Melamine: It’s what’s for dinner … for every animal
By Gina Spadafori
October 20, 2008
Yesterday’s trip to the farmers market for local produce has never seemed more important than when reading the Monday news stories. Like this little gem, about 1,500 raccoon dogs — which are not dogs, actually — in China, being raised for fur, killed my melamine-tainted feed. (hat tip to Carol). From the AP:
BEIJING (AP) — Some 1,500 dogs bred for their raccoon-like fur have died after eating feed tainted with the same chemical that contaminated dairy products and sickened tens of thousands of babies nationwide, a veterinarian said Monday.
The raccoon dogs — a breed native to east Asia whose fur is used to make trim on coats and other clothing — were fed a product that contained the chemical melamine and developed kidney stones, said Zhang Wenkui, a veterinary professor at Shenyang Agriculture University. All of the dogs died on farms in just one village.
Zhang determined that the animals died of kidney failure after performing a necropsy — an animal autopsy — on about a dozen dogs. He declined to say when the deaths occurred but a report Monday in the Southern Metropolis Daily newspaper said they had occurred over the past two months.
You can imagine what horrific conditions these animals were living under, as well. (Not that we should criticize for that, what with our puppy-mills matching cruelty cage for cage.)
We can only hope that whoever the next president is, he cares enough about food safety to sweep the FDA clean and put in people who will safeguard the food supply. Is there anyone left who can honestly say they think this crap isn’t in every kind of processed food?
Highly recommended from last week’s NYT magazine, the open letter to the next POTUS from Michael Pollan:
Rich or poor, countries struggling with soaring food prices are being forcibly reminded that food is a national-security issue. When a nation loses the ability to substantially feed itself, it is not only at the mercy of global commodity markets but of other governments as well. At issue is not only the availability of food, which may be held hostage by a hostile state, but its safety: as recent scandals in China demonstrate, we have little control over the safety of imported foods. The deliberate contamination of our food presents another national-security threat. At his valedictory press conference in 2004, Tommy Thompson, the secretary of health and human services, offered a chilling warning, saying, “I, for the life of me, cannot understand why the terrorists have not attacked our food supply, because it is so easy to do.”
I think some people would more than argue our food system has already been attacked … by greed.
Gina — “raccoon dogs” are not dogs!
Not even the same genus: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raccoon_Dog
I’m disgusted that the AP missed this, but perplexed that you did.
I’m no fan of fur as fashion statement, and will not wear it.
But much of the general hub-bub about Chinese “raccoon dog fur” has been engineered by PeTA and HSUS to obscure the reality and get western pet-lovers riled up based on a lie.
Comment by H. Houlahan — October 20, 2008 @ 8:23 am
If nothing else, the melamine debacle provided an excellent demonstration of how easy it is to contaminate a very large percentage of our food supply to anyone who was interested.
Comment by Janeen — October 20, 2008 @ 9:13 am
Please, please tell me that USA forbids import of dog-trimmed articles.
Comment by debra — October 20, 2008 @ 9:51 am
Heather … of course you’re right, but I didn’t draw the distinction because it wasn’t really relevant. Would have been the same if it were minks.
The point is, this crap has been added to EVERYTHING, from animal feeds to infant formula.
Or at least, to me that’s the point.
Comment by Gina Spadafori — October 20, 2008 @ 10:34 am
God, off to Ukiah Natural foods for groceries, no farmers market for a few days… three kids, two adults six dogs and two cats, it adds up!
“You can imagine what horrific conditions these animals were living under, as well. (Not that we should criticize for that, what with our puppy-mills matching cruelty cage for cage.)”
Great article but I’m gonna pick a bone with you on this one.
I mean c’mon Gina, our puppy mills can blow ‘em outta the water for cage for cage cruelty!
Raccoon dogs are not domestic dogs, they are a wild canid NYCTEREUCTES PROCYONOIDES so even if they are multiple generations bred in captivity they are still going to be much more touchy and prone to stress than domestic dogs. And Stress means bad health and bad coats which will hurt your profit margins.
And stressed wild animals reabsorb, savage or won’t nurse their young in many cases. Even if they are being selected for tolerance of their situation, I’ll bet they won’t put up with the kind of conditions puppy mill breeder dogs do.
Not saying that they have any quality of life and I am sure-as-hell not defending the industry, the way I would oh, say, titty bars. :-)
But I suspect the short miserable lives of the fur farm raised raccoon dog probably beats the short or sometimes looong miserable life of the half bald half-matted, one-eyed, toothless, tick infested, feces covered puppy mill breeder hands down.
Comment by JenniferJ — October 20, 2008 @ 10:35 am
But I suspect the short miserable lives of the fur farm raised raccoon dog probably beats the short or sometimes looong miserable life of the half bald half-matted, one-eyed, toothless, tick infested, feces covered puppy mill breeder hands down.
