Massive Pet Food Recall Update Part Six

Here are Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 & Part 5.

I'm not terribly surprised but that does not mean I'm not pissed about the latest finding:

"For the first time, investigators are saying the chemical that has sickened and killed pets in the United States may have been intentionally added to pet food ingredients by Chinese producers.

Food and Drug Administration investigators say the Chinese companies may have spiked products with the chemical melamine so that they would appear, in tests, to have more value as protein products.

Officials now suspect this possibility because a second ingredient from China, rice protein concentrate, has tested positive for melamine. So has corn gluten shipped to South Africa. That means there is a possibility for another round of recalls."

Since it is a company from China I doubt much will be done to hold the guilty parties responsible if this turns out to be accurate. I'd also speculate that the company that caused this is not being as helpful as it could be, instead playing a nice game of CYA - though I could be mistaken.

"Some of the tainted pet food has apparently made it into feed for hogs. Federal agencies are trying to determine if it was actually fed to animals and whether it may have reached the human food supply."

It entering the human food supply has been something I've pondered but never really took seriously since it seemed to just be a case of contamination of one batch of one product (which was used to make many more products, granted, but pet food distribution is a bit different than food for people). Now though it seems that it's more widespread & therefore may be more of a concern. Also in the back of my mind I've wondered if someone (or a group of someone's) with ill intent did this deliberately to test our system in order to see how long a mass poisoning would go undetected. I still don't think that's the case here but even if it was just gross negligence (or greed) that caused this I wouldn't be surprised if those with ill intent were paying attention.

H/t The Will To Exist

Posted by Publicola at April 22, 2007 05:42 PM | TrackBack