Guest guest Posted May 11, 2007 Report Share Posted May 11, 2007 Thu, 10 May 2007 15:37:01 -0400 (EDT)ProMED-mail <promed (AT) promed (DOT) isid.harvard.edu>PRO/AH/EDR> Contaminated animal food - USA (multistate) (02)CONTAMINATED ANIMAL FOOD USA (MULTISTATE) (02)************************************************A ProMED-mail post<http://www.promedmail.org>ProMED-mail is a program of theInternational Society for Infectious Diseases<http://www.isid.org>[1]Date 8 May 2007Source: Reuters Alert Net [edited]<http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/PEK219003.htm>China says firms exported tainted protein to US- --------------China acknowledged on Tue [8 May 2007] that 2 Chinese companies hadillegally exported contaminated wheat gluten and rice protein for pet foodblamed for a spate of animal deaths in the United States.The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) says it has received about 17 000complaints of sick pets, with about 4000 deaths reported. Investigationshave extended to livestock feed containing tainted pet food that made itsway to some 6000 hogs and as many as 3.1 million chickens. The Agency saidthere was little danger for people. China had denied FDA assertions thatmelamine, a chemical used in plastics and fertiliser, had been added towheat gluten and rice protein exported from China for pet foods. But Xinhuastate news agency reversed the official position."The two companies illegally added melamine...in a bid to meet thecontractual demand for the amount of protein in the products," Xinhua said,quoting the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection andQuarantine. The Administration said the 2 companies, named by the FDA asXuzhou Anying Biologic Technology Development Co Ltd and Binzhou FutianBiology Technology Co Ltd, evaded quality checks by labeling their productsas exports not subject to inspection.Local police had launched an investigation into the case and detainedcompany officials. The quality control watchdog said it had ordered localbranches to strengthen quality inspection on all vegetable proteins andpledged to include all vegetable proteins in the exports list subject toquality checks.The watchdog said it had notified the FDA of the investigation results andproposed to set up a cooperation mechanism on food safety with the US.- -- communicated by:ProMED-mail rapporteur Mary Marshall[2]Wed 9 May 2007Source: USDA official News Transcript [edited]<http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/!ut/p/_s.7_0_A/7_0_1OB?contentidonly=true & contentid=2007/05/0134.xml>Transcript of media briefing update By FDA And USDA regarding adulteratedanimal feed Washington DC, 8 May 2007:- --------------------------Our 1st speaker is Dr David Acheson. He is assistant commissioner for foodprotection with the FDA. Our 2nd speaker will be Dr Kenneth Petersen who isthe assistant administrator for field operations with the USDA, Food Safetyand Inspection Service. And our 3rd speaker is Ms Vera Adams, the executivedirector of commercial targeting and enforcement with US Customs and BorderProtection. Then during the question and answer segment, we have Dr StephenSundlof, who's the director of our Center for Veterinary Medicine at FDAavailable. We have Captain David Elder, who is director of the Office ofEnforcement with FDA; and Mr Michael Rogers, director of the Division ofField Investigations; and Mr Walter Batts, deputy director of our Office ofInternational Programs. I suspect we have several individuals as well fromthe USDA and Customs and Border Protection who will step in as needed.DR ACHESON: Thank you. This afternoon I would like to address 2 issues withyou all, which are 2 new ones, and then obviously old issues if we have toaddress that in Q and A. But I'm going to focus on 2. The 1st is related toa misrepresentation of the wheat gluten and the concentrated rice protein.I want to preface it by saying as you are all aware we have been followingwheat gluten and rice protein concentrate from two sources in China, andhave undertaken a number of tests with those related to the detection ofmelamine and melamine-related compounds. As part of our strategy just toensure that we are following this in all possible directions, a portion ofboth the wheat gluten and the rice protein concentrate that was already aconcern because of melamine has been further analyzed by our forensicchemistry center. And we have discovered that these products, labeled wheatgluten and rice protein concentrate, are we believe mislabeled, and thatthey actually contain wheat flour that is contaminated with the melamineand melamine-related compounds.As we discussed previously, none of these products have been used asingredients directly in the human food supply. We are not talking about anew set of ingredients. These are the ones we have been tracking since thebeginning of this situation. We've just taken the analysis of those alittle further. And to reemphasize what we've discovered is that these arenot wheat gluten and rice protein concentrate, but are in fact wheat flourcontaminated with melamine.The FDA considers this product to be mislabeled based on what I've told youand we're considering possible enforcement options. Again I want