Comment by JenniferJ — October 20, 2008
Yes, I would bet you are right.
Comment by Gina Spadafori — October 20, 2008 @ 10:36 am
Um that should say “puppy mill breeder DOG” I think it was a freudian slip, or wishful thinking.
Comment by JenniferJ — October 20, 2008 @ 10:37 am
I was thinking the same thing. GMTA.
Comment by Gina Spadafori — October 20, 2008 @ 10:48 am
I think the important part of this story is that melamine is showing up in animal feed at 500 ppm..so the FDA says 2.5 may be safe for us..that is 200 times that amount….do I think it is only in this feed and not in other anumal feed…Heck no….and maybe the AP picking up this story will make others ask that same question. and maybe test before it kills the animals…or people…
Comment by Carol V — October 20, 2008 @ 10:49 am
When my boyfriend bought a grocery store brand of spices—it was from China and I wondered if it had melamine in it.
Frankly, with the economy and hazards of imports I’d love to see the USA move back to sourcing food and making products in the USA instead of importing.
Comment by Diana L Guerrero — October 20, 2008 @ 11:32 am
Hey Carol V, Im asking that question. The U.S is one of the leading importers of China products, other countries are finding it in tons of items, but not the U.S? I find it hard to believe when its been made very clear FDA is only testing a small percentage of imports. How I wish I had the money to test all sorts of products, if its not in something we are currently eating, I would be super amazed.
Comment by Sandi K — October 20, 2008 @ 11:59 am
I suspect that we will begin to find the melamine in the food, right after we pay back all the money we borrowed from China.
Comment by Dutch — October 20, 2008 @ 12:25 pm
FDA TO OPEN CHINA OFFICE, OTHERS TO FOLLOW. BUT WILL IT HELP?
NewsInferno, N.Y.—October 20
“The Food & Drug Administration (FDA) should be opening its new China office later this year, the Associated Press reports. The agency hopes a greater presence in China will prevent unsafe imports - such as tainted heparin and melamine-laced foods - from gaining entry to the US. Eventually, the FDA will open similar offices in other countries, but even officials at the agency concede that there still won’t be enough inspectors to oversee every foreign facility that produces food and drugs for sale in the US.”
“Critic have long argued that the FDA does not have the funding or manpower to police the massive amounts of food and drugs imported from overseas. A recent report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that, on average, foreign drug plants are inspected only once every 13 years.”
Makes everyone feels REAL comfortable with their $4 prescriptions?
“Over the next year, the agency plans to place 60 food and drug regulators in offices worldwide, focusing on India, Latin America and the Middle East. According to the Associated Press, the plan would cost about $30 million in its first year, primarily to set up the offices and hire new staffers, including foreign nationals who would report to the agency.”
“But even FDA Commissioner Andrew von Eschenbach and Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt, whose department oversees the FDA, acknowledge the agency will still have too few inspectors to adequately police every foreign manufacturer that sends products to the U.S. According to the Associated Press, they are hoping to solve that problem by allowing a voluntary inspection, where manufacturers would pay third-party inspectors to verify that their plants meet FDA standards.”
Pay CHINESE inspectors? I don’t think so. We already know they’ll do anything for money in China.
“Beside the obvious conflict-of-interest problems posed by manufacturers paying a for-profit service for their own inspections, many doubt that the FDA will convince overseas companies to participate. Similar attempts at a voluntary inspections system haven’t been well received in the past by overseas manufacturers. To counter that problem, the FDA says it would offer those manufacturers that do agree to such a program expedited entry for their products at US ports.”
Full article here:
http://www.newsinferno.com/archives/4044
FDA WILL OPEN INSPECTION OFFICE IN CHINA THIS YEAR
October 17—“WASHINGTON (AP) — The Food and Drug Administration will establish its first office in China before the end of the year as part of a broader plan to assure the safety of imports from the developing world.”
They’re talking about both food AND drugs. Inspecting food shipments and drug factories, only 60 people? It will be a very long time, if ever, that we can feel food safety issues are under control:
“The FDA is making progress at inspecting more foreign drug manufacturing sites, according to a Government Accountability Office report issued earlier this year. But the watchdog agency said the agency is still inspecting less than 11 percent of the plants on its own list of high-priority sites.”
Full article here: http://ap.google.com/article/A.....AD93RS7BO0
Think I’ll go have some homemade soup now.
Comment by Nadine L. — October 20, 2008 @ 3:25 pm
FYI: Terri Gross has an interview with Michael Polan on “Fresh Air” on NPR.
http://www.npr.org/templates/s.....d=95896389
Comment by Anne T — October 20, 2008 @ 4:24 pm
Yet another recall, although not due to melamine but salmonella instead.
