[Dean's World] Dave Schuler: Update on the Pet Food Recall

[notify at powerblogs.com]

Posted by Dave Schuler:
Update on the Pet Food Recall
http://www.deanesmay.com/posts/1177075578.shtml


   Over at my home base, [1]The Glittering Eye, I've been posting on the
   pet food recall obsessively, almost to the exclusion of everything
   else. This must have puzzled many people. There are a number of
   reasons for my interest in this story.

   First, I'm a committed dog owner, my dogs are an important part of my
   life, and anything that threatens them, threatens me. But there are
   larger reasons, too.

   If you're not aware of the story, last month Menu Foods, a major
   private label manufacturer of dog and cat foods, announced a recall of
   their "cuts and gravy"-style foods affecting almost 100 different
   varieties and including some of the best known brands in the country.
   The recall has expanded to cover some varieties of dog biscuits and a
   couple of varieties of dry pet food. The toxin remains unknown but it
   has been determined that wheat gluten imported from China used in the
   manufacture was contaminated with melamine, a chemical used in
   dinnerware, countertops, and fertilizer (in Asia).

   There have been some important new developments.

   Rice gluten concentrate, also bought from a Chinese exporter has also
   been found to have been contaminated with melamine. The melamine may
   have entered the human food supply by being fed to pigs in the form of
   animal feed. And just yesterday a South African company announced that
   they had detected melamine contamination in corn gluten which they'd
   imported from China. The FDA has suggested that this contamination may
   be a deliberate move to boost the apparent protein content of the
   product.

   Consequently, this story not only concerns me through my dogs but
   through my interest in a number of other issues: China, globalization,
   corporate behavior, and the role and performance of government. Here's
   how I end [2]my most recent post on the subject:

     We're left with a number of unanswered questions:
    1. How did the wheat gluten, rice gluten concentrate, and corn gluten
       become contaminated with melamine? Melamine shouldn't be present
       in these products in any quantity.
    2. Is melamine toxic to dogs and cats? Melamine has not been
       considered a toxin.
    3. If melamine isn't toxic, what is causing the kidney failure and
       deaths in pets?
    4. Is melamine toxic to humans? If so, we've got an enormously larger
       problem before us. Melamine is used in dinnerware, cooking
       implements, and kitchen countertops both in private homes and
       commercially.
    5. Has melamine entered the human food supply? The FDA says âthey
       have no reason to believeâ¦â, etc., but that's weaselly
       bureaucratese. I continue to see no way they can make that
       determination without knowing the scope of the problem (and, since
       additional products are being recalled nearly daily, it's obvious
       they can't identify the scope of the problem at this time), how
       the melamine got into the wheat gluten, rice gluten concentrate,
       and corn gluten, and where else the contamined products were sold.

     Write your congressman. This is a serious problem.

References

   1. http://www.theglitteringeye.com/
   2. http://theglitteringeye.com/?p=2834