Control Point) program of our vendors regardless of
country. HACCP is a systematic approach to identifying, evaluating and
controlling food safety hazards. In addition, our Quality Assurance Team
audits our vendors to monitor their facilities and practices. We believe
that quality, along with price, is essential to the value of our
products, and we go to extreme measures to make sure we are bringing you
the best of both.
Thank you,
Amy B.
Trader Joe's
Customer Relations
If Trader Joe's insists on the vendors following GMP that is a very high standard to meet.
Pet food prices will probably go up, because the FDA will probably insist on 100% inspection of all foreign origin lots of food ingredients for some time. I am willing to pay for this testing, rather than risk my cats' lives.
   From CNN, Officials order 20 million chickens held from market
      Paul
Thanks for the link Paul. I caught just the tale end of this on the news. They should hold the turkeys too, I should think.Quote:
Originally Posted by Paul
After reading the transcript of FDA-USDA Update on Adulterated Animal Feed I have lost almost all confidence in these authorities. When asked, "Is there any contaminated pork and poultry on the market right now currently today?" Dr. Kenneth Petersen, assistant administrator for field operations with the Food Safety and Inspection Service at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, said, "No." The answer was clearly yes, however, he speculated the level was very low despite a lack of testing. He said there would be no recall.
MODERATOR: Next question?
OPERATOR: Loren Edder, please state your affiliation.
REPORTER: Hi, with the Wall Street Journal, thank you. Is there any contaminated pork and poultry on the market right now currently today?
DR. ACHESON: I would ask Ken Petersen to address that please.
DR. PETERSEN: Okay, thank you. Dr. Petersen with USDA. No. When we described the other day the swine farms in the six states that were of interest and then of course the poultry farm that I just mentioned, for the poultry those 2.7 million head were chickens that had gone to slaughter. They had eaten contaminated feed on one or more days going back as far as February. But having looked at those animals and speaking to the dilution factors that Dr. Acheson mentioned, we have no reason to believe that those animals are of any risk to the public. And the same principles apply to any swine that have gone to market. The 6,000 head of swine that we mentioned last week I believe are still about the same 6,000 on farms that we were identified, and of those 6,000 it appears that perhaps 300 or so had gone to slaughter, and so the same notion of the dilution factors and given what they had been fed, would apply to those animals. So again we don't believe that those are of any risk to the public either.
REPORTER: I understand that you don't believe they are a risk to the public. I'm just wondering if you believe there's any meat that might have been contaminated by this feed on the market today.
DR. PETERSEN: No. We have no reason to believe there's any contaminated meat related to the melamine on the market today.
REPORTER: Okay. So you've ruled out a recall of any meat?
DR. PETERSEN: Yes.
-------------------------------------------
   Because Dr. Acheson avoided saying they are all sampling vegetable protein from China, or at least all shipments of wheat gluten, I think the sampling rate is embarrassingly, dangerously low.
   Dr. Michael Rogers refers to "detention without physical examination." "What this means for clarification is that these products are targeted at the border for 100 percent priority review and hold, which shifts the burden on the importer of record to demonstrate that their product is not contaminated nor adulterated."
   Without comprehensive US-conducted testing this is unacceptable. Even if the paperwork from the exporter has a golden-seal testifying it's "Now 100% Melamine Free", this "review" is meaningless.
-------------------------------------------
Perhaps, 8,500 pets killed. However, the "official data system" is out of date.
REPORTER: Okay. And this may be a question for Dr. Sundloff. Last week the FDA said it had gotten reports of nearly 2,000 dead cats and about I guess 2,000 dogs. I know they are not confirmed yet, but can you give us an update on the numbers? I think also 17,000 complaints.
DR. STEPHEN SUNDLOFF: I think we don't have any new numbers from that, so I would have to ago back and tally the numbers again. We are continuing to add the - we have more phone calls than we've actually been able to log into our system, and so right now what we are doing is, we are trying to catch up with the backlog and get all those logged in and I imagine when we have our next press conference we can update the numbers. But right now those are still the same numbers that we reported on last time.
DR. MICHAEL ROGERS: I can update or provide some context to that number as we provide it. This group last week, we stated the agency has received more than 17,000 calls from consumers that allege animal illness or death associated with pet food products. Our preliminary review of those, and we've certainly entered a subset of those into our official data system, but the preliminary reviews suggest that as many as 50 percent allege an animal death associated with those pet food products. But as part of a long-term process, the agency will be evaluating those calls and determine their direct association to the implicated product.
DR. ACHESON: I want to emphasize that Michael Rogers said "allege." This does not mean it's definitive proof as I understand that.
-------------------------------------------
      Paul
In 60 years we've gone from "The buck stops HERE" to "The buck stops THERE"
Gotta love D.C..
Oh, Good Grief!
:mad:
Our Tax Dollars at work ...
Overpaid Bureaucrats spewing out meaningless B.S. that makes no sense.
Let ME pick the chicken or pig to serve to THEM!
Then we'll see how sure they are of the insistence that "It's all safe"!
/s/ :mad: Phred
I lost my appetite.
I doubt we ever get a straight answer to this, at least not for 20 years or so till it's all declassified.
Not exactly on the precise topic, but here's one that should make you shudder when you see "Made in CHina" on a food/pharmaceutical product:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/05/...oxic-46350.php
Exactly why in hades are we importing food products from there to begin with?