USA: Melamine in food supply

[Treyfish]

ANIMAL FOOD CONTAMINATION, SWINE - USA (CALIFORNIA)
Officials say that pet food contamination may have been intentional.
Imported ingredients used in recalled pet food may have been
intentionally spiked with an industrial chemical to boost their
apparent protein content, U.S. federal officials said.

That is one theory being pursued by the Food and Drug Administration
(FDA) as it investigates how the chemical melamine contaminated at
least 2 ingredients used to make more than 100 brands of dog and cat foods.

In California, state agriculture officials placed a hog farm under
quarantine after melamine was found in pig urine there. Additional
testing was under way to determine whether the chemical was present
in the meat produced by American Hog Farm in Ceres since 3 Apr
[2007], the California State Department of Food and Agriculture said.

So far, melamine has been found in both wheat gluten and rice protein
concentrate imported from China. Media reports from South Africa
suggest a 3rd pet food ingredient, corn gluten, used in that country
also was contaminated with melamine. That tainted ingredient has not
been found in the United States, the FDA said. FDA investigators,
meanwhile, are awaiting visas that would allow them to visit the
Chinese plants where the vegetable protein ingredients were produced.

"Melamine was found in all 3 of those; it would certainly lend
credibility to the theory that it may be intentional. That will be
one of the theories we will pursue when we get into the plants in
China," Stephen Sundlof, the FDA's chief veterinarian, told reporters Thursday.

Chinese authorities have told the FDA that the wheat gluten was an
industrial product not meant for pet food, Sundlof said. Still,
melamine can skew test results to make a product appear more
protein-rich than it is, he said. That raises the possibility the
contamination was deliberate.

"What we expect to do with our inspections in China will answer some
of those questions," said Michael Rogers, director of the division of
field investigations within the FDA's office of regulatory affairs.

Wilbur-Ellis Co., the U.S. importer of the tainted rice protein, said
Thursday it was recalling all the ingredient it had distributed to 5
U.S. pet food manufacturers. The California company in turn urged its
customers to recall any products that may be on store shelves.

So far, just 2 of those companies have done so: Natural Balance Pet
Foods and Blue Buffalo Co. Natural Balance announced a limited recall
Mon [16 Apr 2007] of its Venison and Brown Rice canned and bagged dog
foods, Venison and Brown Rice dog treats and Venison and Green Pea
dry cat food. Blue Buffalo followed Thu [19 Apr 2007] by recalling
5044 bags of its Spa Select Kitten dry food. The company intercepted
most of the kitten food before it reached distribution centers,
company co-founder Billy Bishop said.

FDA officials would not release the names of the other 2
manufacturers that Wilbur-Ellis supplied, citing a continuing
investigation. The FDA and the Agriculture Department also were
investigating whether some pet food made by one of the 5 companies
supplied by Wilbur-Ellis was diverted for use as hog feed after it
was found unsuitable for pet consumption.

"We understand it did make it into some hog feed and we are following
up on that as well," Sundlof said.

The FDA could not provide updated numbers of pet deaths or injuries
due to the contaminated pet food. The agency has received more than
15 000 calls since the 1st recall was announced more than a month ago.

--
Maryann Zaremska
<Maryann.Zaremska@chw.edu>, and
Kathy Heaton
<kbheaton@swbell.net>

[Although the melamine contaminated gluten products may not have been
intended for food consumption, it has been. The product was sold as
gluten product for food consumption, a misbranding by someone.

It seems it had to be only a matter of time before the product found
its way into other animal feeds. Certainly the FDA will be testing
and there is likely to be more on the quarantined hogs. - Mod.TG]:tiphat:

http://tinyurl.com/2748j4

 

[scottmcpherson]

FDA Was Aware of Dangers To Food

FDA Was Aware of Dangers To Food

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...?referrer=email&referrer=email&referrer=email

FDA Was Aware of Dangers To Food
Outbreaks Were Not Preventable, Officials Say

By Elizabeth Williamson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, April 23, 2007; A01



The Food and Drug Administration has known for years about contamination problems at a Georgia peanut butter plant and on California spinach farms that led to disease outbreaks that killed three people, sickened hundreds, and forced one of the biggest product recalls in U.S. history, documents and interviews show.

