Today’s Update on the Pet Food Recall—5/9/2007

Flour, not gluten. The USDA and FDA have announced that the adulterated Chinese product sold here and used to make pet foods and also used in the feeds of hogs and chickens was flour adulterated with melamine and sold as wheat gluten:

The first is related to a misrepresentation of the wheat gluten and the concentrated rice protein. I want to preface it by saying as you are all aware we have been following wheat gluten and rice protein concentrate from two sources in China, and have undertaken a number of tests with those related to the detection of melamine and melamine-related compounds. As part of our strategy just to ensure that we are following this in all possible directions, a portion of both the wheat gluten and the rice protein concentrate that was already a concern because of melamine has been further analyzed by our forensic chemistry center. And we have discovered that these products, labeled wheat gluten and rice protein concentrate, are we believe mislabeled, and that they actually contain wheat flour that is contaminated with the melamine and melamine-related compounds.

Pigs, chickens, now fish. Fish meal contaminated with the Chinese “wheat gluten” has apparently been fed to farm-raised fish:

WASHINGTON — Farmed fish have been fed meal spiked with the same chemical that has been linked to the pet food recall, but the contamination was probably too low to harm anyone who ate the fish, federal officials said Tuesday. Some of the contaminated feed was tracked to six Washington state hatcheries, and was immediately pulled from use.

The Canadian-made meal included what was purported to be wheat gluten, a protein source, imported from China. However, the material was actually wheat flour spiked by the chemical melamine and related, nitrogen-rich compounds to make it appear more protein rich than it was, officials said.

After pigs and chickens, the farmed fish mark the third food animal given contaminated feed. The level of contamination is expected to be too low to pose any danger to human health, said Dr. David Acheson, the FDA’s assistant commissioner for food protection.

The more different products in which the contamination is found the more far-fetched the FDA’s observations about the contaminatiion being present in only a small portion of the diet will sound.

One of the aspects of this story that I haven’t seen explored is that, since whether it’s labelled as wheat flour or wheat gluten, the adulterated product being added to pet foods for who knows how long doesn’t contain as much protein as it should and, consequently, the specifications on the contaminated foods would not be accurate—less protein, possibly by far, than advertised on the package. Any lawyers out there who might comment on the prospects for a false advertising or labelling suit?

The manager of one of the Chinese export companies involved in the pet food recall has been detained by the Chinese government for some time. He denies everything:

BEIJING, China (CNN) — The manager of the Chinese company suspected of selling tainted wheat flour to the United States has been detained for nearly two weeks outside Beijing, CNN has learned.

Tian Feng is the manager of Binzhou Futian Biology Technology, which U.S. pet food distributors have identified as the company that sold them wheat flour — mislabeled as wheat gluten or rice protein concentrate — containing melamine and related products.

Tian’s company was shut by local police on April 25, the day he was detained. (Watch Tian speak to CNN from behind bars Video)

“I didn’t do anything wrong,” Tian said in an interview with CNN from the detention center in Binzhou in China’s eastern Shandong Province.

Dressed in a white T-shirt and orange prison vest, Tian said, “I don’t know about melamine. I don’t even know what this melamine is. I have never heard of anyone using it.”

The Associated Press is reporting that managers from two of the Chinese export companies are being held by the Chinese authorities.

Update

The two Chinese export companies who supplied the adulterated products have been found guilty by the Chinese government:

SHANGHAI: China said Tuesday that it had found two companies here guilty of intentionally exporting contaminated pet food ingredients to the United States.

The country’s quality control investigator released a statement on its Web site late Tuesday saying that officials at the two companies were also detained for their role in shipping tainted goods that might have contributed to one of the largest pet food recalls in U.S. history.

The General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine said its investigation found that the two animal feed companies – Xuzhou Anying Biologic Technology Development Co. and Binzou Futian Biology Technology Co. – had intentionally exported food ingredients laced with melamine, an industrial chemical used to make plastics and fertilizer.

The two companies illegally added melamine to wheat gluten and rice protein, the government said, in a bid to meet the contractual demand for the amount of protein in the products.

Over the last six weeks we’ve seen a progression in the Chinese account of this story from denying any fault whatever to denying deliberate fault to acknowledging fault but denying harm. We have been provided information from people in the Chinese wheat processing industry that what these two companies did was far from an isolated incident, indeed a common practice. To this day the story has received almost no airing in China whatever. If we allow our focus on this incident to waver now, we’re making a serious error.

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