Ex-FDA head: "Simply put, our food safety system is broken."

[mhatrw]

http://www.boston.com/business/globe/articles/2007/05/02/fda_is_failing_to_protect_food_ex_chiefs_say

Regulators don't have the money, equipment, and staff to keep industrial chemicals, salmonella, and E. coli from contaminating the US food supply, former commissioners of the Food and Drug Administration said.

"Simply put, our food-safety system is broken," said David Kessler, who headed the agency from 1990 to 1997.

"The reality is that there is currently no mandate, no leadership, no resources, nor scientific research base for prevention of food-safety problems," Kessler told the House Oversight Committee yesterday.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/07/AR2007050701685.html

Chickens that ate bird feed made with a small amount of contaminated pet food are safe for human consumption and can be released for slaughter and sale, federal health officials said yesterday. That decision emerged from a government risk analysis completed over the weekend involving 20 million chickens that officials said Friday had inadvertently been fed the tainted feed in several states.

Officials said the amount of melamine in the feed consumed by the 20 million chickens was so low that the chemical was undetectable in the birds, even using a highly sensitive experimental test that can detect as few as 10 parts of melamine per billion parts of tissue.

A larger proportion of pet food was added to the feed eaten by the Indiana breeding birds, so those chickens are being kept off the market until measurements of melamine in their tissues are complete, officials said. But government scientists said they were encouraged by the fact that none of the birds had grown ill -- and by the recent finding that the kidneys of pigs that ate the contaminated chow appeared normal under a microscope. Kidneys are often the first organs to show damage from melamine poisoning.

The USDA and the FDA are creating a science advisory board to review their risk assessment and to contribute to future such analyses. Robert Buchanan, a senior science adviser with the FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, who was involved in the risk analysis, said he was gratified to find that "the safety margins are very large" -- that is, the conclusion that there is minimal risk to human health would hold true even if the scientists' assumptions were found to be off by tenfold or more.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/06/AR2007050601034.html

If you add melamine to almost anything, the amount of nitrogen in the final mixture will rise simply because, gram for gram, melamine contains so much of the element. Since the food industry generally measures total "nitrogen content" and equates it with "protein content," a few shovelfuls of melamine can appear to turn a low-protein meal into a high-protein one. And what's wrong with that? Can't the body use the nitrogen in melamine? Actually, it can't.

Melamine is an extremely small molecule, and most of it is absorbed through the intestinal tract before it is digested. It circulates in the bloodstream until it gets to the kidneys, where it slips easily into the fluid that eventually becomes urine. Melamine can also enter other organs. That is how it could have ended up in the tissue of farm animals that ate scraps of melamine-laced pet food -- as apparently was the case in 2.7 million chickens and 345 pigs slaughtered and consumed in recent months. ...

The purpose of urine is to concentrate water-soluble waste products and to keep them dissolved. But water's dissolving power has its limits. Melamine and other chemicals can reach concentrations that exceed those limits. When the water can't hold any more, the chemical substance begins to form crystals. ...

Studies done decades ago found that rats fed melamine for two years developed stones in their urine, which led to bladder cancer in some. When rats were fed in one serving a large amount of melamine -- the equivalent of a 150-pound person eating a pound -- about half died.

The question that immediately comes to mind is, why didn't they test the kidneys of the pigs and the chickens who had eaten the most contaminated feed using the "highly sensitive experimental test that can detect as few as 10 parts of melamine per billion parts of tissue"?

http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/usdahome?contentidonly=true&contentid=2007/05/0129.xml

A safety/risk assessment is a scientific approach to estimating the risk to human health from exposure to specified compounds. It is based on available data and certain scientific assumptions in the absence of data. ...

The assessment notes that melamine is not metabolized, and is rapidly excreted in the urine. Thus, it is not believed to accumulate in the body of animals.

Am I missing something about this "scientific" assumption? Are the kidneys somehow not part of "the body of animals"?

http://www.horsesass.org/?p=2899

During an ongoing media teleconference call, USDA/FDA officials have revealed that melamine-tainted "protein concentrate," imported from China, contaminated fish meal manufactured in Canada. The tainted fish meal was then distributed to an unknown number of fish farms in the US and Canada.