Overwhelmed by huge growth in the number of food processors and imports, however, the agency took only limited steps to address the problems and relied on producers to police themselves, according to agency documents.

Congressional critics and consumer advocates said both episodes show that the agency is incapable of adequately protecting the safety of the food supply.

FDA officials conceded that the agency's system needs to be overhauled to meet today's demands, but contended that the agency could not have done anything to prevent either contamination episode.

Last week, the FDA notified California state health officials that hogs on a farm in the state had likely eaten feed laced with melamine, an industrial chemical blamed for the deaths of dozens of pets in recent weeks. Officials are trying to determine whether the chemical's presence in the hogs represents a threat to humans.

Pork from animals raised on the farm has been recalled. The FDA has said its inspectors probably would not have found the contaminated food before problems arose. The tainted additive caused a recall of more than 100 different brands of pet food.

The outbreaks point to a need to change the way the agency does business, said Robert E. Brackett, director of the FDA's food-safety arm, which is responsible for safeguarding 80 percent of the nation's food supply.

"We have 60,000 to 80,000 facilities that we're responsible for in any given year," Brackett said. Explosive growth in the number of processors and the amount of imported foods means that manufacturers "have to build safety into their products rather than us chasing after them," Brackett said. "We have to get out of the 1950s paradigm."

Tomorrow, a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee will hold a hearing on the unprecedented spate of recalls.

"This administration does not like regulation, this administration does not like spending money, and it has a hostility toward government. The poisonous result is that a program like the FDA is going to suffer at every turn of the road," said Rep. John D. Dingell (D-Mich.), chairman of the full House committee. Dingell is considering introducing legislation to boost the agency's accountability, regulatory authority and budget.

In the peanut butter case, an agency report shows that FDA inspectors checked into complaints about salmonella contamination in a ConAgra Foods factory in Georgia in 2005. But when company managers refused to provide documents the inspectors requested, the inspectors left and did not follow up.

A salmonella outbreak that began last August and was traced to the plant's Peter Pan and Great Value peanut butter brands sickened more than 400 people in 44 states. The likely cause, ConAgra said, was moisture from a roof leak and a malfunctioning sprinkler system that activated dormant salmonella. The plant has since been closed.

The 2005 report shows that FDA inspectors were looking into "an alleged episode of positive findings of salmonella in peanut butter in October of 2004 that was related to new equipment and that the firm didn't react to, . . . insects in some equipment, water leaking onto product, and inability to track some product."

During the inspection, the report says, ConAgra admitted it had destroyed some product in October 2004 but would not say why.

"They asked for some of our documentation and we made the request to them that they put it in writing due to concerns about proprietary information," ConAgra spokeswoman Stephanie Childs said last week. "We did not receive a written request, . . . they filed the report and that was that."

Until February of this year. That's when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention notified the FDA of a spike in salmonella cases in states near the ConAgra plant. The agencies contacted the company, which initiated a recall and shut the plant for upgrades.

Brackett said that if the FDA inspector had seen anything truly dangerous the agency would have taken further action. But, he said, the agency cannot force a disclosure, a recall or a plant closure except in extreme circumstances, such as finding a hazardous batch of product.

The problem in 2005, he added, "doesn't necessarily connect to the salmonella outbreak right now. It's not unusual to have it in raw agricultural commodities."

The FDA has known even longer about illnesses among people who ate spinach and other greens from California's Salinas Valley, the source of outbreaks over the past six months that have killed three people and sickened more than 200 in 26 states. The subsequent recall was the largest ever for leafy vegetables.

In a letter sent to California growers in late 2005, Brackett wrote, "FDA is aware of 18 outbreaks of foodborne illness since 1995 caused by [E. coli bacteria] for which fresh or fresh-cut lettuce was implicated. . . . In one additional case, fresh-cut spinach was implicated. These 19 outbreaks account for approximately 409 reported cases of illness and two deaths."

