In a conference call with media this afternoon, USDA Assistant Administrator Kenneth Petersen revealed that as many as 3 million chickens, contaminated with melamine from a single Indiana feed mill, have already been slaughtered, distributed and eaten. An additional 100,000 breeder chickens are currently being voluntarily quarantined by farmers.
These 3.1 million chickens represent only those that fed on a single batch of feed made from melamine-tainted pet food “salvaged” in February. Petersen told reporters that the “investigation will lead to additional farms.”
I`m glad I`m vegetarian,but even veggies are poison.We should start to eat lead like good cowboys from the 50`s.
Remember one thing. Corporations must be regulated.
Again.
CORPORATIONS MUST BE REGULATED.
It’s time to strip them of their political influence. Regaining social control over corporations is as important as food is to life.
We eat organic but we do eat at restaurants sometimes, so it’s impossible to know if you’ve been affected.
Folks, this is only the beginning. The food will continually get more unhealthy – mostly due to over-farming, pesticides, and the ever vigilent Republican FDA watching our backs. Very soon the planet will be fighting over the last clean, accessible water supplies. After that it will be the air we breathe. Currently, bad air quality is having a negative effect on elderly (and young) people to the point of causing lots of breathing problems – including death. So lets add it up: Bad food, bad (or no) water, and a bad atmosphere in which to breathe. Hmmm, do those silly little inconveniences tend to scare ANYBODY ELSE?! Our ability to SURVIVE is being diminished. I think it is something our government should be paying attention to.
We need a new crop of assertive muckrakers. Corporations own our political system and Congress. The technology exists to prevent further pollution of our air, water and land as well as slow global warming and reduce USA motor fuel consumption 50%. The purchasing choices of ordinary people are also a big vote. Grow your own food if you can and get a plug in hybrid car. Calcars.org great starting place for info. Make your house a hybrid, landmarksolar.com
A great place to start.
Who do we thank for making Communist China our Number One business partner? Richard Nixon. Ironic, ain’t it?
This would be really funny if not so sad. Goldy and I exchanged e-mails in late March re Melamine in our food, livestock feed etc. How come the high paid jerks at the FDA were so slow? The head dude at FDA is from Texas, that makes me feel good! The FDA had a good idea this could have been or was happening. They needed immediately in early April to ban all food from China and start an all out investigation on where the stuff already here was. What bullshit from them that the Melanine probably or may not hurt us. Why not just grind up your counter-top and eat it or feed it to the pets or livestock. The dead and sick cats and dogs proved how deadly this shit is. If it’s deadly to them it is to people also. The D’s need to attempt to impeach these fuckers.
Before we all start running around like chickens with our heads cut off, one might want to remember that melamine is not directly toxic to humans, according to the CDC, FDA, UN, National Library of Medicine, and several other sources:
http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/ipcsneng/neng1154.html
http://www.fda.gov/cvm/MenuFoodRecallFAQ.htm
http://toxnet.nlm.nih.gov/cgi-.....a+Melamine
It has to be heated to 270C to decompose into harmful poisons.
This is not to say it may not be the safest thing in the world, just don’t think it’s the apocolypse. This is looking like another “Red dye #5” scare.
This is so sad but its what short term conservative dumb asses interested only in the profit thats right in front of them have created for all of us. Its”liberal” progressives that want regulations and *gasp* are enviromentalists. Stupid liberals trying to protect food air and water. I guess the repugnicants can eat rocks and breath CO2, wouldnt doubt it as they arent quite human.
Slarti….. While your point is well taken, it’s not the specific contaminent that worries me, rather it is the fact that the FDA, the “watch dog” which is supposed to be keeping our food and drugs safe is doing neither.
The issue is that the foxes are watching the henhouse.
Entrusting our food supply to a culture even more ruthless and insensitive to human suffering than our own corporate establishment was never a good idea. The western aristocracy has always been enamoured with the Chinese business ‘ethic’ that jails unruly workers and strikers. The control that China has on their workforce, along with their lack of social conscience, is a capitalist’s wet dream come true.
This is the same China that routinely steals American and European intellectual property, plants spies within US agencies, engages in more hunman trafficking than all other nations combined, and ships tons of phony pharmaceuticals into the US. I am all for trade, but c’mon already. At least know who to trust and who not to. It’s not that hard.
I knew from day 1 that it would soon be found in the human food supply. I am angry enough that my cats may become ill, but if I do as well, I will be taking my revenge on the FDA. Violence might be the only response they will understand.
slarti,
If not toxic to people then why is it deadly toxic to cats and dogs? The cats and dogs had no dilution in the diet. So with dilution do you just get sick, cancer or does it just take longer? They may be saying it’s not toxic to people but I sure as hell don’t believe them. We are winning in Iraq as well!
