Today’s Update on the Pet Food Recall—4/26/2007

Another pet food company has announced a recall as a consequence of the contaminated rice gluten concentrate imported from China

:

RHINELANDER, Wis. (AP) — A Wisconsin company issued a precautionary recall of dry dog and cat food because it could contain rice protein tainted with a chemical called melamine that’s blamed for causing more than a dozen pet deaths.

The company, Doctors Foster and Smith of Rhinelander, is recalling its Adult Dry Lite Dog and Adult Dry Lite Cat food after another company recalled rice protein concentrate.

The Rhinelander company says preliminary tests for the chemical have been negative, and final test results are expected within two weeks.

The company also says it’s reformulating the recalled pet food to eliminate rice protein and expects the new recipe to be ready by mid-May.

The company statement on the recall is here.

The concerns that melamine has entered the human food supply either by feeding hogs contaminated rice gluten or through actually feeding hogs pet foods salvaged from the recall continue:

A farm in western North Carolina has been quarantined after a chemical blamed for more than a dozen pet deaths was found in its hogs, state officials said Wednesday. None of the hogs has entered the food supply.

The farm received a shipment of contaminated feed last week, said Mary Ann McBride, assistant state veterinarian for the North Carolina Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. It was the only farm in the state that received the feed.

“It is important to note that all animals that may have consumed the infected feed have been accounted for,” McBride said. “We have no reason to believe that there is any risk associated with the North Carolina pork supply at this time.”

State officials took urine samples from 13 hogs, and all tested positive for melamine, a chemical used to make plastics and foam, McBride said. The farm, which wasn’t identified, has about 1,400 hogs, she said.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service has said fewer than 10 hog farms in six states received contaminated feed. The feed came from a Diamond Pet plant in Gaston, S.C., and contained a rice concentrate that has been recalled by its manufacturer in California.

The FDA has updated its info on the ongoing recall. There’s not much new there but it does provide a good summary of the info that I’ve reported here over the last week or so.

FDA inspectors are now reportedly testing all of the Chinese vegetable proteins that come into the country as well as rice bran.

There are also some scare stories out there about food poisonings in China. I think they’re red herrings, completely unrelated to this story.

There have been reports of cyanouric acid having been detected in some of the samples and I’m somewhat puzzled. Isn’t that a breakdown product of melamine? Why would this be surprising?

It is now more than four months since problem reports began to come in, more than two months since Menu Foods realized they had a problem, and more than a month since the beginning of the recall. The recall is expanding nearly daily.