It is time for the Food and Drug Administration and the media covering it to stop pretending that our nation’s massive pet food recall only concerns our pets, for the more we learn about common food industry practices, the breadth and scope of melamine contamination, and the lack of adequate regulatory safeguards, the more it becomes apparent that our entire food supply isn’t nearly as safe as the average consumer assumes it to be.
The industrial chemical melamine has now been discovered in multiple high-protein food additives — wheat, corn and rice gluten — from multiple Chinese manufacturers, leading industry experts to conclude that not only was the contamination intentional, but that such “economic adulteration” is disturbingly widespread, at least in China. Testifying this morning before the House Committee on Energy & Commerce, ChemNutra CEO Steve Miller — the importer of melamine-tainted wheat gluten that killed or sickened as many as 39,000 dogs and cats — explains the theory:
“We at ChemNutra strongly suspect, at this point, that XuZhou Anying Biologic Technology Development Co. Ltd may have added melamine to the wheat gluten as an “economic adulteration” designed to make inferior wheat gluten appear to have a higher protein content. They can sell it to us at the price we would pay for a higher-quality product because the melamine, our experts tell us, falsely elevates the results of a nitrogen-content test used to assess protein content. Melamine is not something that we or, anyone else, including the FDA was ever testing for in the past, though of course we are now.
We have recently been told that there was a prior history of this same kind of economic adulteration related to a similar agricultural commodity about three decades ago, where this commodity was adulterated with urea, another nitrogen intensive additive, which had at the time become inexpensive enough to economically use to fool the protein testing.”
Given the facts and the known history, no other theory can adequately explain the contamination, regardless of what FDA investigators eventually find once they are permitted entry to China. One synthetic organic chemist explained that he could think of no other chemical better suited to such economic adulteration than melamine. “What you would look for” he told me, “is an additive that is nontoxic, nonvolatile, high in nitrogen… and dirt cheap.” At approximately 66-percent nitrogen by weight, with no explosive characteristics or previously known toxicity, and widely available for less than a penny a gram, melamine was the obvious choice.
If these known batches of adulterated gluten have not made it directly into the human food supply, it is only by sheer luck, but last week it was confirmed that the toxin most likely did make its way into American kitchens in the form of melamine-tainted pork from hogs fed on “salvage” pet food, exposing yet more of the dirty underbelly of our food industry.
What is “salvage” pet food, and why was it fed to hogs? A spokesperson for Diamond Pet Foods explained that the mixture from the beginning of each production run is “too high in moisture content to run through the manufacturing process,” and that this is provided to farms with non-ruminant animals as “salvage” under regulatory guidelines. In all of its communications regarding the hog poisoning incident, Diamond is careful to frame the little known “salvage” and “distressed” pet food market in the best possible light.
“It is a common regulated practice for animal food facilities to provide salvage product to farms with non-ruminant animals. This regulated practice is mindful of the environment as it does not waste energy (food) and saves valuable landfill space.”
Yeah sure, in fact, feeding salvage and distressed pet food to livestock apparently is a common practice… in the U.S. North of the border, however, not so much. Indeed, according to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency:
Because livestock animals are grown as food for humans, and pets are not, the pet food industry is able to make use of ingredients which may be unsuited for use in livestock feeds. Thus it is not acceptable to subsequently reintroduce these ingredients back into livestock feeds as waste pet food material. […] Pet food, including salvaged and distressed pet food, is not an approved ingredient for use in livestock feed and as such its inclusion is not considered safe and will not be allowed at this time.
Makes sense. Unsuitable ingredients include those not approved for use in livestock feeds as listed in Schedule IV or V of the Canadian Feeds Regulations. (Interestingly, “rice gluten” or “rice protein concentrate” appear nowhere on the list. Or, for that matter, in the FDA’s EAFUS — Everything Added to Food in the United States — database. Go figure.)
Other ingredients unsuited for livestock feed — in Canada — include those that “may contain animal proteins […] which may be prohibited from feeding to ruminants.” You know, it just isn’t kosher (literally and figuratively) to feed cows, um… cows.