toemphasize that these mislabeled products are from the two Chinese firmspreviously discussed, previously identified in prior discussions and pressconferences. None of this changes the findings regarding the levels ofmelamine or melamine-related compounds in relation to the risk assessmentand its feeding to animals. So that part is essentially unchanged.The 2nd point that I want to raise relates to the issue of fish andfishmeal. Again as part of our ongoing tracebacks and trace-forwards,trying to understand where this contaminated wheat gluten may have gone, welearned that a portion of the mislabeled wheat gluten from the Chinese firmwas sent to Canada and when in Canada was used to manufacture fishmeal, andthat that fishmeal was then imported back into the United States for use infeeding fish in certain industrial aquaculture type situations. As I said,this fishmeal was made in Canada and the Canadian authorities are aware ofour findings.As with the situation with the poultry and the hogs, the levels that we'reseeing in the fishmeal are very comparable, and therefore based on the riskassessment we do not believe there is any significant human health riskassociated with consuming these fish. The investigation is very active atthis point. We know of a number of firms that received this fishmeal andour investigators are as we speak getting out there to those firms todetermine just exactly what they are doing with the fish that were fed thisfishmeal. We have so far managed to get to one of these establishmentswhere we confirmed the positive finding, and that particular establishmentis dealing with very small fish that are ones that are I believe called fryor small. So these are tiny fish that are not yet ready for humanconsumption anyway. That is really just the current state of thisinvestigation. This is obviously a new finding linking this to thefishmeal, and it's going to follow I think a very similar pattern as wehave with the other investigation. We'll get out there, we will find outwhat's going on at the individual aquaculture industrial fish facilitiesand follow up as appropriate.DR PETERSEN: Okay, thank you, and good afternoon everybody. Yesterday, FSISor USDA and FDA announced the results of a risk assessment that looked atthe potential for adverse human effects from melamine compounds. Based onthe findings of the determination from that risk assessment that there wasa very low risk to humans as announced, USDA and FDA are initiating theappropriate course of action regarding swine and poultry that consumed anycontaminated feed.In some cases although the contaminated feed can be traced to farms, thefeed that was actually consumed by the animals had a very low amount of thepet food scraps as we've previously discussed. That feed became so dilutedfrom the small amount of pet food scraps that any tests no longer detectedthe presence of melamine or melamine compounds, so there was a negativefeed test. In those cases, as announced yesterday, some poultry have begunto be released. In other cases, the feed on the farms either testedpositive for melamine and melamine compounds or there was no feed availableto test. Those swine and poultry are still being held either under statequarantine or voluntarily by the owners pending the results of an animalexposure risk assessment and any other investigatory findings, and both ofthose are under way. The animal exposure assessment will provide us withadditional scientific data about the level of melamine and its compound inanimal tissues and any decrease of the amount of melamine in animals' bodyas it's excreted through the urinary tract.All of this will help us apply solid scientific data to supplement thescience-based findings in the risk assessment from yesterday. So althoughwe expect that the animal exposure assessment will support the findings ofthe human risk assessment, we're continuing to take a measured approachuntil that assessment and the other information from the investigation isfinished. But if the risk assessment proves positive, we would expect therelease for inspection and processing of all the swine and poultry thatremain on hold in connection with this ongoing investigation.We do expect to have the animal exposure assessment completed very soon,quite likely by the end of this week. Again, this is being conducted by aninteragency group comprised of representatives from FDA and FSIS, Customsand Border Protection, CDC, and EPA.MS VERA ADAMS: Thank you. To supplement the government effort to ensurethat no further contaminated products are entering the US, CBP hasundertaken some additional sampling and testing of imported wheat and corngluten as well as rice protein concentrate and isolates arriving from allcountries, destined for human and animal consumption.Once we have taken the sampling, we send those samples to our laboratorysystems where they will be testing for any contaminants and making surethese products present no further risk. There's really no evidence at thistime to suggest that the bulk of these products present any risk or haveany further contamination beyond what the FDA has already identified fromthe Chinese companies. However, we are conducting these wider tests as aprecautionary step