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.
I think Martinelli’s is the only apple juice produced in America from American produce.
It was the food. I can’t feed our cat cheap food, or it will scratch itself raw. When researching why cheaper foods cause the cat’s skin sensitivity problem, I discovered something quite disturbing. Most cheap pet foods contain rendered euthanized cats, dogs, roadkill, diseased animals...
The only reason I bought Science Diet was the kennel swore by it. They said that cats need something to prevent urinary tract infections.
If possible, purchase directly from your local family farmers. Fresher foods, fewer middlemen, usually lower costs, certainty of the foodstuff origins and no money going to the Red Chinese or their PLA front businesses.
Maybe. But here’s more from the FDA.”The FDA has found melamine, a component of fertilizers and plastic utensils, in the gluten, but that may not be the culprit, said Sundlof, director of the FDA’s Center for Veterinary Medicine.
“Melamine is not very toxic as a chemical, so we’re wondering why we are seeing the kinds of serious conditions, especially the kidney failure, that we’re seeing in cats and dogs,” he said.
“We are focusing on the melamine right now because we believe that, even if melamine is not the causative agent, it is somehow associated with the causative agent, so it serves as a marker,” Sundlof said Thursday. “
Not a very strong condemnation of melamine. The theory sounds bogus to me. Melamine isn’t cheap and to use it to bump the N content for a higher price makes little economic sense. Urea would be better.
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