And according to a brochure provided by the Pet Food Institute, the same ruminant cannibalism prohibition holds true here. Sorta. In the U.S., salvage and distress pet food may be repurposed for livestock feed, but must be labeled “Do Not Feed to Cattle or Other Ruminants” if it contains any mammalian protein at all. That is, any mammalian protein except:
- Milk products.
- Gelatin.
- Blood and blood products.
- Pure pork or horse protein.
- And inspected meat products of any type which have been cooked and offered for human food (such as “plate scrapings”) and further heat processed for animal feed.
Yuck. Who knew that in the U.S. your unfinished burger could make its way into cattle feed via salvage dog feed, and then back onto your plate in the form of another burger? That type of dedication to recycling I can do without.
I thought one of the take-home messages from the whole Mad Cow crisis was that it was unsafe and unnatural to feed animal protein to ruminants meant for human consumption, and yet the practice apparently continues to this day. Our lax, salvage pet food regulations have already directly led to human consumption of melamine-tainted pork, and there is no reason to be confident that this and other dangerous chemicals or diseases haven’t contaminated our beef and dairy supply. If it is unacceptable to feed salvaged pet food to livestock in Canada, it should be unacceptable here in the U.S. as well.
There has been much talk recently about the FDA lacking the funding and staffing necessary to adequately police our globalizing food industry, but after six years of Bush administration control, it also clearly lacks the leadership and mandate as well. This isn’t merely an issue about management — it is ideological — and by now it should be clear to objective observers that the FDA’s and other federal regulatory agencies’ over-reliance on industry self-regulation has put the health, safety and welfare of the American public at risk.
This is what comes from electing politicians who despise government, and who appoint regulators who do not believe in regulation.
So, you righties out there, do you feel comfortable letting “the market” ensure the safety of our food supply, or do you think maybe a little governmental regulation and oversight of the food supply might be in order?
Goldy,
Your spot on regarding the safety of our food supply chain.
There is only one thing I’d change about your opening paragraph.
It is time for the Food and Drug Administration and the media covering it to stop pretending that our nation’s massive pet food recall only concerns our pets, for the more we learn about common food industry practices, the breadth and scope of melamine contamination, and the lack of adequate regulatory safeguards, the more it becomes apparent that our entire food supply isn’t nearly as safe as the average consumer remembers what it used to be.
Goldy
Congratulations on your article!!! The subject is as serious as The Jungle by Upton Sinclair and should receive as much attention!1
1 – this subject crosses all political lines so your comment was not really necessary
Goldy the Muckraker!! Sounds kind of good to me!!
Let’s not forget the Bush administration wanted to lay off all the federal meat inspectors, delegate inspection authority to the meatpackers, and give them federal grants to hire their own inspectors.
In other words, your tax dollars would still pay the meat inspectors, but instead of being federal employees, they would now be low-wage no-benefit employees of the meatpackers. Their job would be to stamp “approved” on every rancid, maggoty, rat-eaten carcass coming down the packaging line.
Nothing — not even your health or life — is sacred to these corrupt, thieving, lying Republican motherbeaters.
me @ 4
Actually, it’s a fundamental question that laissez-faire conservatives need to answer. Sure, the “subject crosses all political lines,” which is precisely why anti-regulation, pro-market, small government advocates need to step up to the plate and tell us how the market has not failed us in this regard. Your response is, frankly, that of a coward. Defend the market in all instances or give us a principled basis for excluding this particular subject from your general position.
me @ 4:
While I agree with your view that the safety of our food chain cuts across all party lines, PL has valid points regarding the attitude of conservatives. It’s their genreal belief that government is incompetent, overreaching, or downright bad that leads to deregulation or complete lack of regulations that causes our safety to become vulnerable.
Maybe al Qeada has the internet in their caves and maybe they will realize that they don’t have to “fight us over here” if they can taint our food supply system in China.