to ensure that these types of products entering throughthe US ports of entry are safe.We do routinely conduct testing of products entering the United States, andwe have 7 regional labs throughout the country that mirror FDA procedures.Specifically the sampling for the rice protein, wheat and corn gluten beganlast week, and we are working to get the results of those samples back asexpeditiously as possible to add to the information pool for this widergovernment effort.1st REPORTER: ...You say you're testing wheat, corn gluten and rice proteinconcentrate, and we just heard that in fact it was wheat flour. So I'mwondering if you're testing the wrong thing. And then I wanted to ask DrAcheson, if you could explain further how you sort of determined that thiswasn't in fact wheat gluten and rice protein concentrate. I don't know whatthese things look like, but is it that readily apparent?MS ADAMS: ...If it's misrepresented as wheat gluten then it's importantthat we target wheat gluten. And in addition we are constantly in contactwith FDA and USDA to evaluate whether what we need to be targeting andtesting needs to be changed.DR ACHESON: ...this product did come into the United States labeled aswheat gluten and rice protein concentrate, so if that's what's beingtargeted it would find this. In terms of how did we discover this, it was acombination of assays that were done to determine this. 1st of all usingsomething called stereoscopic light microscopy and polarized lightmicroscopy, and this essentially just characterizes the product initiallyand is just sophisticated direct visual microscopy.That's been followed by a type of chromatography that is lookingspecifically at levels of starch, and it's based on those two criteria thatthe forensic chemistry center was able to determine that the levels instarch that we found in these products were such that it made it verylikely that it was wheat flour.DR ACHESON: The focus is on the rice, things that were labeled as wheatgluten and rice protein concentrate, as were these. Where we are as I'vesaid before planning on expanding the assignments as we learn more and weget the ingredient side of this figured out, I don't exclude thepossibility that we will get into sampling wheat flour specifically. Butright now that's not the top priority. This was not coming in labeled aswheat flour. It was coming in labeled as wheat gluten.2nd REPORTER: ...given that China's manufacturers and agricultural sector,pretty much everything in China that's coming from China, every sectorseems to have a problem. Shouldn't you expand everything, yourinvestigation of everything that comes across the border from China at thispoint?DR ACHESON: What we're doing is trying to expand our assessment based onwhere we're seeing the risks, and if you've been following the story thisis shifting constantly. We started out with a focus on a single company.It then expanded to import alert on the two companies. That subsequentlyexpanded to import alert of all protein concentrates coming in from China.We're extending that into sampling strategies for pet food coming in thatcould contain melamine as well as animal feed. So it is expanding as we go,and as you heard from our colleague at Customs and Border Protection theyare also expanding it. I think one has to focus this on a risk basis. Youhave to put the resources where you believe the risk to be greatest and weare moving the resources based on that, and we'll continue to do that.REPORTER: ...what don't we know that is being put in Chinese products andshipped into the U.S. I mean, we didn't know about melamine, we're hearingabout these catfish that have antibiotics and chemicals in them. I mean,what don't we know because we're not looking at it?DR ACHESON: Well, if I could tell you what we don't know, I'd know. Sothat's not meant to be a facetious answer, but it's the only logical one Ican come up with. We are not just looking for melamine. We have screens fora whole range of chemical compounds, and we are putting this materialthrough those screens. So this is not melamine-focused solely. We arelooking for a variety of other things just in case, based on nothing otherthan we have the technology, we have the samples, so it makes it smart tolook more broadly. But obviously we are keeping our eyes open, we'reworking with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. If we start tosee unusual spikes of inexplicable illness, clearly we'd ask thosequestions. So we're being as broad as we can within, but making maximum useof resources.3rd REPORTER: ...Following up on the caller's question about theantibiotics found in Chinese imported catfish, is that one of the areaswhere the FDA is looking at a higher risk import, and are you looking atthat catfish in Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and testing it for melamine?DR ACHESON: The short answer to that question is yes. We have an assignmentthat is already underway as part of our risk based approach to protectingthe food supply. That's an assignment which is focused on obtaining andtesting a range of different fish samples, looking for antibiotic residuesand other things. We have just very recently validated an assay formelamine in fish. That is