Melamine Contaminated Swine Cleared, Meanwhile Fish Also Affected And Further Pet Foods Recalled

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Main Category: Veterinary
Also Included In: Water - Air Quality / Agriculture
Article Date: 16 May 2007 - 0:00 PDT

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The US Department for Agriculture, (USDA) announced yesterday that 56,000 swine that were fed pet food scraps contaminated with melamine and associated compounds are cleared for meat processing. Meanwhile poultry and also fish at hatcheries and fish farms in other parts of the country that were given feed contaminated with melamine and associated compounds are held pending further safety tests. Reports are also coming in of further pet food recalls.

The authorities have also updated the method used to assess the risks to human health from eating meat contaminated with melamine and associated compounds.

In the case of the pork, testing confirms that melamine and melamine compounds do not accumulated in the meat. The chemicals are filtered out of the animals' bodies by their kidneys and so far the animals appear healthy, but they will undergo further food safety tests by the USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) as they go forward for processing.

The levels of melamine and related compounds found in the pork meat are well below the levels unsafe for humans, says the US Food and Drug Adminstration (FDA).

The FDA and USDA have developed a new method for assessing the risk to humans from eating food containing low levels of melamine or related compounds. Even if all the solid food a person ate in a day contained melamine and the melamine compound cyanuric acid at levels potentially present in the meat, they would still be 250 times below the safety margin.

In other words, a person weighing 132 pounds would have to eat more than 800 pounds of contaminated meat to reach a level that would cause a health risk.

The previous method was placing the exposure at 2,500 times below the safety margin because it was not taking into account the toxicity of a melamine related compound cyanuric acid. Also the previous method was assuming a lower detection level of melamine was possible; 10 parts per billion (ppb) instead of the more conservative 50 ppb and 100 ppb once cyanuric acid is also taken into account.

In the US about 100 million swine are processed into pork every year.

The affected swine were being held on farms in California, North Carolina, South Carolina, New York, Kansas, Utah and Illinois. Farmers will receive compensation from the USDA to cover the additional costs they incurred while voluntarily holding the animals during the investigation.

In the case of the poultry, 80,000 breeder chickens are still being held back from processing at farms in Indiana pending the development of a test for detecting melamine in poultry meat. Results are expected later in the week. The chickens were fed melamine contaminated wheat gluten and rice protein imported from China.

The FDA has also launched an investigation into melamine contamination in fish feed made by the Canadian company Skretting. The company is recalling fish feed supplied to commercial fisheries and hatcheries, including some in the US, where the FDA suspects two establishments have received the contaminated product. Their fish and feed are being tested at the moment. It is very unlikely that they will contain enough melamine to pose a health risk to humans eating the fish.

Meanwhile reports are coming in from the American Veterinary Medical Association that further pet foods are being recalled following discovery of contamination by melamine products.

Royal Canin USA has announced a nationwide recall of 8 Sensible Choice dry dog food products and seven Kasco dry dog and cat food products. The FDA says trace amounts of melamine derivative were found in a Chinese ingredient that had been labelled as rice protein concentrate supplied to the pet food company by a US company, Cereal Byproducts, based in Illinois.

And Costco is recalling one of its dog food products because of possible melamine contamination. The contamination is believed to affect Kirkland Signature Lamb and Rice canned dog food.

Melamine is not to be confused with the hard plastic resin also called melamine, and produced by combining it with formaldehyde.

Click here for comprehensive list of pet food recalls and related announcements from the American Veterinary Medical Association.

Click here for the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Click here to learn more about Melamine from Wikipedia.

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

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