Other revelations:

* 50,000 swine have been quarantined in Illinois due to suspect feed.
* The tainted "wheat gluten" and "rice protein concentrate" at the center of the pet food recall, was actually misrepresented as such. Further tests have determined that it is wheat flour, adulterated with melamine.

I just have to say that this is STUNNING. Two months after first determining a problem with "wheat gluten flour" they only now determine it was really plain old wheat FLOUR? Anybody who has ever baked bread would have been able to tell the difference... the two products have different color and texture. Mix in a little water and rub it between your fingers, and you can tell the difference with your eyes closed. ... Wheat flour might typically contain 14-percent protein by weight. Wheat gluten (or more appropriately, "vital wheat gluten flour") contains a minimum of 75-percent protein by weight. This helps explain the surprisingly high levels of melamine found in some samples.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070508/ap_on_he_me/food_contamination

The supposed wheat gluten was exported directly from China to Canada in a deal brokered by a U.S. company, ChemNutra Inc., Acheson said. ChemNutra also supplied the ingredient to a Canadian dog and cat food company, Menu Foods, that's since recalled dozens of brands.

Steve Stern, a ChemNutra spokesman, said the Las Vegas company actually only cobrokered the deal to supply wheat gluten to the fish meal producer: "We never owned it, we never sold it."

When asked why ChemNutra didn't disclose previously that it played a part in that deal, Stern said the company did notify the FDA in mid April. However, the company chose not to include the co-brokered shipment in an April 2 recall of the wheat gluten it had imported for use in pet food _again because it hadn't sold the ingredient, Stern said.

http://www.itchmo.com/read/chemnutra-says-fda-had-fish-feed-info-for-weeks_20070508

ChemNutra Says FDA Had Fish Feed Info For Weeks

ChemNutra says information on their co-brokered deal for fish feed ingredient was in FDA’s hands in mid-April. Spokesperson Steve Stern also stated that the search of ChemNutra by federal officials announced 10 days ago should have turned up these details.

http://www.petconnection.com/blog/2007/05/07/pet-food-recall-a-vet-speaks

"Scooby was 6 months old, a beautiful big purry healthy guy. When the recall began, his mom, who is a physician, went over the lists with a fine-toothed comb and continued to do so throughout the recall. He became acutely ill April 10, well into the recall. She was positive she was not feeding recalled food. He was so acutely ill that when he first presented his creatinine was just above normal but it skyrocketed over the next few days, on aggressive fluid therapy. On ultrasound a few days into it, he had moderate-severe hydronephrosis with bilateral ureteral obstruction…but I couldn’t see stones which seemed odd. As he was worsening rapidly, we took him to surgery to see if the obstructions could be relieved. The surgeons were mystified because his proximal ureters were dilated but they couldn’t see why. His mom decided to euthanize him on the table.

What happened to Scooby?

"On necropsy, the pathologist found that his ureters were stuffed with the melamine-type crystals. We were horrified because he wasn’t eating recalled food. I went through all the foods he was eating with his mom over and over, and narrowed it down to 2 foods I felt were the most likely culprits (other flavors of the same line of foods had been recalled, etc.). I notified the 2 companies, one of whom took 2 days to call me back despite repeated attempts. I also notified the FDA. That was April 23. (His necropsy unfortunately took 10 days to come back). I didn’t really get any sense that the 2 companies were going to do anything about the info, especially as he was eating several foods. One of those 2 foods was just recalled; it was one of the ones recalled due to 'cross-contamination' at the Menu plant. It did not contain wheat gluten. Supposedly. What a tragic little story.

"I hope people realize that this 'cross-contamination' isn’t just some hypothetical possibility; Scooby is dead from whatever 'cross-contamination' means. That’s a lot of cross-contamination."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2007/05/04/DI2007050401776.html

Washington, D.C.: Is it safer to use pet food manufactured by a company that doesn't outsource?

Robert Poppenga: Good question. I believe that the food supply in developed countries (i.e., the U.S., Canada, Europe) is more tightly regulated and therefore much less likely to be adulterated than in other countries with fewer regulations and oversight. The problem would probably be finding out where the ingredients in a product originated from since that information is not on the label.