DrWolfy, I agree entirely. The main thing I worry about when things like this happen is that the incident gets hyperbolized (is that a real word??) and sensationalized, then later debunked.
This kinda leads to people thinking the next real problem is just another one of those “looney fringe” topics that we shouldn’t worry about. Which leads to inattention of legislators, no changes, etc. and then we have people harmed because of misplaced anxieties.
Folks, this is only the beginning. The food will continually get more unhealthy – mostly due to over-farming, pesticides, and the ever vigilent Republican FDA watching our backs. Very soon the planet will be fighting over the last clean, accessible water supplies. After that it will be the air we breathe. Currently, bad air quality is having a negative effect on elderly (and young) people to the point of causing lots of breathing problems – including death. So lets add it up: Bad food, bad (or no) water, and a bad atmosphere in which to breathe. Hmmm, do those silly little inconveniences tend to scare ANYBODY ELSE?! Our ability to SURVIVE is being diminished. I think it is something our government should be paying attention to.
you libs crack me up!!!!
the sky is falling the sky is falling……what do I do? Oh I hope my gov’t can save me…
Corportations bad
profits bad
gov’t good
entitlements good
Thanks for the laugh
I recently spent a month in San Francisco, with my girlfriend. We ate nearly every meal at home — healthy food we cooked from fresh ingredients we picked from a good local market and a reputable grocery store. Most of our meals involved pork — pork tenderloin, italian sausage, prosciutto, mortadella, or pork chops. The FDA asserts that pork constitutes "only a small part of the average American diet", but until this scandal was revealed, it was the primary source of protein in ours.
We were eating a lot of pork because it is cheaper than beef, lamb, and fish (our favorites), and more flavorful than chicken. We are also a bit freaked by all the salmonella problems in industrialized chicken. We are really good cooks, and careful with what we eat. And we never ate so well as we did this past month. But for some reason we were feeling sick nearly the whole time — like something we ate was spoiled. Specifically, we had lots of gas. Nearly the whole month. Our tummies wouldn’t stop gurgling. We were also strangely thirsty, but this symptom was not evident enough to associate with the gurgling.
It’s now been a week since we last ate pork, and our symptoms vanished as soon as we stopped eating it. My strong hunch is we were eating pork tainted with melamine. Of course some other explanation is possible, but it really did seem like our diet was the cause of our problems. And everything was fresh and good. Melamine in the pork would explain the strange circumstances. If our problems had happened when we were eating out more often like we usually do, I’d attribute them to bad luck with poor quality in restaurant kitchens. But since we personally picked, inspected, and prepared all the food we were putting into our stomachs, we’ve been looking for some other answer. Maybe this is it.
What are the human symptoms of melamine consumption? Has anyone else experienced anything similar?
By the way, I submitted nearly an identical comment to the Washington Post, regarding their article of April 27th covering the FDA’s admission that melamine had made its way into the pork supply (supposedly limited to a maximum of 300 animals). It never appeared on their site. They must have censored it. I also posted this comment on a random blog I found that discussed the melamine issue, but I doubt it attracts much of a reader base. So I posted it as a comment on Mr. Goldstein’s article on the issue on the Huffington post. Now I’m posting it here. Thank you for covering this issue. I hope my comments encourage more discussion about it.
I have no way of knowing whether my girlfriend and I were in fact eating pork tainted with melamine. But whether we did or we didn’t, I believe this scandal is serious and safeguards must be put in place to make sure that something else like it, or worse, does not happen again. Our food supply is too vulnerable. Our massive and complex industrialized food supply chains make it too easy for problems like this to spread far and wide before they can be discovered, isolated, and prevented. Our government needs to take a much more proactive stance toward protecting our food supply. I do hope we take a much closer look at what we are putting into our bodies.
There’s an article in the Toronto Globe & Mail today discussing how fully half of the foreign spies CSIS (the Canadian CIA) has identified living in Canada work for the Chinese, with the resulting technolgical theft valued at a billion dollars a month. The spying, lying, “get ahead at all costs” ethic seems to ignore national boundaries. It’s endemic to the Chinese economic system, and serves as Exhibit A for why we should stop buying their goods, and stop patronizing businesses who follow the Wal-Mart business model.
robin,
Bushco doesn’t control the U.N. or past results of the CDC and National Medical Library records, etc. I know the FDA might not be the best source of information with the history of dis-information and outright lies of the “Bushies”, that’s why I included the other links.
