Melamine is COMMONLY used in China (vanished article attached)

The article below appeared on the International Herald Tribune
and just as quickly it disappeared. It appeared on the front
page of that paper today. Did someone make IHT take it
off their website? I emailed the paper as well as the two
authors... so we'll see.

In the meantime, PLEASE SHARE THIS ARTICLE WITH YOUR
LOCAL PAPER as well as friends and family.

(link to article that as of 4:02pm on Sunday, April 29, 2007 is still now working)
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/04/29/news/food.php

Additive that tainted U.S. pet food is commonly used in China
By David Barboza and Alexei Barrionuevo
Published: April 29, 2007

ZHANGQIU, China: American food safety regulators trying to figure out how an industrial chemical called melamine contaminated so much pet food in the United States might come to this heavily polluted city in Shandong Province in the northern part of the country.

Here at the Shandong Mingshui Great Chemical Group factory, huge boiler vats are turning coal into melamine, which is used to create plastics and fertilizer.

But the leftover melamine scrap, small acorn-sized chunks of white rock, is then being sold to local entrepreneurs, who say they secretly mix a powdered form of the scrap into animal feed to artificially enhance the protein level.

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 nutrition value.

"It just saves money," says a manager at an animal feed factory here. "Melamine scrap is added to animal feed to boost the protein level."

The practice is widespread in China. For years animal feed sellers have been able to cheat buyers by blending the powder into feed with little regulatory supervision, according to interviews with melamine scrap traders and agricultural workers here.

But now, melamine is at the center of a massive, multinational pet food recall after it was linked earlier this month to the deaths and injuries of thousands of cats and dogs in the United States and South Africa.

No one knows exactly how melamine - which had not been believed to be particularly toxic - became so fatal in pet food, but its presence in any form of American food is illegal.

U.S. regulators are now headed to China to figure out why pet food ingredients imported from here, including wheat gluten, were contaminated with high levels of the chemical.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has banned imports of wheat gluten from China and ordered the recall of over 60 million packages of pet food. And last week, the agency opened a criminal investigation in the case and searched the offices of at least one pet food supplier.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture also stepped in Thursday, ordering more than 6,000 hogs to be quarantined or slaughtered after some of the pet food ingredients laced with melamine were accidentally sent to hog farms in eight states, including California.

Scientists are now trying to determine whether melamine could be harmful to human health.

The huge pet food recall is raising questions in the United States about regulatory controls at a time when food supplies are increasingly being sourced globally. Some experts complain that the FDA is understaffed and underfunded, making it incapable of safeguarding America's food supply.

"They have fewer people inspecting product at the ports than ever before," says Caroline Smith DeWaal, director of food safety for the Center for Science in the Public Interest in Washington. "Until China gets programs in place to verify the safety of their products, they need to be inspected by U.S. inspectors. This open-door policy on food ingredients is an open invitation for an attack on the food supply, either intentional or unintentional."

The pet food case is also putting China's agricultural exports under greater scrutiny because the country's dubious food safety record and history of excessive antibiotic and pesticide use.

In recent years, for instance, China's food safety scandals have involved everything from fake baby milk formulas and soy sauce made from human hair, to instances where cuttlefish were soaked in calligraphy ink to improve their color and eels were fed contraceptive pills to make them grow long and slim.

China's government disputes any suggestion that melamine from the country could have killed pets. But Friday, regulators here banned the use of melamine in vegetable proteins made for export or for use in domestic food supplies.

Yet it is clear from visiting this region of northern China is that for years melamine has been quietly mixed into Chinese animal feed and then sold to unsuspecting farmers as protein-rich pig, poultry and fish feed.

Many animal feed operators advertise on the Internet seeking to purchase melamine scrap. And melamine scrap producers and traders said in recent interviews that they often sell to animal feed makers.

"Many companies buy melamine scrap to make animal feed, such as fish feed," says Ji Denghui, general manager of the Fujian Sanming Dinghui Chemical Company. "I don't know if there's a regulation on it. Probably not. No law or regulation says 'don't do it,' so everyone's doing it. The laws in China are like that, aren't they? If there's no accident, there won't be any regulation."

