China denies role in pet food recall

[PhilipShore]

Source: USA TODAY

China denied Monday that pet food ingredients exported to the United States are to blame for the recall of more than 60 million cans of cat and dog food and the deaths of 14 animals.

Chinese officials said Monday that an initial investigation by the government's General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine found that China has not exported tainted pet-food ingredients to the USA and Canada. "The poisoning of American pets has nothing to do with China," said the report, published in the official People's Daily website.

Mao insists that the discovery of melamine, if it is confirmed, would be the first time this has happened in China. "We are fully co-operating with the investigation," says Mao. "We are helping the authorities. We know that the sale of agricultural products to the USA is a sensitive area. We do not refute the news, but we need to know more about it."

The Chinese supplier sells both animal-feed-grade wheat gluten and human-food-grade gluten. Menu Foods, which manufactured most of the recalled pet foods, has said that the wheat gluten it used was human food grade.


Read more: http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2007-04-02-china-pet-food_N.htm

[durtee librul]

1. and the plot thickens...

so maybe it's not the Chinese company and is one of 'ours'? Meaning one of the 'base' companies.....

[PhilipShore]

2. Or a terrorist act

The timing is all to suspicious; the contaminated products coming out around Christmas time, I think. They would of poisoned the food -- during a holiday -- so as to heighten, the psychological trauma.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

4. But why wouldn't they claim responsibility as soon as the story broke?

I'm afraid the corporate bushbots would love for people to believe this is a terrorist act, just to save face.

[PhilipShore]

7. It could be government sponsored -- by a terrorist supporter nation

[Matariki]

8. Or maybe Menu foods was extending it's products with ground up particle board?

[rebel with a cause]

3. I suspected this

but thought I could be wrong, and I still could be. I don't trust corporations anywhere. Business/money is the corporate God.

[woodsprite]

5. My MIL said tonight that a report came out that the poison

was actually in the packaging, not in the wheat gluton. She said it was in the bags. I told her that didn't make any sense, since most of the stuff that was recalled was wet food in cans. I didn't ask her where she heard that, but I haven't heard anything like that today. Have any of you?

[PhilipShore]

6. Chemicals used for warfare

Governments create and stockpile tons of biological and chemical weapons, that may be able to do that. Routinely lots of it is stolen -- because of lack of security.

[Matariki]

10. Do a search for melamine

it's a very common substance found in particle board, plastic, fertilizer, etc. That was what was found in the autopsies.

[Matariki]

9. I think it was mostly dry food actually.

[kestrel91316]

26. WRONG. Only one dry food has been recalled:

Hill's Prescription Diet M/D feline dry. It contains gluten that came from the same distributor.

NO OTHER DRY FOODS HAVE BEEN RECALLED.

[RapidCreek]

17. The pet food was canned so I don't think it was the bags....

at least that's my understanding.

RC

[kestrel91316]

24. Sadly, the problem with packaging isn't melamine. The problem with

packaging, at least with canned cat food, is the spray-on coating inside that is proven to cause overactive thyroid gland in rats and heavily implicated in its development in cats.

Just one more endocrine disruptor in a growing list.

[candice]

11. Even animal-feed wheat gluten ends up inside humans...

China is polluting itself so fast so that it can sell cheap goods to the world that it can barely feed itself. There is a chain of life. Animal grade ends up in humans. Farms are paved over to build factories. I wouldn't want to breathe the air (although I do since it is being whisked over to the West Coast) or eat the food produced in that country. I went through the putrid smelling blackened country side via a night train from Beijing to Suzho, in transit in hell I felt. The windows on the train were filthy. We need to stop our over-consumption and to help the Chinese control the pollution from their coal plants, which are adding mercury to the ocean, and polluting the entire food chain. Now we have to watch what we eat at the top of the chain, such as tuna, but the plankton are being poisoned at the bottom of the chain.

Giving the Chinese special tariff protection has meant that they are accumulating a lot of our debt. I have nothing against China and the goods are mostly well made, but how much do I really need and at what cost?

[EnviroBat]

12. Prove it to us.

Nothing that is manufactured in China is quality. Now I want to know why the fuck we are importing ANY FUCKING FOOD FROM THEM! What the hell has happened to the farmers of THIS country?

TO HELL WITH FREE TRADE!

[Critters2]

13. Exactly. China floods our markets with cheap goods on a daily basis

with no concern for American nor Chinese citizens. Why would anyone believe a thing they say?

[kestrel91316]

27. If Bushco gets their way, we won't have the right to know

country of origin of any of our foods at all.

http://www.fmi.org/media/bg/COL_backgrounder.pdf

[hang a left]

14. I am suspicious that it may be GM Round Up Ready Wheat by Monsanto

They have been scrambling on how to cover this up for a few months now. We need a whistle-blower.

[RapidCreek]

19. I agree. It does seem a bit suspicious

that really nothing seems to be getting done by the AG Department as far as coming up with the reason why a bunch of pets have been killed. It seems the proximity to humanity might have them a little more concerned....unless it's gonna jack up one of the Rethuglicans biggest sponsors....read MONSANTO.

It makes perfect sense really.

RC

[Acadia Blue]

22. If you are right, this is really bad. What about the one for Soy?

[rainbow4321]

15. FDA needs to cough up the name of the "middle man"/broker

http://www.wcnc.com/news/topstories/stories/wcnc-032007-jmn-pet_owners.2fba4ef2.html

The FDA investigation into the ingredient suspected of causing the problem, wheat gluten, still hasn’t gotten very far. The FDA now says Menu Foods bought the wheat gluten from a middle man, a broker. They have now contacted that broker to determine where the wheat gluten came from. The FDA will not tell the media the name of that broker.

As for the number of consumers who have contacted the FDA with reports of affected pets, the FDA said they have not tallied up the calls but that they are experiencing “a lot.”

[daleo]

16. Is this stuff in the human food chain?

That's the real bomb that is likely to go off, sooner or later. Its like New Orleans, the government-corporate axis could care less.

[w4rma]

18. Heh, the Chinese sound like the Republican leadership in their denials. (nt)

[Savannah_H]

20. what did you expect...

from China; to admit guilt

[Bridget Burke]

25. China should say "Mistakes were made."

That's the AMERICAN way!

[Acadia Blue]

21. Our moron government gave it all to China and look at the results

And when they have it all, they will just nationalize everything and come over here and take up out. And the idiots who caused this will be living high on the hog in Switzerland while we suffer. When you put corporate pigs in charge of government, this is what you get.

[kestrel91316]

23. If I recall correctly, China has a rather long and distinguished history

of poisoning its own people over the years, apparently because of a tendency toward carelessness with food supplies. There was some major dustup over fungicide in seed grain that wound up in the food supply and killed a bunch of people a while back.

Where is Upton Sinclair when the Chinese need him?