The Hartz Mountain Corporation Voluntarily Recalls One Specific Lot of Nationwide Chicken-Basted Rawhide Chips Because of Possible Health Risk
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE — October 20, 2008 — The Hartz Mountain Corporation, Secaucus, NJ is voluntarily recalling one specific lot of Hartz Chicken-Basted Rawhide Chips due to concerns that one or more bags within the lot are potentially contaminated with Salmonella. Hartz is fully cooperating with the US Food and Drug Administration in this voluntary recall.
Salmonella can cause serious infections in dogs, and, if there is cross-contamination caused by handling of the rawhide chips, in people as well, especially children, the aged, and people with compromised immune systems. Healthy people potentially infected with Salmonella should monitor themselves for some or all of the following symptoms: nausea, vomiting, diarrhea or bloody diarrhea, abdominal cramping and fever. On rare occasions, Salmonella can result in more serious ailments, including arterial infections, endocarditis, arthritis, muscle pain, eye irritation, and urinary tract symptoms. Consumers exhibiting these signs after having contact with this product should contact their healthcare providers.
Pets with Salmonella infections may be lethargic and have diarrhea or bloody diarrhea, fever, and vomiting. Some pets will have only decreased appetite, fever and abdominal pain. Animals can be carriers with no visible symptoms and can potentially infect other animals or humans. If your pet has consumed the recalled product and has these symptoms, please contact your veterinarian.
The product involved is 4,850 - 2 pound plastic bags of Hartz Chicken-Basted Rawhide Chips, lot code JC23282, UPC number 3270096463 which were distributed to a national retail customer. While the normal testing that Hartz conducts through an independent outside laboratory did not detect the presence of Salmonella in any Hartz rawhide products, sample testing conducted by another laboratory did indicate the presence of the bacteria in a sample bag of the Chicken-Basted Rawhide Chips. Hartz is aggressively investigating the difference in test results and the potential source of the problem.
Although Hartz has not received any reports of animals or humans becoming ill as a result of coming into contact with this product, Hartz is taking immediate steps to remove the product from all retail stores and distribution centers. Dog owners who purchased this product should check the lot code on their bag, and, if the code is not visible, or if the bag has lot code JC23282 imprinted thereon, they should immediately discontinue use of the product and discard it in a proper manner.
Consumers can contact Hartz at 1-800-275-1414 with any questions they may have and to obtain reimbursement for purchased product.
http://www.fda.gov/oc/po/firmr.....10_08.html
Comment by Barb — October 20, 2008 @ 7:03 pm
Argh. It just keeps getting worse. More poison. More deaths. Just when I start thinking about how simple it would be to grab a bag of kibble… Nope not gonna do it. Just can’t trust it.
Comment by schnauzer — October 20, 2008 @ 9:23 pm
I continue to remember last year…
and they thought that we were overreacting to the pet food recalls. Sadly, it was only the beginning folks.
Comment by Marcy — October 20, 2008 @ 10:29 pm
http://www.motherjones.com/int.....estle.html
I can’t hear too much from her…
Comment by Carol V — October 21, 2008 @ 6:48 am
Do you remember back during the recall one of the things that was posted was how Kraft Foods was using the ingredient milk protein concentrate in it’s foods even though it is not an approved ingredient in the United States, and how Kraft would not stop using it even though the FDA had warned them more than once to stop. I don’t know if they still use it because I wouldn’t eat anything Kraft ever, but I do certainly wonder how much melamine was in that gem of an ingredient which was contained in Kraft cheese singles, mac & cheese and other Kraft products.
You don’t have to be a brain surgeon to guess where they got the ingredient from. I will bet that they stopped using it. Very very telling. Were they poisoning us all this time. I wonder why there hasn’t been any statement from anyone from Kraft, the government, the press or the politicians about this or even if anyone has bothered to find out if the MPC illegally used in Kraft products came from China and if so did they ever test it for melamine.
Comment by Nicole — October 21, 2008 @ 1:46 pm
This is all so scary… it seems nobody cares about life. First there were toys painted with dangerous paint, then baby milk, now dogs food… isn’t it too much??
Comment by Vilma — October 21, 2008 @ 2:32 pm
Thanks, Nicole, for the information about Kraft cheese and the MPC (milk protein concentrate).
One of the reasons I check into this blog so often is to discover what new foods are on the suspected food poisoning list. It keeps growing, and growing, and growing.
Comment by Colorado Transplant — October 21, 2008 @ 3:42 pm
Apparently the melamine is now showing up in fresh eggs - they suspect it is from the contaminated chicken feed which we knew about already (no surprise here)…here’s the full news link…
http://www.bangkokpost.com/bre.....?id=131644
Comment by Carol V — October 26, 2008 @ 4:28 am