Posted on 04/21/2007 4:41:44 AM PDT by Flavius
Yet another pet food brand, Natural Balance, has been found to contain melamine, an industrial chemical. Another yet again, the contaminated ingredient has been traced to China.With over 100 brands of cat and dog food being recalled, we're beginning to wonder if it's safe to feed our pets anything at all. Thousands of animals have been affected by the chemical and dozens have died.
Terrifying as the tainted pet food scandal has been for those who love their animals, there's an even more frightening fact to consider: China also exports food consumed by human beings. This week it's your dog; next week it could be you, or your child.
We don't want to sound like scaremongers, but there is good reason for concern when it comes to Chinese food imports. The country has a terrible record on food safety. Mass poisonings are commonplace in China, with an estimated 300 million cases a year.
According to "Who's Monitoring Chinese Food Exports?" by Nicholas Zaminska, published April 13 in the Wall Street Journal, chemical use is high in Chinese food production while regulation is lax. In addition, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration only inspects a tiny fraction of Chinese food imports - even though China has by far the largest rate of rejection of shipments. Last month, Zaminska wrote, the U.S. rejected 215 Chinese food shipments; the dried dates were "filthy," the swordfish contained poison and the ginseng was contaminated with unsafe pesticides.
What about the shipments that weren't even inspected? William Hubbard, a retired associate FDA commissioner, told Zaminska that "The volume of food imports from overseas is approaching 10 million (shipments) per year, and the number that FDA inspectors physically examine is in the single digit thousands - making it virtually certain that any given food shipment will enter the United States with no FDA inspection."
The Chinese aren't going to do it for us. The government exercises little control over Chinese farmers, and their concern is money, not Americans' health. Attempts by the FDA to visit the Chinese plants where the poisoned pet food ingredients were made have been rejected. Other attempts to monitor the situation from the Chinese side have been met with refusals or denials. Honesty and openness are not Chinese strong points.
Behind this scandal and the tragedy that almost certainly lies ahead is one thing: Greed. The Chinese are trying to maximize their profits so they don't bother with food safety. U.S. buyers compromise standards and risk American lives because they can get the cheapest products from China.
Somehow, China must be made to clean up its act. The FDA needs to bolster its inspections of all foreign food imports, particularly those from China. An import tax on Chinese goods could be added to pay for the increased FDA costs. Products that are contaminated should be banned from the U.S., period. Europe has already done this with Chinese shrimp, honey and turbot.
In addition, U.S. companies that sell Chinese food products should insist that high safety standards are met. Those found to market unsafe food should be fined.
Finally, all products sold in this country should be clearly labeled as to the origins of all their ingredients. If consumers want to avoid food from China or any other country, they should be able to do so on their own initiative. For those that care, poultry products, sausage casings, shellfish, spices and apple juice are currently the leading Chinese food products imported by the U.S., according to the AP.
Will any of these steps be taken anytime soon? Probably not. Unfortunately, it will probably take a major human tragedy before the government wakes up.
What gets me about this is all them suckers who spent big bucks buying high priced pet food like the Iams stuff, only to find out is was the same stuff as the cheap crap.
My loving mutt recently passed at 16. (Max, I miss ya, ya stinkin fool!)
While he was around, he got the best $5.99 40lb bags of stuff I could find.
And to think: the United States used to feed the world. Now, we pay farmers to NOT grow food. We could be self-sufficient and not have to worry so much about all this. We could except for Globalism.
Hoss
I just read the label on my little jar of garlic powder, yep, made in China.
A “rubber ducky” I bought for my grandson smelled strongly of pesticide when I removed it from the package. It was made in China.
Sue the hell out of Walmart.
I suspect that it’s small companies that will go out of business over this, because Walmart types will go after our own small businesses.
I collect used pottery from thrift stores. I don’t buy dishes made in China.
Wally World = China World.
As consumers, we should DEMAND that the country of origin be put on the label of everything we buy. This was supposed to be done years ago, but the food companies and produce importers are not obeying the law. They need to be shut down if they can’t follow US law and allow the consumer to protect the health of their family.
Buy Red Wing Shoes.
I resent the fact that you can’t find out where a product was produced. You buy something assuming it is safe and produced in America only to find out some of the components or ingredients are Chinese.
My father-in-law fed our dog Ol’ Roy from Walmart. When he brought her back from hunting three months later her hair was falling out. We put her back on Eukanuba and she was back to normal in one week.
We can thank globalist “free trade” for the poisonings. Bypassing the controls we have here is goog for the stockholder, right? So if they settle a few lawsuits they are still ahead of the game financially.
Mine had some skin problems for a while. I started giving him xtra Vit C and fish oil, and it cleared it up in no time. Still not sure what got him, he just got real lethargic one night and died the next morning. But he was 16, and the vet commended me that he was very healthy, and sent me a card after he died.
I was pretty broken about it. He was my housemate after my wife died.
I resent the fact that I read a label on a bottle of apple juice that made it sound like the apples had been grown in the heart of America, picked by the most careful of Americans, and processed by grandma herself. Then I saw the hardly readable, tiny black print around the cap that said; "Produced from concentrate from China". And we're talking major brand here. Another brand I looked at said "Argentina/China".
mark
I am not looking forward to the day one of them goes to pheasant heaven.
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