There are also other things that are toxic to pets that are not toxic to humans, btw. Like chocolate.
BREAKING NEWS
Bush just vetoed giving our troops the money he requested.
Puddybud thinks giving troops money for Traumatic Brain Injuries and better armored vehicles is “PORK.”
But it’s OK to borrow $5 Trillion dollars form countries like China so Paris Hiltion and Brittney Spears can get their much needed TAX CUTS!
“This is a prescription for chaos and confusion, and we must not impose it on our troops,” Bush said. “… after vetoing funding for the TROOPS.
As if there is law in order in Iraq.
What a fucking pussy Bush is. Like all TROOP HATING conservatives.
I say Impeach the Mother Fucker!
18
How does it feel to be on the same side as our enemies?
What will you cut and run types do when we win in Iraq?
The only way Democrats “win” is if the USA “loses”
Nice strategy.
Why not ask your party leadership, Harry “this war is lost” Reid who won? Al Qaeda?
the doom and gloom predictions on this site are another example of bad science education in this country. Just because an animal ingests a substance does not mean that it ends up in their muscle tissue. The studies posted above point to how withing 24 hours animals eliminate 90% of melamine in their urine. So unless you plan on eating lots of chicken kidneys I wouldn’t worry about this incident too much. Other things going wrong and a corrupt FDA, yes there are things to worry about, but not melamine in chickens.
Gadfrey! I wonder where the Montlake Alehouse gets their chicken!
I guess if I manage to show up at DL this evening, I’m going to stick to a hummus plate or fish and chips.
Actually, Al Quaeda is winning. One of his stated goals is to get us in many wars and “bleed” us to death establishing situations where recruitment for his organization is easy.
The tainted food for animals and people is but another example of the supposed “incompetance” of this administration. I don’t think that they are that incompetent. Like the automobile companies that would rather pay off individual lawsuits on known safty problems because THE OVERALL COST OF RETOOLING IS MORE EXPENSIVE , this mantra is applied to about everything that they touch, a war for contract money and oil rights, creating a permanent ruling body by politicizing every dept. of the government, creating a system of super cheap labor through illegal immigration, not healthcare for the working poor. It all seems to be about maximizing profits for the wealthy. When caught in skulldugery act stupid, ignore supoenas, declare National Security and executive priviledge to hide truth, allowing the neocons, military industrial complex, and self appointed rulers to escape with their profits.
WrongStuff at 20:
We are caught in the middle of a civil war. There is no losing, there is just getting out. Cut and run is a great sound bite, but not even in the same room as reality. How have we lost by leaving? Only in your small minded world is that possible. It is time to leave the desert dwellers alone, to sort out their own problems. They don’t want democracy, they crave theocracy and we should let them have it.
By leaving we allow the Iraqi people to manifest their own destiny. By leaving we save countless live, both foreign and American. By leaving we can focus on issues far more important to the American majority….our domestic economy.
Quit being an argumentative jackass. Quit talking the party line that BushCo has brainwashed you with. Quit trying to push against a tide that is so big and so blue that you are not going to see red for the next 24 years.
Buck up, accept that Republican ideals and rule failed. They failed miserably. The most complete failure in American political history. Rife with corruption and scandals of all manner.
You have lost the fight.
Funny how that works.
20 You….just….don’t…get…it, do you?
It’s already lost. It was lost before it started.
The only thing we’re going to “win” by persisting is more Americans coming home dead and maimed.
This poisoning of the food supply was not an accident. It was planned by the same traitors that engineered 911.
Bear in mind the anthrax used in the white powder scare came from US military sources.
I personally know three people who entered the hospital in an emergency for digestive disorders in December 2006. They were all young and healthy until they ate suspected food items.
My safety rules are eat as much non-corporate pure food as possible. This rule is helping the three who were sick to recover.
hey lakelady, I don’t think people are freaking out about melamine. People are getting fed up with the obvious dangers inherent in the ridiculously massive and overcomplicated supply chains that lead to the products we find on our grocery store shelves, and the apparent lack of oversight from the government agencies tasked with guaranteeing food safety.
The melamine scandal is just one more of a string that prove the egregious vulnerabilities in this system. E coli in our spinach, and salmonella in our peanut butter are just two more recent examples. How many deaths are necessary before this government takes a serious look at improving food safety? Self-regulation is not enough, but it’s the mantra of the Bush administration. No wonder, when the republicans are solidly in the pocket of Big Agro (and so many of the democrats are too).