something that we did not have a week ago. Ourassay teams have been moving really fast and we now have a validated assayfor melamine in fish. And that is going to be added into our screeninglooking for the antibiotic residues. So that's something that we've addedin. We're going to go and test any remaining fish samples that we have thatare currently in the lab as part of this assignment, and as new samplescome in we will test those for melamine related compound.Now depending what we find on that testing, that is going to drive the nextstep. Obviously if we find levels, particularly if they are significant,that's going to a have a different series of next steps than if these arenegative. Again it's focused on where the risks are likely to be and theresources that we have to devote to it.4th REPORTER: ...It appears that the Chinese news agencies now say Chinabelieves these two companies exported this, added the melamine illegallyand exported it to get around inspections. Is that your understanding ofwhat you think happened?DR ACHESON: As you know our investigators are currently on the ground inChina asking those very kinds of questions. We're working closely with theChinese authorities both from Washington as well as locally, and I think asthe investigation unfolds we will have more definitive answers as to whatexactly happened in China, potential explanations as to why it happened.REPORTER: But this seems to be a complete turnaround. Which story should webelieve? I mean we're further down the road. Do you think the Chinese havefinally accepted the fact that this is what's happened?DR ACHESON: I can't speak from FDA as to what the Chinese have accepted. Weare following this up on 1st principles, and our main concern is that wehave these food items coming into the United States that contain agentsthat they shouldn't, and we're following that up. As to exactly why ithappened in China is part of the investigation the Chinese are undertaking,sgain with our investigators. Obviously in the longer term, those questionsare important in terms of trying to make sure it doesn't happen again.REPORTER: Finally, your inspectors have been there a week. Anything you canshare, anything at all?DR ACHESON: At this point it's still ongoing. They are out there, I knowthey are getting to the establishment, some of them have concern. I reallydon't have anymore specifics at this point that I can share....And then we can come back to your question. The 2nd thing I covered wasthe fact that we have discovered melamine in fishmeal. This is thesituation in which again through tracebacks we determined that some of theproduct from the companies in China had been imported directly into Canadaand the Canadians had used that product to manufacture fishmeal that wasthen imported into the US and sent to a number of aquaculture and otherfishing industry establishments in the US. We're working with the Canadianauthorities on this. They are well-aware of what's going on.At this point, based on the risk assessment and the levels we know of inthe fishmeal, as with the hogs and the poultry, we do not believe thisposes any significant human health threat. This is a new finding, it's avery active part of the investigation, and our investigators are gettingout to the establishments where we know this was received. And we'll bedoing some analysis, getting some more samples, and determining the statusof the fish that may have been fed this.But I want to emphasize at this point based on the risk assessment, even ifthese fish had been fed this fishmeal we believe the risk to humans is low.So those are the two points I summarized, so now I can go to yourquestions. Thank you for waiting.5th REPORTER: ...What got done to the fishmeal in Canada that changed? Yousaid it was imported as fishmeal and then exported from Canada to the US asfishmeal. Did something get done to it in Canada? And how many fish do youthink were fed this stuff?DR ACHESON: I'm sorry if I said that I didn't mean that, but it wasimported into Canada as wheat gluten.6th REPORTER: This is Karen Roebuck with the Pittsburgh Tribune Review.While it's not expected that people would get sick in the short term fromeating the contaminated food, are the various federal agencies who studiedhis ruling out the possibility of long-term health effects from consumingthe compounds over time since kidney damage is cumulative? And also, healtheffects aside, Dr Petersen had said last week that the pigs that had eatenthe adulterated food legally could not be put into the market because theyknew they ate the adulterated food. Yet now it seems those, even though youknow they ate the adulterated food and the chickens ate the adulteratedfood, they are going into the market. Is that, so my question is, how wouldthat be legal?DR ACHESON: Your question on the 1st part which was addressing thelong-term exposure consequences, well 1st of all we don't know for a factthere's been long-term exposure. We don't even know for a fact yet thatmelamine has gone into the human food supply other than via hogs andpoultry at extremely low levels. My best answer to your question on thelong-term health effects is as I said before, we are working with CDC,looking for any shifts in