Human Food Tainted By Pet Food

[Paul]

   From CNN, Officials order 20 million chickens held from market

      Paul

[momoffuzzyfaces]

***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.

[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

[Lady's Human]

In 60 years we've gone from "The buck stops HERE" to "The buck stops THERE"

Gotta love D.C..

[Cinder & Smoke]

Oh, Good Grief!



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/ Phred

[cyber-sibes]

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.

[Lady's Human]

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?