Most local feed companies do not admit that they use melamine. But last Friday here in Zhangqiu, a fast-growing industrial city southeast of Beijing, a pair of animal feed producers explained in great detail how they purchase low-grade wheat, corn, soybean or other proteins and then mix in small portions of nitrogen-rich melamine, whose chemical properties give a bag of animal feed an inflated protein level under standard tests.

Melamine is the new scam of choice, they say, because urea - another nitrogen-rich chemical that works similarly - is illegal for use in pig and poultry feed and can be easily tested for in China as well as the United States.

"If you add it in small quantities, it won't hurt the animals," said one animal feed entrepreneur whose name is being withheld to protect him from prosecution. [my comment: **** YOU]

The man - who works in a small animal feed operation that consists of a handful of storage and mixing areas - said he has mixed melamine into animal feed for years.

He said he was not currently using melamine, which is actually made from urea. But he then pulled out a plastic bag containing what he said was melamine powder and said he could dye it any color.

Asked whether he could create an animal feed and melamine brew, he said yes, he has access to huge supplies of melamine. Using melamine-spiked pet food ingredient was not a problem, he said, even thought the product would be weak in protein.

"Pets are not like pigs or chickens," he said casually, explaining that cheating them on protein won't matter. "They don't need to grow fast."

The feed seller makes a heftier profit because the substitute melamine scrap is much cheaper than purchasing soy, wheat or corn protein.

"It's true you can make a lot more profit by putting melamine in," said a second animal feed seller here in Zhangqiu. "Melamine will cost you about $1.20 per ton for each protein count whereas real protein costs you about $6, so you can see the difference."

Few people outside of agriculture know about melamine here. The Chinese media, which is strictly censored, has not reported much about melamine or the pet food recall overseas. And no one in agriculture here seems to believe that melamine is particularly harmful to animals or pets in small doses.

A man named Jing, who works in the sales department at the Shandong Mingshui Great Chemical Group, said Friday that melamine scrap prices had been rising but he was not aware of how the company's product was being used.

"We have an auction for melamine scrap every three months," he said. "I haven't heard of it being added to animal feed. It's not for animal feed."

David Barboza reported from Zhangqiu and Alexei Barrionuevo reported from Chicago. Rujun Shen also contributed reporting.

More Recalls

I was supposed to log on an discuss the democratic debate
but was hit with not one, not two, but three recalls in my inbox.

I'm just drained.

I was angry before this recall ever became personal. In fact,
I might have been a little smug about the fact that I was ahead
of the game and didn't feed "those" kinds of foods. But on
4/16/07 the recall concerning Natural Balance become personal.
Luckily none of the cats and dogs show sign of damage (Bix
even had bloodwork recently and came out with just an
elevated glucose reading which might have been due to stress
at vet (i'm trying to figure out a way to collect his urine to get
tested and rule out diabetes).

My co-workers dog, Ginger, wasn't so lucky. After I
recommended Natural Balance to her (and my brother and
many other people). This was right after the Nutro/Menu recall
in March and she bought a bag of the Venison & Brown Rice
and fed it to her yorkie. After the 2nd or 3rd day her dog had
bloody stools, was lethargic and vomitting. She though it might
be a delayed reaction to the bad Nutro. After 2 days on fluids
at the vets she was diagnosed with chronic kidney failure.
An otherwise healthy, middle-aged dog with no health issues
(just had a full blood count done a few months ago and was
fine) turns up violently ill overnight. Hmmm..

My co-worker took her now stable dog home and continued
to feed her the Natural Balance because at that point it wasn't
on any recall lists - in fact, it's sales were booming as a direct
result of the Menu recall and the demand for premium pet food.
Ginger's kidneys spiked again and then stabilized again only
after she was fed a prescription kidney formula. It had to be
the Natural Balance all along! Today they recalled more food
- this time flavors and formulas that I have been feeding the
cats and dogs. They say it is only precautionary and they
haven't received complaints. They are not to be believed.
They are liars. They are playing the victim ("the rice protein
concentrate was put in without our knowledge")!!! What
happened to the statement they made (in large, red letters)
on their website, that they use "their own employees to
oversee and manufacture their food and that it is tested
BEFORE, DURING and AFTER production" !!! What happened
to listing the suspect ingredient on their website only on the
day of the recall? I can't believe I was fooled by their
marketing back in January and fell for the pitch. That's
what is so scary about all this.. that any of the "safe"
companies can turn out not to be so tomorrow.