The causes of these recent scandals appear to be accidental in the case of the spinach and the peanut butter, and greed in the case of the melamine. How vulnerable do you think we are to an intentional poisoning of our food supply? The Bush administration uses their supposed “war on terror” as a rallying cry to stir our patriotic juices, but how poised do you think they are to do protect us from an attack via our food or water?
I don’t think I’m going to get sick from a limited exposire to melamine poisoning, but prolonged exposure is another thing. It is a proven carcinogen. There is no excuse for it to exist in our food supply.
I am sick of this administration making excuses for their multitude of failings while at the same time they try to scare us into believing that were anyone else in power the country would be more vulnerable to terror. Nothing could be further from the truth. Moreover, I am sick of the steady diet of lies they feed us to protect their interests, put us in line behind their agenda, and hide their failures. As this scandal continues to percolate it is already evident that the FDA was flat out wrong when they assured us last week that the contamination was limited to a maximum of 345 hogs that entered the food supply? See: the washington post article on the subject. We know already the exposure was much greater than that, and I feel sure the number will only get exponentially larger.
This conversation is straying from the topic at hand, but as long as the bushies have taken us there, I feel compelled to respond. This is not just government incompetence, this is malfeasance. And this is hardly the most egregious example.
@24
“Quit being an argumentative jackass. Quit talking the party line that BushCo has brainwashed you with. Quit trying to push against a tide that is so big and so blue that you are not going to see red for the next 24 years.”
Oh but is so much fun, especially in the face of the GBS talking points….
I do see a hard road ahead. The only way the fledgling democracy in Iraq can survive is with security. Right now that is on the USA to provide. Increasingly, it is transfering to Iraqi’s. We will come home, on our terms….that is no party line, just common sense.
In terms of Ideals, ideas, leadership…..the only blue wave I see is “hate bush, get bush, bash bush” … That worked in 06. It may work again in 08. Bush isn’t running in 08, nor any of his admin. So we have yet to see these great “ideas” from the democrats.
By the way, how’s this for an idea. If we are doomed in Iraq, and that is what Democrats think, then quite the bull and vote to stop funding now. Force of conviction.
timetables? what kind of weak knee’d policy is that.
We disagree on this issue, but I respect what you have done for this counntry.
“718 says:
hey lakelady, I don’t think people are freaking out about melamine. People are getting fed up with the obvious dangers inherent in the ridiculously massive and overcomplicated supply chains that lead to the products we find on our grocery store shelves, and the apparent lack of oversight from the government agencies tasked with guaranteeing food safety.”
you have obviously never traveled outside of the US to any poor or third world countries. We are blessed to have the luxury of fresh produce and groceries all over our cities, many within walking distance from out homes….
You want a guarantee? Grow your own.
LakeLady and other apologists,
On Thursday’s conference call, the USDA told reporters:
The FDA now reports that 4,200 dogs and cats have died from melamine-tainted pet food, and Banfield Hospital data suggests that as many as 39,000 may have been sickened. The USDA is spending millions of taxpayer dollars to compensate farmers to “depopulate” and dispose of 6,000 hogs and 100,000 chickens. And the FDA is now blocking imports of all vegetable protein products from China.
AND YET… apparently, it’s still safe to eat tainted pork and chicken? You’re comfortable with that, huh? If you knew that the chicken in your freezer fed on melamine tainted feed, would you happily serve it to your young child?
We have a right to know what is in our food.
@ 26
hey man, make sure you put on that aluminum foil hat…
we’re watching…..
In terms on non corportate food? Let me put on my naturopath hat for a moment.
Let’s see. find the nearest tree, grab some bark and dig in!!!!
right stuff, I have traveled to 14 foreign countries at last count, including extended stays brazil (where my girlfriend is from), most recently two months ago. I would say I have a pretty good perspective on food quality standards around the world — almost surely better than yours. Do you really believe third world standards are the minimum we should be content in exceeding? I trust food from anywhere in Western Europe or Japan, with their much more stringent standards, than I do here. I have already spent two episodes in the hospital for sever food poisoning — the last one requiring an 8 day stay. Where did I get it, both times? The “pinnacle of civilization” — New York City. We should expect better.
Shlomo says: The western aristocracy has always been enamoured with the Chinese business ‘ethic’ that jails unruly workers and strikers.
Kind of like the new “Fairness Doctrine” push by Howard “Donk” Dean!
28 I’ll go along with you on that last point, RS. If we’re to have done with this, then it sure would be nice to get it over with, pack up and get every one of our people on a plane back home…because once we’ve crossed the chasm and decided that this thing really isn’t working, from then on they’re in harm’s way for no purpose.
