Hundreds tainted hogs entered human food supply

[partylessinOhio]

Report: Tainted hogs enter food supply
By ANDREW BRIDGES, Associated Press Writer
Thu Apr 26, 6:45 PM ET


WASHINGTON - Several hundred of the 6,000 hogs that may have eaten contaminated pet food are believed to have entered the food supply for humans, the government said Thursday. The potential risk to human health was said to be very low.

The government told the three states involved it would not allow meat from any of the hogs that ate the feed to enter the food supply.

No more than 345 hogs from farms in California, New York and South Carolina are involved, according to the Agriculture Department. It appears the large majority of the hogs that may have been exposed are still on the farms where they are being raised, spokeswoman Nicol Andrews said.

Salvaged pet food from companies known or suspected of using a tainted ingredient was shipped to hog farms in seven states for use as feed.

The government will compensate farmers if they kill those hogs, said Kenneth Peterson of department's Food Safety and Inspection Service. The department knew of no countries moving to suspend imports of U.S. pork products. ...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070426/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/food_contamination;_ylt=Aqc_Ull94FzLwALJaJlXsvzMWM0F

[LostinVA]

1. Oh great

Those country-style ribs don't seem quite so yummo now.

:cry:

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

2. Simple questions.

What was the concentration of melamine in the meat? And what is the maximum safe concentration of melamine?

[partylessinOhio]

3. I don't believe that is known.

The link above says:

But there is no scientific data on the health effects of melamine combined with the other compounds, said David Elder, director of enforcement for the FDA.

Still, the FDA and Agriculture Department believe the likelihood of someone becoming ill after eating pork from hogs fed contaminated feed is very low. Meanwhile, the University of California, Davis, is developing a test to measure melamine levels in tissue, Andrews said.

When this test is available we may get a more definitive answer. Right now we know that melamine has made cats and dogs sick, caused kidney failure and death.

[bullimiami]

6. Do we KNOW that melamine is the cause of the deaths from kidney failure?

Ive looked and I cant see where the symptoms of melamine poisoning included kidney failure.

***
Melamine is a Triazine compound.
Symptoms of Poisoning with Triazine Compounds
Acute systemic toxicity is unlikely unless large amounts have been ingested.
- Irritation of eyes, skin and respiratory tract.
***


This is what I do find. It really makes me wonder if weve been getting fed a pile of hooey.
To start with there were claims of something which was used as rodent poison in china but banned here. Then it turned into melamine.
I dont trust any government agency to tell the truth where it may not benefit them.

Just sayin'!

[Mojorabbit]

7. From a promed email I got yesterday

With regard to your comment: "Cyanuric acid is most often used in
swimming pools to slow the breakdown of chlorination by sunlight.
Certainly this is not a product for use in food. The exact reason for
this being in the gluten products is not entirely clear;" cyanuric
acid is one of the principal products of the breakdown of melamine by
_Klebsiella_ spp. and _Pseudomonas_ spp. Cyanuric acid is also a
product of bacterial digestion of the herbicide Atrazine. It might be
wise for FDA to also be testing the protein concentrates for
bacterial contamination, as it is unlikely that the melamine would
degenerate spontaneously in the absence of bacterial enzymes.

According to Cheng, et al, cyanuric acid is further broken down to
urea (via allophanate), which is why melamine is used as a fertilizer.

See:
Allophanate Hydrolase, Not Urease, Functions in Bacterial Cyanuric
Acid Metabolism. Gang Cheng, Nir Shapir, Michael J. Sadowsky and
Lawrence P. Wackett. Appl Environ Microbiol. 2005 August;71(8):
4437-4445.

--
Dr. Hugh Baker
Veterinary Program Officer - Exports
Canadian Food Inspection Agency
Toronto Regional Office
1124 Finch Avenue West
Signature lines are currently turned off due to high traffic.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

12. You want my outlook on the issue?

No, we don't know that it's melamine. Or the rat poison. There's not enough information, and/or conflicting information, and panic going on to take any media report at face value.

It hasn't got to do with government agencies, but how scientific progress works. This isn't Star Trek where you can wave a tricorder over something and figure out what's in it.