San Antonio, Texas: ... How much melamine, cyanuric acid was found in the eggs of chickens?

Robert Poppenga: ... I am not aware that anyone has tested eggs from chickens; I believe that the majority of chickens were broilers (i.e., raised for meat and not eggs). ...

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/5/3/23927/23258">The ominous silence about eggs

[Christa]

1. Not only the food safety program

the whole country is broken :cry:

[StarryNite]

2. Yes and those that broke it

are still in power.

[kestrel91316]

7. And they didn't accidentally break it either. This country and its

governmental safety programs have been DELIBERATELY AND MALICIOUSLY broken BY BUSHCO.

If I said here what I think needs to be done to these people RIGHT NOW, I'd probably get arrested.

[StarryNite]

11. I agree 100%!

And the food was deliberately tainted by the Chinese manufacturers in order to make a bigger profit.

[KansDem]

22. Yes, and those who broke it and are still in power...

...are making money hand over fist.

Each day I'm more convinced that this whole mess was nothing more than a "smash and grab" crime of monumental proportions.

They know they've been caught, but who's going to stop them? It's like what happens when a tragedy strikes a community (natural disaster/riot) and looters go wild knowing that the police are no where to be found. They are drunk on the prospect that they can take anything and not be caught.

Same as with the Bushistas; they don't even try to hide their criminal activity anymore. If you catch them pulling another heist, who are you going to call? A cop?
:rofl:

[peacetalksforall]

3. Out of ignorance or anger I have to show my contempt for the FDA

and ask -

How much did the chicken lobby pay the FDA to withhold the names of the producers who used the feed?

So how are you all feeling about privatizing - should they formally privatize the FDA?

I am A-NO-FAITH-IN-THE=FDA citizen since I believe they are lobbyist facilitators - including through Democratic Presidencies. I'm willing to be told I'm wrong. And why I'm wrong.

[mhatrw]

4. Funny how in our "free market" consumers need to be protected

"against" information that might hurt the bottom lines of lobbyists.

[peacetalksforall]

5. Excellently stated.

[hellbound-liberal]

10. You are EXACTLY RIGHT about the FDA being lobbyist facilitators, higher class!

I worked at the FDA headquarters in Rockville one summer and it became apparent to me then that the FDA was more than willing to be wooed by lobbyists who were trying to get new drugs approved. When you consider that many of the bureaucrats that are appointed to run these regulatory agencies are former lobbyists, it doesn't take a very big leap of the imagination to see that they are going to be erring on the side of the industries who will be supporting them in their retirement years. The system is broken and I don't see it changing any time soon. I wonder how many people on the House Oversight Committee were there as a result of the industries that they are supposed to be regulating.

[Shallah Kali]

15. FDA won't name names. Not Pet Food Cos, Not Hog Farms, Not Chicken Farms, Not Fish Farms

Between the people going into the FDA from big business, work a few years, then back to big business and the radical religious types who think emergency contraception will inspire teen sex cults that is one fouled up place.

[Sydnie]

6. We all seem to be experiencing "low food security" now

Remember when they relabled hunger as "low food security"?

You can't make this shit up!

[Junkdrawer]

8. MHATRW was one of the first to point this out.....

See posts 62 & 63....

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x560863#568457

I heard it from you first... :thumbsup:

[cliss]

9. This problem will get solved, very quickly.

a) People will start dropping like flies, from all the poison in their system.

= = = = = = = = =
It's a little tough to sell poisonous food to people who ARE DEAD. Got that, FDA? The companies you protect are about to lose on some big profits there.
= = = = = = = = =

b) People will get sick, and they won't be able to eat this poisoned crap. They'll be forced to eat Gerber Baby Food; i.e. grinded up peaches, applesauce etc.
= = = = = = = = =

c) Those who survive will become Ultra-Health-Food Nuts, simply because they have no choice. They will eat sprouts, organic food, they won't even TOUCH meat Cuz they have to survive somehow.

And you wouldn't want THAT now would you FDA?????

[Shallah Kali]

17. maybe they are counting on the smaller amount of poisons to just make people mysteriously ill

so that months or years down the road we need their friends in Big Pharma's products to try to get our poor sick kidneys to work a bit longer without a transplant. or the chemo for the bladder cancers caused by years of melamine exposure.

