Wednesday, April 25, 2007

The contamination is bigger than we thought

And more dangerous. Pizza and baby formula???: (my bold)

Consumers may want to steer away from eating pork after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced Tuesday that hog farms in at least five states, including New York, have been quarantined amid concerns that hog feed at those farms have been contaminated with melamine. Thousands of hogs could have been affected.

One poultry farm in Missouri was also affected.

Pet food which has been salvaged from manufacturers that have issued pet food recalls because of potential melamine contamination has been traced to hog farms in California, North Carolina, South Caroline, New York, Utah and possibly Ohio. Samples of hog urine from farms in three of the states, California, North Carolina and South Carolina, have tested positive for melamine. FDA said it hadn't yet received test results from the identified hog farms in other states.

Six grain products-wheat gluten, corn gluten, corn meal, soy protein, rice bran and rice protein-which are used in foods ranging from bread to pizza to baby formula, are to be inspected by the FDA for traces of melamine, the same industrial chemical used in plastics and fertilizer that is said to have killed over 4,000 cats and dogs by kidney failure and have sickened thousands more.

Update 4/26:
Steve Bates at The Yellow Doggerel Democrat:

This speaks to a complete breakdown in the food safety protocols for foods obtained from international sources, although I doubt they are being observed much more effectively toward food from domestic sources. The Bush administration has systematically eviscerated the regulatory agencies that protect us from corporations and individuals who have strong financial incentives to do us harm either willfully (as this case appears to be) or through negligence. No other government in the civilized world sees such regulation as burdensome or unnecessary: only Bush's clients, cronies, and contributors benefit from lax regulation of the food supply.

If ever we needed an object lesson in the folly of hands-off government in the arena of public safety, this is that lesson. We can learn it well... or we can die of our ignorance.

Spocko of Spocko's Brain has the latest on the investigation on the recall of peanut butter and introduces us to Lisa Shames of the GAO.

2 comments:

Steve Bates said...

OK. I won't eat pork. I won't eat poultry. I'll even avoid pizza if I really have to. All that and five bucks may get me a fancy coffee drink. (I can only hope they haven't been adding vile things to supposedly organic coffee beans.)

The past two or three years have marked the first time in decades in which I could not simply shrug in the face of a food crisis and say, oh well, my loved ones and I are all vegetarians. Apparently, no matter what we eat, the basic protections of the food supply that we had come to depend on in years past have simply vanished.

Guess who I blame.

ellroon said...

Who knows where the gluten has gone. Will this administration tell us the whole truth? Will the FDA?

When you live by the lie, you die by the Chinese gluten protein you've allowed into the country because you've cut back all oversight over corporations....

Or... when you live by the dollar, you die by being sold out...