trends. At this point we can't rule it out.I think this may become more apparent as further work around this evolvesbecause obviously one of the questions is feeding studies of these kinds oflevels to animals under research conditions to answer those very questions.So at this point I can't specifically rule anything in or anything outother than to say there's absolutely no evidence of just that happening.I'll turn the 2nd part over to Dr Petersen.DR PETERSEN: Okay, thank you. Last week when we 1st started discussing someof this contaminated feed had been fed to the swine, the initial discussionwas to swine, we had very little information. In fact that was about allthe information we had that some level of contaminated feed had been fed toswine, and so based on that limited information we took what was with usthe most aggressive approach for protecting public health, which was for usnot to apply the mark of inspection to any of those animals.Subsequently there has been additional information, much of it quitesignificant, that's come along. We've learned a little bit more about thelow amount of melamine that was in the pet food and then the low amount ofpet food that's made it's way into the animal feed, and that the exposure,if anything, to the animals was brief, and that we have no reason tobelieve there's any concentration of the melamine in the actual meat of theanimal. So we've learned a lot there, and then over the weekend much of ourinitial scientific judgment was further clarified through the riskassessment which basically showed that even if you take the most extremeposition on exposure, the risk was just 2500 times or so below any knownpossible risk.So we started a week or so ago with limited information and at the time Istill believe the appropriate decision was for us not to apply the mark ofinspection. But now, given all that information and given that we havespecific farms where the feed tested negative, that now FSIS is in aposition to apply the mark, of inspection to those animals. And thenthere's this other group of animals where we are still missing someinformation, either the feed test was positive or there's no feed availableto test. So we're still taking a precautionary approach to those untilother facts come along. So that's, I realize it looks like a shiftingposition, but it's shifted as facts have been put on the table.And whenever those facts have put us in a position to make sure the publicwas well-served, that's what we've done.DR ACHESON: Yes, let me try to just make sure that everybody understandssome of the background for this because it's complicated, and I want tojust point out that wheat gluten is a component of wheat flour. So if youstart with wheat flour and you can essentially go through a process inwhich you wash the starch away, thereby leaving the wheat gluten. The wheatgluten is the protein part. That's the piece when you want high wheatprotein, it's the wheat gluten that you end up with and the starch is justwashed out.So the wheat gluten is a component of overall wheat flour. Now this is thepoint at which we become speculative, but it may throw some light on to howdoes this all fit together. It's certainly a simpler process in which themanufacturer would take wheat flour or whole wheat, simply grind it up,thereby it would still have some wheat gluten in it at a low level but itwouldn't be concentrated because the starch is still there. So its totalprotein content would appear to be low. If you then add melamine to that,what you're effectively doing is, you're adding a source of nitrogen to it.When you do that, if your measurements of protein is actually measuringnitrogen, what you've got is a wheat based product that appears to havehigh protein because the nitrogen is high due to the addition of themelamine. So there is a plausible hypothesis as to why this would be done,and rather than taking the trouble to extract the wheat gluten and washaway the starch, you simply grind up the wheat, put it all together, andthen artificially create the appearance of it being high in protein byadding a high nitrogen-containing compound such as melamine. I hope thatexplanation hasn't muddied the waters further and obviously we can takequestions if it has, but that may help explain what's going on here.7th REPORTER: ...I wanted to know if Dr Petersen could just go through thenumbers real quick as far as there were 6000 hogs and then can you tell mehow many chickens we're still dealing with? Are we talking about thechickens in Indiana, and has anything come of the investigation in theMissouri plant?DR PETERSEN: Okay, we mentioned last Friday I believe, and of course we areon the cusp of the information from the risk assessment last Friday, and sowe'd asked that approximately 20 million young chickens, broilers, bevoluntarily held until we had a chance over the weekend to assess that riskassessment. So those were held. And then with yesterday's announcement,most of those, at least half, approximately 10 million, have begun to moveinto slaughter channels. So those were ones associated with a negative feedtest, so they met the provisions we laid out in yesterday's announcementwith FDA. Then the other ones on poultry that you mentioned in