The Dems in Congress are trying to find some sort of compromise, when there probably isn’t any. This President doesn’t deal in nuance. It’s either all or nothing. Without an adequate Senate majority to override vetoes, the only real way to to get the man’s attention is to either impeach him or refuse to pass a budget, period. Not sure what sort of constitutional crisis this might eventually lead to.
GBS@18:
Provide the URL link where I said the 100 Billion for the troops is pork?
Keep searching GBS. Never siad it and NEVER thunk it. I said the Moonbat!s led by Burqa Pelosi added 20 Billion $$$ in domestic pork.
But that’s okay, I’ll be your punching bag!
Hypocrits at 19 and 25
“It’s already lost. It was lost before it started”
Why aren’t you demanding that funding be pulled right now?
Why are you being such hypocrits. Congress has the votes to stop funding TODAY…….
If you believe we’ve lost, that the war is lost, then why are you not trashing every single democrat who voted for this “timetable” crap? The only congressman from WA calling for immediate retreat is Baghdad Jim.
The answer is…………..wait for it……….you have none.
The platform for you “blue wavers” is Bash Bush, Bash Republicans….and stand for nothing.
The Democrats in congress know this will never fly…It is all posturing and pandering….but to whom?
If you think we’re done, then your Democrat congress has betrayed you….
28:
While the strains of the Bob Seger song “No More” play in the background it strikes me that he is right, history is repeating itself.
We once fought a war in the jungle. A Democratic president, Johnson, tried more bombs and more men. It did not work. Why didn’t it work? The answer is because the enemy was civil war. The enemy was not North Viet Nam. We now have a president, who lied to achieve his agenda in the first place, bogged down in the same dispute, only this one is being fought in a desert. Neither side really wants us there. Nearly 70% of the American people want us out.
The presidents approval rating is in the proverbial toilet at less that 30%. This country is supposed to be run by the will of the people. Clearly that will is to get out. I understand the president was elected to be a “decider”, but he is also charged with loyalty to the American people. This president chooses to be loyal to special interests and his own over inflated ego. He can’t back down. That would be admitting he was wrong.
In my experience, and I know this in my heart of hearts, that the true measure of a man is in his ability to lead (Bush clearly lacks this skill), his ability to be honest and make honest decisions (again, Bush lacks this trait) and his ability to admit a mistake and his willingness to come clean and repair the damage when a mistake is made (Hell will freeze over and the Cubs will win TWO World Series before this happens with this president).
The time is too late to save your party. The control of Congress will become a stranglehold next year. The Senate will fall more heavily to the Dems too. You might want to look and see which Senators are up for reelection.
The mood in this country is for change. Republicans are offering the same pig with lipstick. Nice face, same pig.
We are not fooled.
can we please steer this conversation back to the topic where it belongs: food safety? there are countless other places to argue about the Occupation of Iraq.
718: You must be “new” here. Moonbat!s take every thread off on tangents. Voice of Chalk Scratching (blog leader) allows Moonbat!s free rein to go where no other sane man normally goes!
@34
I agree with what you say. But congress has the votes right now to defund this war.
Maybe not to overide a veto, but to send a bill with no funding whatsoever. Now that would put the ball in the presidents court. The democrats made this an easy deal for the president to veto.
Personally I hope every right wing nutjob feeds his or her kids this tainted meat then we can get rid of the next generation of cowards, cheats and traitors all at once.
718:
Hi,
I know you are new here. The threads usually spread out to encompass lots of topics. Don’t get frustrated with us, just skip over the posts that don’t interest you.
Now, back to our topic:
The shit is in the system. I don’t care how “safe” for human consumption it is. It is not supposed to be there. What else is there that does not belong? Just another ball dropped by BushCo. Remember, 9/11 and Katrina happened on his watch too.
Goldy asked if I was comfortable feeding the chicken in my freezer to my children. I am not comfortable feeding it to my animals, let alone my family members.
Why did it take so long to ban the shit from coming in from China? Who made how many millions by delaying what should have happened 2 minutes after it was discovered?
Right Stuff:
You must be blogging from Forward Operating Base in Iraq, huh?
NO!?!?!?!
Fuck OFF, pussy.
If you think it’s truly in America’s security interest to be in Iraq, then GO!
But you won’t. Why?
You’re a PUSSY!
.2 Michelle are you a Socialist? How about jus prosecuting? Regulations are the last thing we want even when they are necessary and we must. But you prolly doan unnerstan capitolism being a socialist.