Anyway..

When my co-worker got through to Natural Balance (after
3 days of the busy signal and only then after I gave her
the contact info of a NB rep that had emailed me). He
told her that the bag she was feeding was not part of
the recall!!! (even though they recalled ALL lots of the food).

She called the FDA to file an official complaint. The FDA
complaints now total over 12,000. I just viewed a list of
names that are part of a lawsuit against Menu Foods and
it was just pages upon pages and you know that those are
all people that lost their pets.

I think that if continue to follow these developments I
will go mad.

I am literally on a tightrope, which is on fire... and i'm
only one step ahead of the flame.

Merrick, Fromm, Felidae and Kumpi

Sounds like a law firm, right? Those are just some of the pet food brands I have tried or will be trying since the recall.

I have started to hear some bad things about Merrick, the food that I have switched all 3 dogs and both cats to. After the Natural Balance recall I didn’t know which food to turn to. In that short amount of time I have tried:

EVANGERS wet (vitamin K and weird discolorations in the can so threw out without feeding)

FROMM dry (cats currently eating this since the NB recall and they seem to like it a lot - it just has a really kibble-meaty smell to it that I can smell on their little faces when they come in for a kiss)

FELIDAE wet (they refuse to eat it - no matter what)
FELIDAE dry (should be delivered soon so i’ll see how they like it)

LIFE’S ABUNDANCE (ordered samples and they loved everything but i’m a little turned off by the Amway approach they have and also that the cans are made by Menu)

KUMPIKAT dry (just ordered today.. so it’s between the FELIDAE and KUMPIKAT once it arrives that i’ll settle on for dry)

MERRICK wet for CATS (they have been on the wet since NB recall and they love that food)

MERRICK wet and dry for DOGS (all 3 dogs love love love this stuff.. there has to be doggie crack in there.. ha ha)

but.. the MERRICK rumors keep on - about how they supposedly use rendered animals in their food. I have also seen documents about the chicken tags found in their canned food (2006) and the BHT in the food they manufactured for GO NATURAL (2004) and about the Merrick treats recalled due to salmonella (a year or two ago).

I’m sure many of you have been going through the same situation of trying to find the SAFEST food for your pets right now and as you can see it’s a frustrating guessing game (for the most part).. Ugh..

Does anyone have anything to add about MERRICK or even the other foods mentioned?

Updating on the RECALL can be a full-time job!

For that reason I can't update with all the developments
that appear throughout the day. The best website for all
things pet food recall, human food contamination and
political issues due to the recall is still Itchmo.

What I do want to post about is my quest and frustration
of looking for the right food to feed all my pets. I would
like to start to add to this website some other thoughts
and observations that I find interesting/newsworthy but
all I can think about lately is this damn recall and how
lucky I have been to keep it one step behind us.

Melamine: It Tastes Just Like Chicken

Great summary at The Huffington Post of all the latest on the pet/human food recall.



read more | digg story

FDA: Thousands of Hogs may be contaminated

ChemNutra testimony from today's Congressional Hearing on Food Safety

My name is Steve Miller and I’m Chief Executive Officer of ChemNutra. ChemNutra is a small business, headquartered in Las Vegas, Nevada. I am here today with ChemNutra’s FDA attorney, Marc Ullman of Ullman, Shapiro and Ullman.