[earth mom]

18. They don't care if we peons die. Look no further than Katrina.

TPTB won't be happy until this country is made up of the rich OR poor with NOTHING in the middle. :grr:

[Raksha]

12. K & R, bookmarked. It looks like there's a lot of good information here,

but it leaves you wondering...just exactly what can you NOT be afraid to eat these days?

[arikara]

14. Grow your own if possible

or buy from local organic farmers. Keep educating yourself, read labels carefully and avoid mass produced processed foods at all costs. Easier said than done I know, but so very necessary.

:-)

[mhatrw]

13. Update: FDA = the "Faith-based Dining Administration"

http://www.horsesass.org/?p=2883

... despite USDA/FDA’s recent assurance that contaminated meat is safe to eat, this “most extreme risk assessment scenario” was conducted without ever bothering to test melamine and cyanuric acid levels in the meat of contaminated hogs and chickens. At least, that’s what they told me. FDA spokesperson Julie Zawisza explained that "identifying these compounds in high protein environments (eg, muscle/tissue) is not that simple" and that they "are still working on a valid test."

Fair enough. So I asked Midwest Labs, a widely respected testing facility, if they could test "a pork chop or piece of chicken" as reliably as they could test, say, a can of dog food. Their response? "We can certainly test a food item or a pet food item for melamine. Their is a bit of prep work involved in testing a food sample for melamine, but this is certainly not a problem. Testing muscle tissue will only give a different consistency to the prepped sample. Neither should be a problem."

When USDA/FDA released contaminated animals from quarantine, and approved them for market, they did so without ever directly testing the meat, and with no restriction on the sale or consumption of organs such as liver or kidney, where the melamine/cyanuric acid crystals are known to accumulate… organ meat that millions of Americans do consume on a regular basis, sometimes knowingly. USDA/FDA say they believe the melamine level in meat would be very low, but they haven’t bothered to test it. They say they believe melamine is nontoxic to humans, but then, a few months ago we believed it was nontoxic to dogs and cats too. They say they believe that there have been no human health problems due to eating tainted pork and chicken, but admit that the Centers for Disease Control has "limited ability to detect subtle problems due to melamine and melamine-related compounds."

And while USDA/FDA have focused their efforts almost entirely on inspecting imports of vegetable protein concentrates, and on tracking contaminated product through the animal and human food supply, the import of processed foods, meat and farmed seafood products from China has continued unchecked and unabated, despite the obvious potential of contamination within China’s own, largely unregulated, agriculture and food industries. ...

[havocmom]

16. Contaminated, uninspected food is just fine, but cheaper imported drugs are bad

ah, yeah.

The real terrorists are greedy bastards in board rooms.

[mhatrw]

19. Actual FDA Lettter To Food Manufacturers: Please Use Non-Lethal Ingredients

I kid you not.

http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/protltr.html

Letter to Food Manufacturers Regarding Legal Responsibilities for the Safety of Food Ingredients

Dear Food Manufacturers:

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is taking this opportunity to remind food manufacturers of their legal responsibility to ensure that all ingredients used in their products are safe for human consumption. In view of the recent recalls of various pet foods due to the presence of wheat gluten and rice protein concentrate contaminated with melamine, and information revealing that some of this contaminated pet food may have been mixed with feed for pigs and poultry meant for human consumption, manufacturers are encouraged to make sure they have procedures in place that ensure the safety of the ingredients in their products, as well as the safety of the packaging and processing supplies they use. Manufacturers should also verify that their suppliers have such procedures in place. Advice on how to ensure that food ingredients and food products are safe for human consumption can be found at http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/alert.html.

FDA issued a protein ingredient surveillance assignment on May 1, 2007. As part of this assignment, FDA, in conjunction with state regulatory authorities, will be performing inspections of various food and feed facilities and collecting and testing for the presence of melamine a variety of protein ingredients, and finished products containing such ingredients, commonly found in the U.S. food and feed supplies. FDA has initiated this assignment to help ensure the safety of the U.S. food and feed supplies. The assignment will supplement melamine testing already conducted by FDA. The protein concentrates being tested include wheat gluten, corn gluten, corn meal, soy protein, and rice protein concentrate. Over the next few weeks, the assignment may expand in size and scope to include additional types of protein concentrates and finished products.