Can you imagine the economic repercussions if our food supply system was poinsoined by terroirst because George W. Bush and the Republicans cut corners at the US FDA to help pay for the tax cuts that Paris Hilton & Britney Spears are enjoying?
“Karl Rove’s Jim Crow Voter Suppression Machine is Fine, All Ready for Election 2008
“A BUZZFLASH EDITORIAL
“It was an April 21st article that could easily escape your notice: ‘Ruling lets Arizona require proof of citizenship from voters.’
“The first paragraph of the Associated Press story reads, ‘A federal appeals court on Friday rejected an attempt to halt enforcement of Arizona’s first-in-the-nation requirement that all residents prove they are U.S. citizens when they first register to vote.’
“Not that the one article in itself should set off alarm bells. But when you put together evidence from the Bush Administration in regards to voter suppression tactics … it becomes clear — as Greg Palast has been warning us – that the Bush Republican Party plans to hold onto the White House for the GOP in 2008 through whatever means possible.
“The key electoral strategy, beginning with the infamous ‘felon purge’ in Florida in 2000, has been minority voter suppression. And when they can’t suppress enough votes, they just steal the election, as Scalia and the Supreme Court … did to put Bush in office. …
“ProsecutorGate has revealed the missing link that tied the Rovian ‘Jim Crow’ game plan together in one neat package.
It goes something like this. First, use every means possible to suppress minority and other Democractic votes. This includes passing ‘Jim Crow’ style voting laws in the states. Secondly, employ tactics like the Florida felon purge to deny voting rights to Democrats. Thirdly, use U.S. prosecutors to magnify minor voting irregularities in Democratic areas and make it appear as if the Dems are engaging in widespread voter fraud. Fourthly, use the legal action brought by partisan GOP U.S. Attorneys to have loyalist Republicans cite them as justification for ‘Jim Crow’ laws at the state level.
“Actually, the U.S. Attorney component is vital to the overall Rove electoral strategy for several reasons. One, it is most often employed before elections (in relation to voter registration, etc.) to try and influence electoral outcomes in favor of Republicans …. Two, it helps to cover up widespread and orchestrated Republican voter fraud. (Remember the New Hampshire phone jamming case that was tied directly to the RNC. The RNC paid more than a million dollars in legal fees to defend the perpetrators of the illegal effort to interfere with a Union voter turnout effort. And who was doing political work through the RNC e-mail system? Karl Rove and other White House staffers, including his … protégé who was just appointed U.S. Attorney in Little Rock.) Three, it gives Republican state legislators ‘evidence’ to ‘demand’ tough voter registration and voter identification requirements.
“Of course, Rove’s long-term voter suppression strategy doesn’t include Rove’s long-term vote theft strategy, which is an additional story related to electronic voting and packing the courts with right-wing hacks.
“What is clear is that the Bush Administration is not continuing to try to expand totalitarian ‘Unitary Executive’ authority so that the Bush Republicans can hand over a virtually unchallengeable presidency to a Democrat. They are steam rolling a dictatorial presidency forward with the expectation that they will be handing over unprecedented powers to a Republican.
“As BuzzFlash has written before, remember that after all of the hullabaloo about the replacement of U.S. Attorneys with GOP hit men and women who will do Rove’s bidding, those loyalists are still in place and gearing up for carrying out the political dirty work that will help defeat a Democrat for president in 2008.
“Furthermore, the U.S. Attorneys who weren’t fired and have cooperated with Rove’s grand scheme to deny minorities the right to vote … are also still in place.
“Gonzales may or may not stay in office. But whether he leaves or not, you can be sure that his replacement — an Orrin Hatch or Ted Olsen, for example – will make sure that the Department of Justice’s role in voter suppression keeps humming along.
“The RNC and Rove e-mails that the White House claims are ‘lost’ no doubt would reveal the grand scheme behind the effort for the Bush Republicans to control the U.S. government for 100 years, as Rove has bragged.
“It won’t be because they received the most votes. It will be because they suppressed the most votes. And Rove is smiling because the machine he built is not being dismantled. To the contrary, it is just being fine-tuned.