"We know that there are still problems out in those fields," Brackett said in an interview last week. "We knew there had been a problem, but we never and probably still could not pinpoint where the problem was. We could have that capability, but not at this point."

According to Caroline Smith DeWaal, who heads the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a consumer-advocacy group, "When budgets are tight . . . the food program at FDA gets hit the hardest."

In next year's budget, passed amid discovery of contamination problems in spinach, tomatoes and lettuce, Congress has voted the FDA a $10 million increase to improve food safety, DeWaal said. The Agriculture Department, which monitors meat, poultry and eggs and keeps inspectors in every processing plant, got an increase 10 times that amount to help pay for its inspection programs. The FDA visits problem food plants about once a year and the rest far less frequently, Brackett said.

William Hubbard, who retired as associate commissioner of the FDA in 2005 and founded the advocacy group Coalition for a Stronger FDA, said that when he joined the agency in the 1970s, its food safety arm claimed half its budget and personnel.

"Now it's about a quarter . . . at a time in which the problems have grown, the size of the industry has grown and imports of food have skyrocketed," Hubbard said.

 

[sharon sanders]

Contaminated Chicken - Melamine

Contaminated Chicken - Melamine

USDA: 20 mln birds on farms may have had bad feed

Fri May 4, 2007 6:18PM EDT



WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Agriculture Department said on Friday as many as 20 million chickens currently on U.S. farms in several states may have been fed contaminated feed.
A USDA official said the birds must be held until the government can complete a risk assessment to determine if they can be processed. The results could come as early as Monday.
The birds were among those believed to have been given contaminated feed with pet food containing melamine, a chemical used in plastics and fertilizer. It is uncertain how many chickens have been processed.


http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSWAT00743720070504?feedType=RSS

 

[sharon sanders]

Re: Contaminated Chicken - Melamine

Re: Contaminated Chicken - Melamine

From media briefing at USDA

".....Let me just reemphasize that our current belief is that the threat to humans from contaminated poultry or pork is extremely low, it's very unlikely that there is a human health effect here. The reason for that is several-fold, and essentially it's based on what we know of the levels of melamine that are toxic and what we know of the dilution effect of the pet food. And what I mean by the "dilution effects" are that when the contaminated wheat gluten comes into the country only a relatively small proportion of the wheat gluten is containing melamine and melamine-related compounds, so it's varied between 5 and 8 percent of the wheat gluten is melamine. Of that, wheat gluten is not an exclusive ingredient to the pet food. It's mixed with other things, so it's further diluted as it is turned into the pet food.
When it comes to feeding that pet food to hogs and poultry, only a small portion of the pet food is used as the feed for the animals. That's the third arm of this. Once it's got into the poultry and the hogs, the small portion of the meat that's out on the market -- it's certainly all the pork, it's not all the poultry, it's a very small proportion of it -- will potentially contain very low levels of melamine. But again, the melamine that's present in that meat and poultry does not form an exclusive part; poultry and pork do not form an exclusive part of the human diet. People who eat poultry and pork do not eat exclusively poultry and pork.
So what we're doing to recap, and this is a little complicated, is that there is the series of dilution steps that take the original contaminated wheat gluten in terms of the way it's used to make the pet food in the first place, in terms of the way that pet food is used to make the animal feed, and then the amount of animals that the humans ultimately consume. What that result is, is a dramatic dilution of the contamination, taking it down to the point where we really believe the likelihood of a human illness is very remote.
I want to just clarify going back to my first point to make sure you all understand what I meant about pet food being used as human food. I'm not trying to suggest that people are consuming pet food as part of a three square meals. This is simply pet food that has gone through this pathway that I've just alluded to in which it ended up in poultry and hogs and therefore wound up in the human food chain. And again I know this is complex, and that's certainly part of our challenge, and obviously if there are questions around that, please ask for clarification.
The next point I want to mention is our proactive strategy, so we covered the basic areas of the pet food, the human food split, the expanded recall, where we are on the human health impact, and so the fourth point is our proactive strategy. And there are two key elements to that. Firstly, is what we're doing in the context of imports, and the other is where we are on the domestic side.
As we discussed before, FDA working with Customs and Border Protection, has an import alert in place that is focused on protein concentrate of vegetable origin and from China. What that means is that protein concentrate of vegetable origin from China are held at the border and are only allowed to enter U.S. commerce when we are satisfied that they are safe to proceed. There are some specifics around what that "safe to proceed" means which I'm not going to go into on this opening comment. But we have experts in the room who could address that if needed.