.6 Well you can blame Nixon and Kissenger for their vision and opening hte door. The rest is a bipartisain free market of, yes, Liberals and Republicans. (notice I did not mention conservative)
.9 You actually believe that? You obviously know nothing of business or people. Pointless to say anything else to you.
11. “Entrusting our food supply to a culture even more ruthless and insensitive to human suffering than our own corporate establishment was never a good idea.”
And what heck do you do for a living? You wouldn’t even be here if not for that corperation produced computer you spew you stupidity on.
12. (thumb up) A thinking person on this blog, you guys should welcome her.
14 We can fix the problems when the socialist pig and greedmongers are identified and exposed. Not exposing them is a bi partisian effort.
18. You are a fascist socialists and no doubt don’t know enough to realize that. If I work hard and am smart and excell and you are a fucking stop and smell the roses all day moron, sex drugs and rock and roller, racist that believes I owe all I have to his ancestors sufferings, or must embrace the Catholic Spanish speaking colonialist children of the Conquistadr then you had damn well better make sure I have no gun when you pervert our Constitution and demonize my history and culture and transfer my wealth to you your ssocialist/fascist vision.
The poeple that would happily institutionalize your idealogy will have far more respect for me battling them than for your ignorant compliant ass. Your leaders know what I stand for and I will have to go. You will follow to your own oppression lika a dumb ass puppy wagging your liberal fuck tail all the way.
Ah I’m done here for now.
Puddybud,
You said the “Emergency” spending bill was full of PORK!!
How much is inconsequential to the overall point of your total and 100% hypocritical point. You bitch about 20 Billion dollars of pork but remain silent on the $5 Trillion in borrowing by the Republicans.
When you rail against the Dems for adding “pork” to a bill, do it to proportionately to the amounts squandered. Which means you have years of bitching about the $5 Trillion before you can even utter a protest burp about the $20 billion.
Don’t worry you’ll be my “punching bag?” Dude, did you forget about the time when I first came on HA and went totally Rocky Balboa on your ass?? You were my Apollo Creed “bee-otch!”
Don’t make this cracker go Rocky on you!!
AGAIN!
@ 44:
You’re done here now, huh?
What’s a matter, mommy call you out of your basement for dinner.
Run along now, your Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle spagetti-o’s are getting cold.
Oh, and try not to we the bed again. You GI Joe bedsheets are getting as yellow as the belly of a conservative.
Shit, is that why you pussies are yellow bellies? Because you wet the bed every night?
GBS: It was your side who said they will provide a new tone and went back to their old ways. Need the quotes. Then as a clincher put a time stamp on when we need to leave.
Hmmm…?
Why not just cut off funding? See where that leaves you in 2008?
Apollo @ 47:
What?!?!?!?!?!
Need I collect quotes from 2000 election??
Mr. Uniter.
Bush lost the war because he’s a failed commander in chief.
We cannot lose militarily, but as Gen. Petraus said, and many military leaders before him, there is no military solution to this fuck up.
Only a political one. Bush’s idea of international diplomayc is if Condi happens to “bump” into her Iranian counterpart.
Need the quote?
Apollo, you know you can’t avoid my stinging left jab and my right handed KO punch.
You are trying to bob and weave from my statement @ 45 re: the borrowing and spending. You will get caught with my mighty left hook on your weave and your glass jaw will shatter my friend like a cheap piece of carnival glass.
I have a hunch when the dust settles on Melamine we will find that it has gone directly into the human food supply, that is the melamine tainted veg proteins have been put into processed food. Remember the wheat glueten used by Menu and others was human grade. This story is still breaking. With that said I’m not happy it went into any animal/livestock feed and would not want to eat an animal that had been fed anything melamine tainted and deserve to know if I have.
Just because chocolate is tolerated by humans and not dogs, does not prove that one should grind the counter-top up and bake bread with it.
And for all we know it vary well might be just as toxic to humans as it has been to cats and dogs, if humans ate it constantly like the pets did.
slarti says:
Before we all start running around like chickens with our heads cut off, one might want to remember that melamine is not directly toxic to humans, according to the CDC, FDA, UN, National Library of Medicine, and several other sources:
http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/ipcsn eng/neng1154.html
http://www.fda.gov/cvm/MenuFoo dRecallFAQ.htm
http://toxnet.nlm.nih.gov/cgi- bin/sis/search/r?dbs+hsdb:@ter m+@na+Melamine
It has to be heated to 270C to decompose into harmful poisons.
****
Oh really a$$hole?
Then what temperature do you cook your food at because I sure as hell cook mine at at least 350 for a bit.
I’m surprised you found the on switch for your computer.