“Ex-Justice Dept. Attorneys Accuse Bush Admin of Restricting African American Vote to Favor Republicans
“Another scandal is brewing inside Alberto Gonzales’ Justice Department. Former Justice Department attorneys have publicly accused the Bush administration of politicizing the department’s Civil Rights Division which was formed 50 years ago to protect the voting rights of African-Americans.
“According to … McClatchy newspapers, the Bush administration has pursued an aggressive legal effort to restrict voter turnout in key battleground states in ways that favor Republican political candidates.
“The administration did this in part by alleging widespread election fraud in largely Democratic areas and to push new voter ID rules. Civil rights advocates contend that the administration’s policies were intended to disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of poor and minority voters who tend to support Democrats. Read more: http://www.democracynow.org/ar...../04/24/144…
Roger Rabbit Commentary: Under the Voting Records Act, interfering with the voting rights of minority voters is a felony crime. This means Rove, Griffin, and every GOP operative, local party staffer, and campaign volunteer who touches a “caging” list or goes to a polling place to challenge minority voter is prosecutable and could go to federal prison. The reason they haven’t been indicted yet is obviously because the Bush-Rove organized crime gang still controls the DOJ. But wait until President Obama’s Attorney General and U.S. Attorneys are in place — there WILL be investigations, indictments, and prosecutions of the fascists who tried to steal our democracy. All you GOP motherfuckers are going to jail! You can count on it. We’re going to hunt you down even if it takes 100 years, like the Israelis hunted the Nazis .
I can see it coming — Canada will ban all U.S. pork imports, in fact all U.S. agricultural products, on the grounds U.S. regulatory practices render our human food unfit for human consumption.
I wonder if the Chinese are willing to eat meat from American livestock we fed their gluten to? Betcha their import regulations keep it out of their country.
If you want to know what foods the Chinese are adulterating, just read the Chinese food import regulations. They’re a roadmap to what they’re adultering.
I’ll bet the Chinese don’t even feed this stuff to their political prisoners! (You know, the people who stand up to their waists in vats full of tanning chemicals and stir the cowhides with their feet.) You know damn well they don’t feed this crap to THEIR dogs! They must be laughing their asses off at those silly Americans eating tainted pork while they sit at their dinner tables eating Fido.
Well, at least it’s nice to know that if I’m starving (may or may not be a market failure)I’ll know better than to warm up and eat the cabinet work.
@11: Current “free market” product development has already rendered(sic) pork completely inedible in this country. As a vegetarian, you may not be up to speed on this.
See a recent issue of Harper’s for more background (not sure which one–last couple of months).
To all: Tom Hartman says Rove may be indicted under the Hatch Act by the obscure federal agency that oversees enforcement of said act.
Check it out.
Who knew that in the U.S. your unfinished burger could make its way into cattle feed via salvage dog feed, and then back onto your plate in the form of another burger?
I did, but then I read “Mad Cow USA.” This is the book that really describes the policies and practices of the agricultural-industrial complex…including the rendering of your dead pets for inclusion in…you guessed it…pet food. If you don’t pay your vet extra to have your pet cremated, it goes into the rendering barrel.
Goldy, I see a lot of people discussing how upset they are over at Itchmo and looking for something constructive to do. Aside from contacting our Congresscritters, folks like the Center for Media and Democracy (though I imagine Rampton and Stauber are all over this, as it fits in not only with “Mad Cow USA” but “Toxic Sludge is Good for You” as well), is there anything people can do to get this more visible? It isn’t appearing in the newspapers AT ALL. Do they just not have any reporters anymore who understand enough basic science (or government policy) to understand the issue? WTF???
@17: There is some reportage on the Net that David Iglesias may have been the person who filed the complaint that led to this investigation. The head of the OSC, however, is reported to be a complete tool, so I don’t expect too much to come of it.
#8 Did I mention anywhere that I was defending the market? Please re-read my comments. The government, in many cases, is absolutely necessary to be present ensure that the markets are not overstepping the bounds from insider trader, to passing off useless medication, to keeping our food supply safe from contamination, etc etc etc (Thats etc to the third power)!!