Indiana arestill approximately 100 000, perhaps less, of the breeder birds that arestill being voluntarily, they are on hold and I don't recall if it'svoluntary or not, at those facilities, and because they, we don't quitehave a negative test on those at this point. So those would be subject tothe other information I mentioned that we're working through this week.Otherwise, the rest of the numbers are what we've previously mentioned.REPORTER: So the other, those I think 30 broiler farms and then 8 breederfarms in Indiana, so the other like 3 million birds there, they've beengood to go? And then what about the other 10 million birds of the 20million from Friday, the 10 million that have begun --DR PETERSEN: Could you repeat just the last part of that?REPORTER: Sure. The 1st part was the other 3 million birds in Indiana, andthen you were also talking about the 20 million birds that was announcedFriday, 10 million had begun to move because they tested negative. Whatabout the other 10 million, and the hogs?DR PETERSEN: Okay. The other 10 million are eligible to move; they arejust, because they got the information yesterday they got to queue them upto the appropriate slaughter facilities. The 3 million you mentioned wasreally I think the hard number there was 2.7 million. That goes back a weekor so ago which were birds in Indiana from the roughly 30 farms I believethat had already made their way into commerce. Those were ones that wereslaughtered back in sometime in March we believe. Then there's one otherpiece of information about animals on hold. There are some animals atseveral farms on hold in the state of Illinois, and looks likeapproximately 3 facilities. Those number of swine on hold is approximately50 000, and those animals we don't have a negative test, and so they aresubject to the other provisions that we announced yesterday, informationfrom the animal risk assessment or other investigatory findings. And sothose, that's kind of a new piece of animals that are on hold subject towhat we had yesterday, so that's pretty much what we have in total. Thebroilers are the ones that are really moving to market today.8th REPORTER: ...Do you know how the wheat flour - how do you know thewheat flour in the fishmeal was contaminated? Are there samples availablefor testing of that?DR ACHESON: Yes, we tested the fishmeal and it was positive.REPORTER: ...Now that the risk assessment for melamine in feed forlivestock is low, does that mean that you will then allow the pet foodcompanies to sell all their recalled food to livestock companies as long asit's used in a small amount?DR ACHESON: I would ask Dr Sundlof or David Elder to address that, of FDA.DR STEPHEN SUNDLOF: ...The answer is no; that we consider any of the testspositive to be adulterated and could not be used to further process into feed.9th REPORTER: ...I have a couple questions. 1st of all, you've said youdon't know how many fish. Can you tell us how many fish farms oraquaculture establishments, also what kind of fish? And then as regards thewheat flour, regardless of what the label said, doesn't that alert you thatwheat flour has been adulterated and that all wheat flour should be tested?I understand that what you're testing now is mislabeled, but that tells youthere's a problem with that broader product. Thank you.DR ACHESON: With regard to your 1st question, we do have a preliminary listof places where we're following up and we're trying to confirm that. That'spart of the validation investigation process, so at this point we don'thave a definitive list of numbers and how many names that I can share withyou. With regard to wheat flour, again it was not, even though the wheatflour contained melamine it came into the US labeled as wheat gluten orrice protein concentrate. At this stage we don't have direct indications ofproduct coming into the US labeled as wheat flour as anything other thanwheat flour. We are certainly talking to our field force about extendingthe assignment that we have to look at some wheat flour, to test it, tobegin to go down that avenue, but at this stage it was, we have no reasonto believe wheat flour being imported as wheat flour is problematic.REPORTER: The kinds of fish that these aquaculture establishments produce?DR ACHESON: We'll know that better when we visit them, and that's the kindof information that we obtain when we go and talk to them.10th REPORTER: ...Who exported the wheat gluten or purported wheat glutento the Canadians, and why are you learning this only now? And then also,are you looking at imports of fishmeal from China or other sources, Chilefor example, as well as poultry that may have fed meal within China thatpotentially could have been contaminated? So 3 questions I got.DR ACHESON: Well, I'm not sure I caught all 3 of them, but let me try. The1st one, it came from the Chinese firms that we've previously had concernabout.REPORTER: But who handled it in the interim then here in the United States?DR ACHESON: Who handled it?REPORTER: ...Who imported it, and then who re-exported it?DR ACHESON: Well, it came directly from, I think it came throug ChemNutra.VOICE: Brokered through ChemNutra.DR ACHESON: Right. It was brokered through ChemNutra directly to Canada.Thewheat