How Chinese ingredients contaminated U.S. pet foods

[Guest guest]

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2007:

 

 

How Chinese ingredients contaminated U.S. pet foods

 

 

BEIJING--How and why melamine came to contaminate wheat and

corn gluten and rice protein concentrate manufactured in China is

still unknown.

But, as a maker of wheat gluten, MGP Ingredients vice

president Steve Pickman has voiced an idea.

" It is my understanding, but certainly unheard of in our

experience, " Pickman told media, " that melamine could increase the

measurable nitrogen emitted from gluten, and then be mathematically

converted to protein. The effect could create the appearance or

illusion of raising the gluten's protein level. Understandably, any

acts or practices such as this are barred in the U.S. How the U.S.

can or cannot monitor and prevent these types of situations from

occurring in other parts of the world, " Pickman concluded, " is the

overriding question. "

Said U.S. Food & Drug Administration chief veterinarian

Stephen Sundlof, " Melamine was found in all three [pet food

ingredients imported from China.] This would certainly lend

credibility to the theory that the contamination 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.

But getting U.S. inspectors into China to visit the plants in

question proved difficult. U.S. Senator Dick Durbin (D-Illinois)

alleged in early April that the Chinese government had refused to

grant visas to FDA personnel. An FDA spokesperson clarified that the

visas were not overtly refused, but added that the agency had not

received the necessary invitation letter to get visas.

Xinhua News Agency editor Lu Hui meanwhile announced on April

6 that, " China is carrying out a nationwide inspection on the

quality of its wheat gluten after the United States claimed that the

pet food at the origin of a number of cat and dog deaths used tainted

wheat imported from China. "

" Sampling and examination are under way, " said Xia Wenjun,

a press officer for the General Administration of Quality

Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine.

There is no longer any question that the melamine tainting

U.S.-manufactured pet foods for at least three months in 2006-2007

was of Chinese origin.

Wilbur-Ellis Company, of San Francisco, in July 2006 began

importing rice protein concentrate from Futian Biology Technology Co.

Ltd., Wilbur-Ellis president and chief executive John Thacher told

MSNBC. Wilbur-Ellis resold the material to five pet food

manufacturers, including Diamond Pet Foods Inc., of Meta, Missouri,

which produces the Natural Balance pet food line at a manufacturing

plant in California.

Thacher said an April 4, 2007 delivery from Futian Biology

included 146 1-ton bags of rice protein concentrate. All were white

except for a single pink bag, which was stenciled " melamine. "

Aware that melamine had been identified five days earlier as

a contaminant in wheat gluten used to make pet food, Wilbur-Ellis

held the shipment at a warehouse in Portland, Oregon, and had

samples tested. Melamine was found in the pink bag, but not in two

white bags, Thacher said.

Futian Biology told Wilbur-Ellis that the pink bag had been

used to replace a damaged bag, and that " the product was all fine, "

Thacher explained.

The tainted wheat gluten was earlier traced to a different

supplier, Xuzhou Anying Biologic Technology Develo-pment Company,

of Shanghai. Xuzhou Anying general manager Mao Lijun told Los

Angeles Times staff writers Marc Lifsher and Abigail Goldman that the

company and the Chinese government's inspection and quarantine

administration are investigating how melamine got into the product.

Xuzhou Anying sales manager Geng Xiujuan told Christopher

Bodeen of Associated Press that Xuzhou Anying is a broker, not a

manufacturer.

" Anying produces and exports more than 10,000 tons of wheat

gluten a year, " reported Alexa Oleson of Associated Press, " but

only 873 tons were linked to tainted U.S. pet food, raising the

possibility that more of the contaminated product could still be on

the market in China, or abroad.

Anying export director Li Cui told Oleson that the U.S. is

the company's only foreign market.

" There has been no reaction among the Chinese public to the

tainted wheat gluten, " Oleson said, " and Beijing authorities have

not said whether they are investigating. An official at the Chinese

Ministry of Health, who refused to give his name, said the case was

not an issue for the ministry, and directed questions to the

Ministry of Agriculture. An official there, who also refused to give

his name, told Associated Press to stop calling. "

Throughout China, Bodeen wrote, " Pesticides and chemical

fertilizers are used in excess to boost yields, while harmful

antibiotics are widely administered to control disease in seafood and

livestock. Rampant industrial pollution risks introducing heavy

metals into the food chain.

" Farmers have used the cancer-causing industrial dye Sudan

Red to boost the value of their eggs, and fed an asthma medication

to pigs to produce leaner meat, " Bodeen recounted. " In a case that

galvanized the public's and government's attention, an infant

formula with little or no nutritional value has been blamed for

causing severe malnutrition in hundreds of babies and killing at

least 12. "

The European Union and Japan have banned imports of a variety

of Chinese agricultural and aquaculture products due to the products

containing excessive antibiotic or pesticide residues, Bodeen wrote.

" Hong Kong blocked imports of turbot last year, " Bodeen

recalled, " after inspectors found traces of malachite green, a

possibly cancer-causing chemical used to treat fungal infections, in

some fish. "

Contrary to the common belief in the U.S. and Europe that

products from small farms are safer than the output from factory

farming, Bodeen suggested that, " One source of the problem is

China's fractured farming sector, comprised of small landholdings

which make regulation difficult. Small farms ship to market with

little documentation. Test-ing of the safety and purity of farm

products such as milk is often haphazard, hampered by fuzzy lines of

authority among regulators. Only about 6% of agricultural products

were considered pollution-free in 2005, " Bodeen said, based on USDA

data collection about the Chinese agricultural sector.

U.S. agricultural product purchases from China have increased

20-fold in 25 years.

" FDA inspectors are able to inspect only a tiny percentage

of the millions of shipments that enter the U.S. each year, " wrote

Bodeen. " Even so, shipments from China were rejected at the rate of

about 200 per month so far this year, compared with only 18

rejected cargoes per month from Thailand and 35 a month from Italy.

 

 

--

Merritt Clifton

Editor, ANIMAL PEOPLE

P.O. Box 960

Clinton, WA 98236

 

Telephone: 360-579-2505

Fax: 360-579-2575

E-mail: anmlpepl

Web: www.animalpeoplenews.org

 

[ANIMAL PEOPLE is the leading independent newspaper providing

original investigative coverage of animal protection worldwide,

founded in 1992. Our readership of 30,000-plus includes the

decision-makers at more than 10,000 animal protection organizations.

We have no alignment or affiliation with any other entity. $24/year;

for free sample, send address.]