OK To Eat Meat From Pigs And Chickens That Ate Contaminated Pet Food Scraps Say US Agencies

Featured Article
Main Category: Nutrition / Diet
Also Included In: Public Health;  Veterinary
Article Date: 08 May 2007 - 0:00 PDT

email to a friend   printer friendly   opinions  

Scientists from five federal US agencies have assessed that meat from pigs and chickens that ate pet food scraps contaminated with melamine carries a very low risk to humans and is safe to eat.

This follows the announcement in March when Menu Foods Inc recalled around 60 million cans and pouches of "cuts and gravy" pet food in the United States, Canada and Mexico after a number were found to be contaminated with melamine and suspected of causing kidney failure in cats and dogs.

Melamine and related products were traced to wheat gluten and rice protein imported from China. Wheat gluten and rice protein concentrate is added to the pet food by some manufacturers. A joint federal investigation is continuing into the matter.

Farmers in several US states obtained salvaged pet food contaminated with low levels of melamine to feed to their hogs and chickens. The scraps formed a small proportion of the animals' daily rations.

Scientists from five US federal agencies, including the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) of the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) have conducted a risk assessment of the danger to humans of eating meat from animals that consumed melamine contaminated feed.

They calculated that even if a person only ate the affected meat (with the levels of contamination that have been discovered) for an entire day they would still be 2,500 times below the safe exposure level for consuming melamine. This would be the most extreme scenario, they said.

The agencies declare that this is "well below any level of public health concern".

The scientists are now conducting an assessment of the risk to animal health from eating the melamine contaminated products.

Meanwhile the FDA and USDA are assembling an advisory board of scientists to review the current risk assessment. These experts will be invited to continue to work on future health risk assessments of melamine and related compounds to humans and animals.

Melamine appears to have affected different animals in different ways, depending on exposure. For example, in cats and dogs that ate the pet food, exposure levels, as measured by urine excretion, were high and this damaged their kidneys. The farm hogs appear to have no kidney damage and both hogs and chickens that have eaten the contaminated feed appear to be healthy.

The lower level of exposure to the melamine by farm animals that ate the contaminated pet food scraps helped the scientists to conclude that the risk to humans was extremely low and there was no need to recall meat from these animals.

In the meantime, farmers who may have fed contaminated feed to their pigs and poultry are keeping their animals under state or voluntary quarantine pending the outcome of laboratory tests on the animal feed. In some cases these tests have been clear; no traces of melamine have been found in the rations, so the quarantine has been lifted and the animals passed for usual inspection and processing.

The scientists suspect that in these cases where no traces of melamine have been detected it could be because only small amounts of contaminated feed were mixed in with other rations, reducing the concentration of melamine and related compounds to an undetectable level.

The remaining animals still under quarantine are being withheld from processing either because their feed samples tested positive or they have not been tested. The USDA will decide whether they can be released for processing when the outcome of the animal risk assessment is complete in a week's time.

The authorities will continue to monitor all imported wheat and corn gluten, as well as rice protein destined for human and animal consumption. US Custom and Border Protection will be laboratory testing them as they enter the country.

The FDA says this is a precautionary measure and there is no evidence to suggest that products destined for human consumption have been contaminated.

Last month, a New York Times report on filler in animal feed claimed that some animal feed makers in China were adding melamine scrap to their products to make their protein content appear higher and that this was an "open secret" in China.

The melamine at the centre of this investigation is not to be confused with melamine resin, a hard plastic used in the making of kitchen ware for example.

Click here for Melamine and Analogues Safety/Risk Assessment Fact Sheet from USDA.

Click here for more information on Melamine (Wikipedia).

Written by: Catharine Paddock
Writer: Medical News Today
Copyright: Medical News Today
Not to be reproduced without permission of Medical News Today

• Additional
• References
• Citations