So what that is doing is, preventing any further input of contaminated protein concentrate of vegetable origin coming into the country from China.

On the domestic front, we have now initiated our assignment. It's now operational, in which working with states and locals our investigators are going out to manufacturers in the United States who use protein concentrate as an ingredient in foods and they are doing two main things. They are raising the awareness of those manufacturers about the importance of their supply chain, making sure that they know all there is to know about where they got their ingredients from; and secondly, if they have received ingredients from China and they are still on site and have not been used, that they are tested for melamine and melamine-related compounds. As I said, that assignment has just begun; it began this week. To date we do not have any results from that. But it will continue until we have pursued the domestic side for some considerable way to ensure that anything that is currently in the United States is safe to consume....."


http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/!ut/p/_s.7_0_A/7_0_1OB?contentidonly=true&contentid=2007/05/0127.xml

 

[HenryN]

Re: Contaminated Chicken - Melamine

Re: Contaminated Chicken - Melamine

Thus far, 18 firms have recalled product, 17 Class I and 1 class II, covering over 5,300 product lines. As of April 26, 2007, FDA had received over 17,000 consumer complaints relating to this outbreak, and those complaints included reports of approximately 1950 deaths of cats and 2200 deaths of dogs

 

[Jonesie]

Re: Contaminated Chicken - Melamine

Re: Contaminated Chicken - Melamine

I wonder how long this melamine has been in the feed. I am starting to use up all the meat in my freezer now. I bought most of it a year ago. My bread flour and cornmeal is also from last fall. I don't know yet if it has additives from China.
If it's been an ongoing thing, then I may have contaminated food.


But all my cat food is safe so far.
Perdue and Tyson say their feed is O.K., so I might just buy their brand of poultry in the future.
But for now, I am just waiting to see what develops.

 

[hawkeye]

U.S. sees no need to quarantine chickens

U.S. sees no need to quarantine chickens

:banghead:


U.S. sees no need to quarantine chickens
From Reuters
May 8, 2007

WASHINGTON ? Farmers will be allowed to sell 20 million chickens being held on farms that may have received feed contaminated with the chemical melamine, suspected in a rash of pet deaths, the Agriculture Department said Monday.

The department said there was no need to quarantine livestock on farms where melamine or related compounds could not be detected in animal feed, perhaps because it made up only a small share of the feed.

A USDA spokesman said 20 million chickens were in that category.

Animals will be held on other hog and poultry farms, the USDA said, where feed tests have found melamine or where feed samples have not been submitted for tests or are unavailable. Animal risk assessments will determine whether they will be culled or used for food, the USDA said.

In the same announcement, scientists from five federal agencies, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said people faced very low risk from meat from livestock whose feed was supplemented with pet food scraps that contained melamine. The scientists will now assess the health risk to livestock.

Poultry and hog feeders in several states bought salvaged pet food for use in feed rations for their animals. In some instances, wheat gluten and rice protein concentrate used in making the pet food contained melamine.

"In several cases, feed samples have tested negative for melamine and related compounds," said the USDA. "It is assumed that because only small amounts of the contaminated feed were mixed with other rations, the melamine and related compounds were no longer detectable.

"USDA has concluded that, based on the human risk assessment and the inability to detect melamine in the feed samples, these animals no longer need to be quarantined or withheld from processing."

 

[sharon sanders]

Re: U.S. sees no need to quarantine chickens

Re: U.S. sees no need to quarantine chickens

Hawk - I did not know Reuters has the same smilies as we do. When did they start attaching them to articles?