Until March 8th of this year, ChemNutra had never had an issue or incident with its Chinese manufacturers, all of whom provide certificates of analysis of their products, which is standard operating procedure for U.S. importers. It was on March 8 that ChemNutra first learned that wheat gluten was one of many ingredients Menu foods was investigating as suspect in cat illnesses. That was nearly three weeks, according to Senate testimony, after Menu Foods first learned of possible contamination of pet foods. On that date, March 8th, notwithstanding what we believed to be a remote risk at that time, ChemNutra quarantined and ceased all shipping, sales, and marketing of wheat gluten in our possession, from all sources. On March 16th, Menu Foods issued its first recall and in doing so, made no mention of wheat gluten. In fact, Menu Foods said at that time that it is testing some 20 ingredients, but to date, we have not heard a word about those testing results. Shortly thereafter, on March 19th, we received a request from the Food and Drug Administration for all documents relating to wheat gluten, to which we immediately and fully complied. However, it wasn’t until March 29th that ChemNutra heard for the first time that the FDA had found melamine in its wheat gluten, without quantification as to how much. Between March 29th and April 1st, I was in China and in communication with the FDA. Upon hearing of the traces of melamine, I spoke with the president of our supplier, XuZhou Anying Biologic Technology Development Co. Ltd, who said he didn’t know there was melamine in their wheat gluten or how that could have happened. He promised to look into it and, to this date,
has not provided us with additional information despite many follow-up contacts on our part.

On April 2nd, after receiving further information from the FDA, we issued a formal recall of the contaminated wheat gluten. It’s important to note that on March 8th, when ChemNutra ceased shipments of its wheat gluten, we had only four customers for that product, one of which was Menu Foods. Prior to any scheduled shipment, customers were made aware that our shipments were stopping. It has been more than a month since this dreadful issue became manifest. Over this period there have been a raft of surmises and suppositions, but few facts. At this point, the only piece of information of which we can be certain is that melamine was contained in a shipment of wheat gluten we imported through XuZhou Anying Biologic Technology Development Co. Ltd. However, we at ChemNutra strongly suspect, at this point, that XuZhou Anying Biologic Technology Development Co. Ltd may have added melamine to the wheat gluten as an “economic adulteration” designed to make inferior wheat gluten appear to have a higher protein content. They can sell it to us at the price we would pay for a higher-quality product because the melamine, our experts tell us, falsely elevates the results of a nitrogen-content test used to assess protein content. Melamine is not something that we or, anyone else, including the FDA was ever testing for in the past, though of course we are now. We have recently been told that there was a prior history of this same kind of economic adulteration related to a similar agricultural commodity about three decades ago, where this commodity was adulterated with urea, another nitrogen intensive additive, which had at the time become inexpensive enough to economically use to fool the protein testing. Subsequently, that commodity has been tested for urea.

Full minutes can be found at Itchmo's website: http://www.itchmo.com/read/food-safety-hearing-minutes_20070424

BREAKING NEWS: Pigs and Chickens Fed Recalled Pet Food in 5 states!

More than 5 states have now quarantined hogs and poultry that were fed contaminated pet food. The pet food recall has crossed over. Maybe now that it has hit the human food chain the media will start to report how big this really is .



read more | digg story

FDA another FEMA? Yeah, pretty much.

"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."

Read about how the FDA was aware of all the dangers to food here.

FDA Update on Sunday (!)

Has this pet food recall grown to such an extent that
it's impossible to report on? It's the only reason I have
for why it's not being reported (and there's enough new
developments on this topic daily that can keep the
media busy) that, or the FDA and the government
want to keep it that way. I can't think of any other
recall in U.S. history that consists of pages upon pages
of recalled items that have crossed over now from being
just a pet issue to being a danger to humans as well.
The more I think about this whole mess the more I
wonder what else we don't know. The more I wonder
if that recalled pet food was fed to just more than hogs.
The more I wonder if the deceased dogs and cats were
rendered and put back into the food chain as more pet
food.

This is so wide spread and for that reason I can't understand
why you don't hear about it unless you dig around for the
latest yourself. With recalls being issued on Fridays and
updates on Sundays it isn't something most people will
catch or hear about. The recalls are adding up daily but I
still see stores that haven't pulled the affected items off their
shelves. I still find myself telling friends that the food they
are feeding has been recalled, much to their surprise. What
about people that don't use the internet and don't understand
english? My Mom is one of those people - if I hadn't told her
she would still be feeding Max a food that was potentially
toxic to him.