gluten never came to the US. It went directly to Canada, used by theCanadian company that manufactured the fishmeal. It was only when westarted to get into the depth of the records from ChemNutra and started tolook outside of the US piece that this came to light, and then it was aquestion of, okay, well it went to this Canadian company, so what did theydo with it? And then that led to the discovery that it was turned intofishmeal, and some of that fishmeal then came back into the US.REPORTER: Does it disturb you that ChemNutra didn't disclose this, thatthey weren't more upfront, that they'd actually sold also or brokered atleast wheat gluten to human food or to companies that make meal that goesinto food products beyond just the pet food company they supplied?DR ACHESON: I would have to talk to our investigators as to the questionsthat they specifically asked of ChemNutra. I'm not aware that ChemNutrawere withholding information from us deliberately. So I don't think this -- this was simply as our investigators were pursuing this to the next level,because initially we were concerned about product coming directly into theUS. That's what it started out. And that's typical with any investigation,outbreak, traceback, that's the whole point of it. One thing leads toanother, leads to another, leads to another, and like the issues we'vedealt with before you are seeing outbreak investigations. You are seeing afood-related incident unfold. So it's going to change with time, and it'salways easy with a retrospectoscope to say, well why didn't you ask thatquestion 2 weeks ago, why didn't you know that three months ago, and I wishwe had. But that's the process of discovery.REPORTER: Okay, I'm sorry, follow-up. Just are you looking at fishmealimports now from China as well as say poultry imports from China that mayhave been fed, from birds that may have been fed contaminated feed?DR ACHESON: We're looking at variety of animal feed coming in from China.Specifically fishmeal, I would ask whether Michael Rogers or David Elderhave any specifics on that. If not, we could get them to you.DR MICHAEL ROGERS: We're certainly taking a risk-based approach to lookingat, currently we certainly have in place now the country-wide import alertthat's focused on all vegetable protein products from China, a domesticsampling assignment, certainly at the border as well as (unclear). Butwe're ging to be using the risk-based approach to identify what otherproducts from China and even possibly transshipped to other countries thatwe should be focused on.11th REPORTER: ...For Dr. Acheson, would it be reasonable to assume thatsome company along the supply chain would have discovered before now thatthe product wasn't a protein concentrate at all but a wheat flour, or not?Because they only checked for protein levels.DR ACHESON: Well, that's an interesting question, and I think when acompany typically gets a product in they will do that quality control ofthat product. Different companies will have different degrees of qualitycontrol. Does it meet the standards of what their standard is? If itdoesn't, they will typically reject it. They are not going to askquestions, well why doesn't it work, what's the problem with it? They willjust simply say, this shipment doesn't meet our standards, doesn't do forus what we need it to do, and reject it. They don't necessarily have anobligation just to tell anybody about that. That's just an internaldecision, so I can't rule out the possibility that the companies got thisstuff in. It didn't perform as wheat gluten, and therefore they rejected it.REPORTER: So explain that last part again? I mean, the companies all alonghave been saying they used the wheat gluten and the rice protein concentrate.DR ACHESON: Yes, they did, because my understanding of that is that theydidn't know it wasn't wheat gluten. They assumed it was wheat gluten. Thepet --REPORTER: With an average amount of due diligence, should they havediscovered that?DR ACHESON: That's up to their quality control in the context of theirmanufacturing processes. So we're talking initially about the pet foodmanufacturers. I don't know what level of quality control they go throughto ensure that when they receive something labeled as wheat gluten theyensure that it is wheat gluten.REPORTER: Okay. And then finally it's somewhat easier to see how the wheatflour is one step on the process to wheat gluten, so you're saying the riceprotein concentrate was not a rice-based product at all?DR ACHESON: That's my understanding, yes.12th REPORTER: ...I was just wondering, is FDA or USDA or other agencies,are you guys thinking about some broad changes in regulation of animal feedsince it seems like there is a pattern here you know - hogs, chickens,fish. And are you looking at other animal feed too, or -MODERATOR: Dr Sundlof is going to take that question.DR SUNDLOF: Yes. We have been for the last couple years working on a morecomprehensive animal feed safety system. And we've been holding a number ofpublic meetings, and there will be another public meeting this month, Ibelieve it's either May 21 or May 22, that really addresses a lot of thesequestions about how can you have a better overall safety system for your feed.Previously