China is in big trouble.
Wheat gluten contaminated.
Rice protein contaminated.
And now this. Yet another Chinese-sourced food product, corn gluten, mixed with melamine:
There are also reports from South Africa that suggest a third pet food ingredient -- corn gluten -- was tainted with melamine. The FDA, however, said that tainted ingredient has not been found in the United States.
Too late for some animals in South Africa:
Royal Canin South Africa has announced a recall of Vets Choice dog food because it contains melamine-contaminated corn gluten imported from China. This food is sold in South Africa and Namibia. Royal Canin, which is headquartered in Southern France, has announced that none of the company's contaminated pet food has reached the United States. Nineteen dogs that consumed Vets Choice food in Cape Town and Johannesburg, South Africa, have been diagnosed with kidney problems.
It would start to seem that if the Chinese have been spiking their exports in an attempt to give an appearance of higher quality, then it is a widespread practise. Officially sanctioned? At some level, almost certainly.
And that makes the second part of this story even more serious. Humans are almost certainly eating this stuff:
It was only a matter of time before the broadening global pet food contamination scandal spread to human food. Now it has done so and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has opened a criminal investigation after reports that more than 100 hogs were given contaminated food and later wound up on dinner tables.
The hogs were slaughtered in California's Central Valley after eating feed that contained rice protein tainted with melamine, the industrial chemical that has sickened and killed dogs and cats around the world.
People who bought pork from the American Hog Farm in Ceres, Calif., between April 3 and April 18 are being advised not to eat the meat, although California health officials said there have been no reports of illness in either people or the hogs. Authorities are trying to track down all the purchasers.
Even when authorities try to calm the public, their worry comes through:
"The risk is minimal, but the investigation is very early on," said Kevin Reilly of the California Department of Health Services.
A criminal investigation is not likely to get far. The Chinese are refusing inspections of their facilities, probably because they haven't finished destroying all of the evidence:
But U.S. Senator Dick Durbin said China has blocked the FDA's efforts to inspect the facilities that manufactured these melamine-tainted ingredients. He and Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) on Wednesday sent a letter to the Chinese Ambassador to the United States urging his country to immediately issue visas to U.S. food inspectors.
"It is unacceptable that the Chinese government is blocking our food safety inspectors from entering their country and examining facilities that are suspected of providing contaminated pet food to American consumers," Durbin said.
So when does the world shut the door on Chinese food exports? Maybe soon:
"The fact that the Chinese are refusing to cooperate really is unacceptable," Durbin said. "If they won't cooperate at this level, it raises questions about all their exports to the United States."
Durbin and DeLauro, who plans to introduce bills addressing the FDA's oversight of food safety, sought the intervention of the Chinese ambassador in a letter pointing out that the United States imported $2.1 billion in agricultural products from China last year.
American farmers are a hugely powerful lobby group. You know they'll be pushing for a ban.
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