 

[hawkeye]

Re: U.S. sees no need to quarantine chickens

Re: U.S. sees no need to quarantine chickens

I donno...pretty amazing that they match so perfectly

 

[wdcare]

Re: U.S. sees no need to quarantine chickens

Re: U.S. sees no need to quarantine chickens

CNN: Fish meant for humans fed tainted food
http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/05/08/fish.food/

POSTED: 10:12 p.m. EDT, May 8, 2007

(CNN) -- U.S. health officials said Tuesday that fish intended for human consumption were fed meal that was contaminated with the chemical melamine.

But the officials said the fish doesn't pose any significant risk to human health.

Federal authorities made the discovery as part of an ongoing investigation into the addition of the industrial chemical melamine and related compounds into pet food, said Dr. David Acheson, the Food and Drug Administration's assistant commissioner for food protection.

One of two Chinese companies already under investigation for having shipped adulterated and mislabeled wheat flour to the U.S. also shipped some of the product to Canada.

In Canada, it was used to make fish meal, Acheson told reporters in a conference call.

That meal was then shipped from Canada to companies in the United States for use in fish farms and to feed fish used to stock bodies of water, he said.

Chinese firm manager detained
The manager of one of the Chinese companies that sold the suspected tainted wheat flour has been detained for nearly two weeks outside Beijing, CNN has learned.

Tian Feng is the manager of Binzhou Futian Biology Technology Co. Ltd., which U.S. pet food distributors have identified as the company that sold them wheat flour, which was mislabeled as wheat gluten or rice protein concentrate and contained melamine and related products.

Tian's company was shut by local police on April 25, the day he was detained.

"I didn't do anything wrong," Tian said in an interview with CNN from the detention center in Binzhou in China's eastern Shandong Province...


Officials: Fish pose no 'significant' danger
Acheson, who would not divulge what states the meal was sent to, said there is no reason for alarm.
"We do not believe that there is any significant risk associated with consuming these fish," he said.

Acheson added that investigators are traveling to the companies "to determine exactly what they are doing with the fish."

The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife said Tuesday that the FDA confirmed the finding of melamine in fish feed at its Marion Forks Hatchery, and that the Canadian fish feed producer, Skretting, told the department the same lot of fish feed was sent to six other hatcheries in the state.

"Hatchery managers immediately discontinued using any remaining fish feed from the lot in question and notified the FDA," the statement said.

Skretting, based in Vancouver, British Columbia, said it was voluntarily recalling all feed related to the batch of Bio-Oregon feed in question, although it had received no complaints related to "unusual fish health issues."
...

The discovery of the contaminated imports from China was announced Tuesday after analysis of the products showed they had been mislabeled, Acheson said.

The FDA is "considering possible enforcement actions," he said.

Agency investigators are expected to return to the U.S. next week from China, he said. He would not say what they have found.

Acheson said officials suspect that the Chinese substituted wheat flour for wheat gluten and rice-protein concentrate, then attempted to make them appear to be the protein-rich substances by adulterating them.

Melamine is used to make plastics and fertilizer. It has no food value but is rich in nitrogen. In tests, that nitrogen level makes products seem higher in protein, which can lead to higher prices.

"If your measurement of protein is actually measuring nitrogen, what you've got is a wheat-based pellet that appears to have high protein because the nitrogen is high, due to the addition of melamine," Acheson said...

The investigation recently widened to include human food after it was discovered that swine and poultry were fed contaminated scraps from the pet food makers...

Tainted chickens?
Dr. Kenneth Petersen, assistant administrator for field operations of the Food Safety and Inspection Service, a part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, said 20 million chickens that were fed contaminated feed tested negative for melamine...

Tests on another 100,000 breeder birds in Indiana have not yet come back negative, and they remain on hold, he said.

Some 2.7 million birds from roughly 30 farms in Indiana have already made their way into commerce, he said.

Negative tests have not yet been received for 50,000 swine that ate the contaminated feed, and they also are being held, he said.

Copyright 2007 CNN. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Associated Press contributed to this report.