The FDA needs to push the red button on this. It's not 16 pets
- it's thousands. And it's not "just the pets" - it's now in the
human food chain. As Marc Maron used to say on his morning
show, "Wake up sheeple!" Don't count on the media or the
government to protect you. The bottom line is all they care
about - not you, and definitely not Fido and Fluffy.

Lucky

My almost 4 inch comet, Lucky. I am wondering if the CORN MEAL GLUTEN and SOY PROTEIN CONCENTRATE in her fish flakes would in any way be affected by the recent pet food recall. I think I will stop using those flakes for now and stick with the ProGold premium stuff.

Gonzales' Amnesia

I recall that I don't recall.

read more digg story

Melamine Pork Roast...Yum!

Pork intended for human consumption might have been fed recalled pet food as the meat is testing positive for melamine. Maybe now there will be some outrage over these daily pet food recalls.

read more digg story

Blue Buffalo RECALL

I originally posted that yesterday at noon on Itchmo and petconnection.com
I wonder how many of the others will also be affected. If anyone knows who the supplier for Blue Buffalo is please post. The FDA is not releasing the names of the other 3 companies because they need to confirm that the shipments of RPC theyreceived were actually used. Unbelievable. They can't even do it as a precaution? How many more will need to die or get sick before they start letting us know as soon as they even have an inkling of a problem?

My first day as a blogger and...

this is what I learn..

Blogging is slowly dying, technology experts say. A RedEye review last month of 100 random Chicago-based blogs found 44 percent of these blogs had not been updated in the past month. Research firm Gartner Inc. found there are already more than 200 million ex-bloggers.

Latest round up of pet food recalls

PET PARENTS: Check the labels of your pet food. If they contain any kind of PROTEIN, GLUTEN or CONCENTRATE in the form of wheat, rice, corn, soy, fish or vegetable USE YOUR JUDGEMENT IN FEEDING THAT FOOD TO YOUR PET RIGHT NOW.

Check Itchmo for the latest on the pet food recall and sign up for the email alert system to receive breaking news.

I started to do a preliminary search of pet foods that use RICE PROTEIN CONCENTRATE (RPC). I also did searches under RICE PROTEIN and RICE GLUTEN.

This is just a precaution until we know more, i’m not sure who supplies to the companies below but i’m doing this to be safe and to make sure the food I feed doesn’t include this filler. (As of Monday I am feeding Merrick to all my pets - they were on Natural Balance since January of this year).

I have found these companies so far that have/or continue to use RPC:

NUTRO - Natural Choice & Natural Care Adult CAT food (dry) ***Nutro has issued a statement that they have not purchased the RPC from Wilbur-Ellis***

PROPAC - Lamb Meal & Rice DOG food (dry) lists RICE GLUTEN as their 4th ingredient

BLUE BUFFALO (in their top 10 ingredients for dog food they list rice protein concentrate at #7… http://tinyurl.com/2zje3k)

SENSIBLE CHOICE - RICE GLUTEN appears in a lot of their products

CASTOR & POLLUX - Natural Ultramix Canine Weight Mgmnt.

WELLNESS - WellBars - 2 of the flavors contains RPC

LIVESMART - Weight Mgmnt. Chicken and Brown Rice formula

BLUE SPA SELECT - Hairball Control Cat (dry)

HILL’S - Rx food Z/D for cats (dry) RPC IS 1st INGREDIENT!! ***Hill's has issued a statement that their RPC is not from Wilbur-Ellis***

HILL’S - Rx food K/D for dogs (wet) RPC is 5th ingredient while something called “Maize starch” (hmmm) is the first ingredient ***Hill's statement***

Also, I’m noticing a lot of other concentrates and glutens in my searches.. i.e. Soy Protein Concentrate (Fancy Feast, Nature’s Recipe), Fish Protein Concentrate (Newman’s Own), Vegetable Protein Concentrate (Advance Pet Foods) and Corn Gluten (meal) - that one is in too many to name. The reason they piqued my interest in because a lot of these companies from China that made the wheat gluten also make these items above.

I hope they release the names of all companies who receive the RICE PROTEIN CONCENTRATE because many of them, just like Natural Balance, might not even be listing it on their ingredients!! It's time for the FDA to push that red button.