Why do you think I mentioned ‘Upton Sinclair’
Oh, and I forgot “Trust Us, We’re Experts,” another Stauber/Rampton book that goes into how this works. The Toxic Sludge book is how the PR industry works, while this one is about fake science as employed by the PR industry, more specifically.
#9 – So how do know that some Islam fanatic did not take a dump on the lettuce fields in California.
Your point that conservatives are libertarians is not necessarily true. Many conservatives and liberals want the government to their job to ensure that our food supply is safe so you can not arbitrarily link these type of issues politically. That was the basis of my comment in #4.
Also – To arbitrarily assign political labels to people based on a single point of view on a very singular subject is not very logical. All people have very diversified views on many, many different subjects that can be considered ‘political’ that cross the gamut from conservative to liberal.
#11 and #16:
Gee – your comments remind of the movie ‘Soylent Green’
‘Joke’:
Question:
What do you call a ‘mad’ cow that has gone from farm to market?
Answer:
Deranged
There’s a developing story in which it appears that the Web site for the Ohio Secretary of State’s office, which is normally hosted by the Ohio Supercomputer Center, was moved at the time of the 2004 election to Smartech Corp. in Tennessee–which also happens to be the company that provides hosting services for the Republican National Committee, including the illegal private email system set up for the White House staff. After the election, it was moved back.
Getting back to the original topic, how close are we getting to Soylent Green?
I wish to be the modern day John Kerry, Paul Reickhoff says says:
Iava site quote.
“To calculate the Ratings, IAVA reviewed all legislation voted on in the Congress since September 11, 2001. For each piece of legislation that affected troops, veterans or military families, IAVA took a position either in support of, or in opposition to its passage. The letter grades were derived, using the scales below, from the percentage of times that each legislator’s vote matched the official IAVA stance.”
Ok, GBS – Who derived the “official IAVA stance?
Committee of one, Paul Rieckoff? who knows?
We do know that the would be John Kerry is ambitious..Just like the real deal. All he needs now is a wealthy heiress to marry, and a presidential election to lose.
The american people can see who supports the troops and who doesn’t. Just ask the troops.
28 Yeah…seems Kevin Tillman and Jessica Lynch had quite a bit to say about that.
“The american people can see who supports the troops and who doesn’t. Just ask the troops.”
Uh, no. The american people make their voice heard via the ballot box. See elections, US, November 2006, for further elucidation.
Do we ask fucking bond traders to ascertain “who supports capitalism and who doesn’t?”. Do we ask wingnut preachers to find out “who supports religion and who doesn’t?”
As usual, wingnut idiots such as yourself have a rather odd way of divining ‘truth’, but OK, let’s use your method. Ask the question “who is destroying america?”, but only Democrats are allowed to answer.
Fucking dolt.
To whomever said “The american people can see who supports the troops and who doesn’t. Just ask the troops.”
My brother is on his 2nd Iraq tour – 82nd Airborne – Army.
Before he shipped out this time, he doesn’t see why we are in Iraq. He says things are worse this time, rather than better.
I definitely support him. I certainly don’t want to see him used, mutilated, and tossed – as this administration seems to be hellbent on doing. If he was there doing good for the American people, I’d feel a bit differently – so would he. That’s just not the case though.
As for asking the troops,
Be careful what you wish for, you might get it.
s/
Before he shipped out this time,
/
Before he shipped out this time, we were talking about the war, he says…
art@27………way back in the early 70’s scientists [especially chemists] were stating that by the year 2005 almost NO ONE would have tasted a real strawberry for themselves.seriously.
so how close are we to soylent green? not close in the classic soylent green way [and wasn’t that a frightening movie…god!] but, if you are a vegan or vegetarian you are pretty much there already in a way.the people hit the hardest with this tainted gluten are those folks.there are no free rides…if you don’t want to eat meat then don’t try and make your food look and taste like meat….because then it will have crap like this in it.
but you can bypass almost all of this if you buy only organic.