During inspections of manufacturing facilities conducted as part of this assignment, FDA will reiterate to the food and feed industry the importance of assuring the safety and security of their ingredients and products by knowing their manufacturing and packaging operators, ingredient suppliers, contract manufacturers and sources for all incoming materials. FDA will collect samples primarily during inspections of domestic food manufacturers or, in the case of imports, at the point of entry. The samples will be analyzed at a variety of laboratories that are part of the Food Emergency Response Network (FERN).

Manufacturers are responsible for taking their own measures to ensure the safety of their products. Manufacturers should not wait for possible FDA testing of their materials as manufacturers bear the responsibility of ensuring only safe products are put on the market. For those companies interested in performing their own tests for melamine, the methodology used by the FERN laboratories can be found at http://www.fda.gov/cvm/MelaminePresence.htm.

Sincerely,

Robert E. Brackett, Ph.D.
Director
Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition

Stephen F. Sundlof, D.V.M., Ph.D.
Director
Center for Veterinary Medicine

[blueworld]

20. I'm so jealous, Scarecrow

I wish I had six or seven degress from Ivy League colleges & a cushy taxpayer-funded job so I could exhale pearls of wisdom like these - minds like steel traps in the FDA!

Now, where's Mr. Tom Friedman and Mr. Babbling Brooks and the conservative wingnuts who have been telling us globalization is inevitable and wonderful & good for the economy...wait while I catch my breath. Government agencies are extraneous - slash their budgets! Off with their heads...gotta breathe again.

The true irony is what the FDA would do to YOU if you had one scrawny cow & sold me raw milk - wasn't that on 60 Minutes last week? They'd have FDA inspectors raiding your farm in helicopters. But the catfish gutters in Mississippi or the pig farm workers in Geeorja, and the baldfaced illegal adulteration of Chinese imports - they can't fix. whimper whimper.

:cry:

[mhatrw]

21. Chinese "wheat gluten" seller shopped online for melamine.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/05/09/health/main2778170.shtml

China launched a campaign Wednesday to boost food and drug safety, following an announcement that authorities have detained managers from two companies linked to contaminated pet food that killed dogs and cats in North America.

State media, meanwhile, reported the country's disgraced former top drug regulator would go on trial this month on charges of taking bribes to approve untested medicine.

The ongoing revelations have shed a harsh light on China's notoriously lax enforcement of food and drug safety, sparking fears that exported products could contaminate food supplies abroad.

Food heading overseas will face tougher inspections, reports CBS News' Cynthia Hatton. One of the arrested managers reportedly shopped online for melamine, a chemical used in plastics, fertilizers and flame retardants.

[mhatrw]

23. NY Times: Another Industrial Chemical Emerges In Pet Food Crisis

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=14467

A second industrial chemical that regulators have found in contaminated pet food in the United States may have also been intentionally added to animal feed by producers seeking larger profits, according to interviews with chemical industry officials here.

Three Chinese chemical makers said that producers of animal feed often purchase or seek to purchase a chemical called cyanuric acid from their factories to blend into animal feed. Chemical producers said that it was common knowledge that for years cyanuric acid was used in animal and fish feed in China. In the United States, cyanuric acid is often used as a disinfectant in swimming pools.

Two of the chemical makers said feed producers here used it because it was high in nitrogen, enabling feed producers to artificially increase the protein reading of the feed. "Cyanuric acid scrap can be added to animal feed," said Yu Luwei, general manager of Juancheng Ouya Chemical Company in Shandong Province. "I sell it to fish meal manufacturers and fish farmers. It an also be added to feed for other animals."

The revelation is interesting not just because it is another indication that Chinese animal feed producers were intentionally doctoring the ingredients they sold but because the practice of using cyanuric acid may provide clues as to why the pet food in the United States became so poisonous. American regulators already suspect that Chinese companies mixed an industrial chemical called melamine into animal feed because it is high in nitrogen and can be used to artificially bolster protein levels.