Go eat some chicken.
@ 44:
Thats’s your response? I’m very impressed.
I posted this repeatedly so you can see it.
http://www.usatoday.com/money/.....usat_N.htm
Inspectors are now allowed to detain vegetable-protein imports from China because they may contain the chemical melamine. Melamine, used in the manufacture of plastics, was found in the wheat gluten and rice protein concentrate that has led to the recall of 5,300 pet food products.
Melamine’s effects on humans, if ingested, is unclear. In fact, the chemical has not been found in earlier tests to be highly toxic, a fact that has scientists looking for second chemical agent that could be increasing its toxicity.
http://www.iht.com/articles/20.....30food.php By David Barboza and Alexei Barrionuevo
Published: April 29, 2007
ZHANGQIU, China: As American food safety regulators head to China to investigate how a chemical made from coal found its way into pet food that killed dogs and cats in the United States, workers in this heavily polluted northern city openly admit that the substance is routinely added to animal feed as a fake protein.
For years, producers of animal feed all over China have secretly supplemented their feed with the substance, called melamine, a cheap additive that looks like protein in tests, even though it does not provide any nutritional benefits, according to melamine scrap traders and agricultural workers here.
In recent years, for instance, China’s food safety scandals have involved everything from fake baby milk formulas and soy sauce made from human hair to instances where cuttlefish were soaked in calligraphy ink to improve their color and eels were fed contraceptive pills to make them grow long and slim.
I believe that if this is of interest to you it will lead to other thinking, maybe even some research.
Just remember the word ‘inert’. It will come to mind again.
Dear UnbalancedStuff
Today’s response is brought to you by the letters “F”, and “U”.
GFY, troll.
DKarma says: Nuthin much. He/she/it can’t tell the diff’rence between Centigrade and Fahrenheit.
Must be a Moonbat!
GBS: Wow you need to go back to 2000? I was quoting September/October 2006
karma1, you can buy a breadmaker or make it the old- fashioned way. i make bread each night in my breadmaker with organic flour. needless to say, i skip the gluten and it comes out fine. use extra organic butter. it takes about 2 minutes to set up, smells great, and the kids love it. i hope your son does well… as for the state of our food safety, i will only eat organic (minimizing additives as much as humanly possible)and no meat.
I tend to agree with Goldy on this one, but I’m not in a panic over it.
Look up the Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) for melamine and you find the LD50 dosage is 3.5g/kg. If you weigh 180 lbs. (81 kg) and you ate 0.6 pounds of melamine, it would kill you 50% of the time. This is a fairly large amount.
Dogs and cats died because they were fed melamine directly and they are much smaller animals than humans. The chickens, if they survived the inital dosage, probably had melamine metabolites in their bodies. Not good, but not as bad as direct contamination.
However, the US should slap an across the board ban on _all_ food products from China until _they_ prove their food is not contaminated and we verify the data.
slarti should just grind some melamine up and eat it, then check back in.
Now I find out that our vitamins are being made in China for the most part, and there’s the lead issue as well as the fact that safety and quality cannot be guaranteed. I’ve emailed Dr. Weill to find out if his brand contains any ingredients from China (he should be supporting the survival of Tibet and healthy products). We need labeling of source for all ingredients so those who wish can vote with their pocketbook. No supplements are better than taking ones that can’t be verified.
Support your local farmer’s market. Eat as locally as possible. Buy goods made here that you really need, buy used, and when you do buy imported goods support countries that have labor and environmental standards and can guarantee what they produce is of quality. A country that manufacturers nothing except complicated ponzi schemes and bogus military campaigns is in rapid decline. I recently found out that my health care plan is a scam…they don’t pay up and blame it on the application that they didn’t check, make a huge profit (over 20 percent), and spend a lot buying politicians. What has happened to this country? After Reagan it is hardly recognizable. The earth will never be the same after this experience in excess without excellence.
If I may, I’d like to add a somewhat-related thought that sometimes wakes me up in the middle of the night…..
Being that we test less than 1% of cows slaughtered in the US, how many cases of mad cow disease have gotten through so far?
Hell, if melanine could get this far into our food supply and it’s easier to test for that then mad cow disease, the odds are very high that at least some of us have eaten tainted beef without ever knowing it.
Makes me laugh at Bush’s comment of how he’s going to feed the Prime Minister a hamburger. Mr. PM, if I were you, I’d have the salad (but skip the spinach, ok?)
Dkarma UI tried to follow all 3 of the links ya posted. They didn’t work case no one told ya.
61.