All we can do is avoid the recalled food, and wait for the science to come out.

[denverbill]

11. Why all the fuss? Label it 'protein-enhanced' and sell it to unknowing stooges. n/t

[lonestarnot]

4. I ate one of them. Have been sick all week.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

5. Isn't that from the planet Melmac?

Seriously, isn't that what they make plastic plates out of??

[kestrel91316]

8. Kestrel's next prediction:

The hogs that can't be sold for human consumption will be shipped to pet food manufacturers.

[Karenina]

9. And the circle will remain unbroken.

:SIGH:

[suffragette]

10. "Salvaged pet food"

Salvaged? Salvaged from where? from what conditions?

[partylessinOhio]

13. Salvaged from STORE SHELVES when pet owners stopped buying

it because it was killing their pets.

This is all rooted in money and greed. Business was not going to absorb the losses.

[suffragette]

14. I agree it's about greed

I wonder if there are additional places where this was salvaged from, similar to how food for cattle is swept from chicken cages. The wording "salvaged" made me think of those kind of conditions. Not sure if that is the case in this situation, but that vague use of "salvaged" makes me wonder.

[Critters2]

15. I guess I assumed it was the stuff that had been recalled.

Which raises the next obvious question...

:wtf:

[suffragette]

16. Found this about it

http://www.sltrib.com/ci_5762672
Before officials determined the feed had been laced with melamine, feed salvaged from manufacturing plants was sold to hog farms. Salvaged feed includes ingredients that fell from loose pet-food bags or swept from floors.


Hmmm - still bugs me that most stories use the term "salvaged" without even explaining what it means in this situation. Also, even the sentence explaining it above qualifies the explanation by specifying "includes" which means there could be other instances of "salvaged feed" that aren't factory sweepings. Of course, the factory sweepings are bad enough in themselves.

[Critters2]

17. Thanks for clarifying. Still, someone should have known better. nt

[suffragette]

18. Whoa - looks like I wasn't the only one wondering about this

Yikes - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-goldstein/you-are-what-you-eat-is-_b_46736.html

[partylessinOhio]

19. Thanks for the link. This is worse than we could have imagined.

I'm not sure that any of our food supplies (human and animal) are safe. Our accepted standards have fallen far below what I would demand.

[suffragette]

20. Yes, much worse.

Thank you for bolding that statement about salvaged pet food. I had been wondering about that, but it wasn't until you bolded it that I really focused on looking up more info on it.


From http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-goldstein/you-are-what-you-eat-is-_b_46736.html

And according to a brochure provided by the Pet Food Institute, the same ruminant cannibalism prohibition holds true here. Sorta. In the U.S., salvage and distressed pet food may be repurposed for livestock feed, but must be labeled "Do Not Feed to Cattle or Other Ruminants" if it contains any mammalian protein at all. That is, any mammalian protein except:

* Milk products.
* Gelatin.
* Blood and blood products.
* Pure pork or horse protein.
* And inspected meat products of any type which have been cooked and offered for human food (such as "plate scrapings") and further heat processed for animal feed.


Absolutely agree with him when he concludes:


One of the take-home messages from the whole Mad Cow crisis was that it was unsafe and unnatural to feed animal protein to ruminants meant for human consumption, and yet the practice apparently continues to this day. Our lax, salvage pet food regulations have already directly led to human consumption of melamine-tainted pork, and there is no reason to be confident that this and other dangerous chemicals or diseases have not contaminated our beef and dairy supply. If it is unacceptable to feed salvaged pet food to livestock in Canada, it should be unacceptable here in the U.S. as well.

There has been much talk recently about the FDA lacking the funding and staffing necessary to adequately police our globalizing food industry, but after six years of Bush administration control, it also clearly lacks the leadership and mandate as well. This isn't merely an issue about management -- it is ideological -- and by now it should be clear to objective observers that the FDA's and other federal regulatory agencies' over-reliance on industry self-regulation has put the health, safety and welfare of the American public at risk.

This is what comes from electing politicians who despise government, and who appoint regulators who do not believe in regulation.