our feed safety programs have been targeted at specific issuessuch as BSE or mad cow disease or salmonella program, or a medicated feedprogram in which feed mills actually mixed drugs into the feeds and theyhave to do this under good manufacturing practice standards. But we havenot had really an overall, comprehensive program that looks at safety froma broader perspective such that it would catch problems like we've seenwith the melamine. So that is a work in progress.13th REPORTER: ...So if we can just go back for a second to why this may bewheat flour. You talked about how it was, the production process wassimpler. Is this also, is it also cheaper? Is this part of sort ofdisguising a cheaper product to something more expensive?DR ACHESON: One would assume that if it's simple, it's cheaper. But I don'thave a specific economic analysis of that. And I certainly can't speak ofthe economic advantages or disadvantages of one over the other. I want toemphasize that it's only the positive samples that we have found, themelamine-positive samples that we have found to be wheat flour. This doesnot suggest that every sample of wheat gluten and every ingredient withwheat gluten and rice protein concentrate coming into the US is wheatflour. We have no evidence of that. It was a further follow-up of themelamine-positive sample. I want to make sure that you all understand that.REPORTER: If I could just have a follow-up, what do these fish farms, theseaquaculture, what are they doing? Do you have any idea? Are they breedingfish for what purpose?DR ACHESON: Typically they are for two purposes. One is to breed fish to godirectly into commerce as fish for human consumption. And the other is forstocks to put in reservoirs and lakes and streams.14th REPORTER: ...Several of my questions have been answered but I stillhave a few others. The state, could you possibly give the state that thefarms are in, the fish farms? I'm curious about the percentage of - dothey, are they fed a diet of 100 per cent of this fishmeal? And do we haveany sense of how long these two companies have been exporting to North America?DR ACHESON: With regard to your 1st question, at this stage I'm not able todisclose which states are under investigation. As I said, that's active,and as of right at this point in time, I can't discuss that further. Toyour 2nd question as to how long these companies have been importingproducts into the US, I know it goes back to 2006. I will ask MichaelRogers or David Elder if they have any information beyond that.MR DAVID ELDER: Dr Acheson has stated the investigation is ongoing, we willbe confirming the details as we progress with the investigation. But atthis point in time we don't have any information to extend it any further back.REPORTER: Can I ask you something though? Are you working with theCanadians at all, because if they were importing to the US, they wereprobably exporting to Canada as well.DR ACHESON: Absolutely. We're working very closely with the Canadians on this.REPORTER: And do you know what percentage the fishmeal is of the diet? Isit 100 per cent? Are these fish fed 100 per cent fishmeal?DR ACHESON: Dr Sundlof?DR SUNDLOF: No. Fishmeal would be a component of the total feed, and Ican't tell you exactly what proportion of that it is, but it's probablyless than half.The call ends.- -- communicated by ProMED-mail rapporteur Mary Marshall[see also:Contaminated animal food - USA (Multistate) 20070503.1432Contaminated pet food - China: melamine 20070430.1403Contaminated pet food - USA, Canada, Mexico (03): swine 20070427.1380Contaminated pet food - USA, Canada, Mexico (02): swine 20070426.1366Contaminated pet food - USA, Canada, Mexico: Swine 20070425.1353Pet food fatalities, pets - USA, Canada, Mexico (03): melamine 20070330.1099Pet food fatalities, pets - USA, Canada, Mexico (02): aminopterin20070325.1040Pet food fatalities, pets - USA, Canada, Mexico: recall 20070318.094]....................tg/ejp/sh------------------------------End of ProMED-AHEAD Digest V2007 #142************************************* See what's free at AOL.com. 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Guest guest Posted May 11, 2007 Report Share Posted May 11, 2007 Mine are fine, thank God. I don't use any of the recalled foods. Cyndi In a message dated 5/11/2007 12:40:09 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time, barbara3 writes: I'm sooo glad I do not feed commercial dog food! How are your animals doing, Cyndi? Hope they are OK! Barbara CONTAMINATED ANIMAL FOOD USA (MULTISTATE) (02)************************************************ See what's free at AOL.com. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted May 11, 2007 Report Share Posted May 11, 2007 I'm sooo glad I do not feed commercial dog food! How are your animals doing, Cyndi? Hope they are OK! Barbara CONTAMINATED ANIMAL FOOD USA (MULTISTATE) (02)************************************************ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted May 12, 2007 Report Share Posted May 12, 2007 That's GREAT!!! Barbara Mine are fine, thank God. I don't use any of the recalled foods. Cyndi Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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