So, you are unconcerned about melamine because it is unlikely that one could ingest a lethal dose at one sitting? For starters, that’s too high a tolerance for poison than I am comfortable with. Beyond that, it is clear to me that there is no safe level that can be added to food.
It’s bad enough that I have to expose myself to mercury in tuna if I want to eat any of it. I don’t want Star Kist to add more when they can the stuff though.
Tuna packer CEO “Oh, I see that the natural mercury level is lower this month, let’s add some to make the product heavier.”
Puddybud @ 59:
STOP IT!
The relevancy is that Bush lied then, he lied after and still lies today.
Only a dishonest person would discount the relevancy of Bush’s lies due to a time limit parameter.
So which is it?
A) Bush is dishonest.
B) You’re dishonest.
C) Both of you are dishonest.
Wonder how many low-level contaminated eggs have been sold during that time? Even chickens fed “all vegetarian diets” like the eggs I buy are at risk, no doubt, from contaminated vegetable proteins like those used in pet foods.
Let’s Eat Hemp!
Plastic Plates …. By Laura Vecsey
I like my yellowcake
served on plastic plates.
I wouldn’t eat it
any other way.
Except, of course, for plastic plates
served in the yellowcake.
Then that is how I’ll have my cake
and eat it, too.
They call it purified ore
the prime ingredient of yellowcake
and yet it does such nasty things.
And the ground up plates
inside my yellowcake
makes me yearn for a glass of milk
but mama won’t let me drink it
ever since the cows ate plastic plates.
melamine has probably been used for years except the bandoras box was open when the charge when numbers of
pets were killed.
The use of melamine at a small amount has been used
for years but money matters caught up to the use of
a product that smells tastes and looks like a protein
but is not a protein.
MONEY MONEY MONEY … the Bottom line is the answer..
PROFIT PROFIT PROFIT PROFIT and MORE … money
I’m rather shocked some people are dismissing the introduction of melamine into our food supply as if it is nothing to be concerned about. I agree melamine does not appear to be as toxic as many other poisons. It’s not like we’ve been ingesting dioxin. But I took some time to research the expert opinion on melamine toxicity, and it does not look good.
The Physical and Theoretical Chemistry Laboratory at Oxford University in England identifies the following risks of melamine exposure:
Harmful if swallowed, inhaled or absorbed through the skin. Chronic exposure may cause cancer or reproductive damage. Eye, skin and respiratory irritant.
See the report yourself by following this link: the Oxford University Department of Chemistry report on melamine toxicology.
Melamine has no rightful place in our food supply. We should take measures to prevent it from being there, and we should punish the corporate cheats who put it there — strongly. We should also take a close look to make sure no other such substances are being introduced into the food supply for selfish corporate profit at the expense of the health of all of us. It is, or it should definitely be, criminal.
It is not just the health risks I am concerned with. I am furious at the apparent lack of ethics displayed by the greedy corporations responsible. And I am dismayed our government has such a laissez-faire approach to corporate regulation they seem unwilling to do much of anything to prevent it.
I am no fan of bureaucracy. But our government must play an important role in balancing the interests of the whole of our population against the amoral drive of corporations toward ever-increasing profit. Without adequate regulation and oversight, the corporate profit incentive leads to the exploitation and abuse of the rest of us.
Maybe the situation was not so dire years ago. Maybe we could place a more trust in corporations to regulate themselves when we were dealing with a national economy — when the companies who fed and supplied us were within our own borders. I’m not even convinced of that. But one thing I know for sure is now that we have entered a vast global economy, there are few assurances about the quality of the products that make it to our store shelves, and there is little we know about the conditions under which they were manufactured.
Unsafe and unsanitary manufacturing processes are much more common in many places overseas than they are here. Our labor laws and quality standards have no bearing outside our borders. And whatever our standards of corporate ethics and responsibility may be in the U.S. (and they are certainly not always without reproach), companies operate under different standards overseas. And in this global marketplace, it is too often the companies who manufacture the cheapest products who are rewarded with shelfspace at Walmart or the contract at Menu Foods, and elsewhere — regardless as to any serious ethical concerns. This is a downward spiral that cannot continue to exist without continued problems like what we have been seeing.
We can not turn the clock back now and withdraw from the global economy — nor do I think we should. But thoughtful government oversight and regulation is an essential component in this system for the global marketplace to work. Without out it we will suffer further detriment to our society and standard of living.
This has been just my two yuan. Thanks for hearing me out if you got this far. Hehe — maybe I should start my own blog instead of ranting at such length here.
Chronic exposure may cause reproductive damage? Be sure to feed this to Mr Stupid quickly!