OK To Eat Meat From Pigs And Chickens That Ate Contaminated Pet Food Scraps Say US Agencies
USDA clears suspect meat
OK To Eat Meat From Pigs And Chickens That Ate Contaminated Pet Food Scraps Say US Agencies
Main Category: Nutrition / Diet News
Medical News Today
Article Date: 08 May 2007
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.
medicalnewstoday.com
USDA clears suspect meat
Millions of chickens, hogs that ate tainted pet food are declared safe for human use.
By Jim Downing - Bee Staff Writer
Last Updated 12:01 am PDT Tuesday, May 8, 2007
Story appeared in BUSINESS section, Page D4
Tests of hogs and chickens that ate melamine-laced pet food in recent months suggest that eating the animals' meat poses virtually no health risk to humans, the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported Monday.
The agency also announced that it had released to market roughly 20 million chickens that were being held on farms identified as having received shipments of the contaminated pet food, a decision one consumer group called premature.
An additional 6,000 hogs and 100,000 chickens raised on farms where the feed tested positive for melamine are still being held pending further test results. An estimated 3 million broiler chickens that ate melamine-tainted feed were sent to market in February and March.
Melamine, an industrial chemical used in plastics manufacturing, is believed to have been added deliberately to shipments of common pet food ingredients from China to boost their apparent protein content. The chemical has been implicated in a wave of illnesses and deaths in cats and dogs over the past two months that has prompted the recall of more than 150 brands of pet food. Melamine moved into the human food supply via scrap pet food sold to livestock operations.
Federal investigators believe the chemical was diluted to negligible concentrations before it reached consumers' dinner plates. At the farm, the scrap pet food was typically mixed with other feeds.
Once ingested by a hog or chicken, most of the melamine appears to have been excreted rather than being taken up into muscle or fat tissue, said Robert Buchanan, senior science adviser for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition.
Analyses conducted at the University of California, Davis, found melamine at a concentration of roughly 10 parts per billion in meat samples taken from animals that ate the contaminated feed, Buchanan said.
Using that figure as a starting point, federal scientists estimated the likely maximum daily exposure to the chemical for a person eating nothing but the tainted meat. Even in that extreme case, the exposure would still be 250,000 times less, per pound of body weight, than the maximum "safe" daily dose of melamine for rats.
Melamine toxicity in humans has not been studied directly, and rats and humans have very different responses to some toxins. But it would be extraordinarily surprising if such a low dose of melamine turned out to be harmful to humans, Buchanan said.
Jean Halloran, a food safety specialist at Consumers Union, the nonprofit publisher of Consumer Reports magazine, criticized the agency's decision to release the 20 million chickens into the food supply. She said too many uncertainties remain about the effects of melamine on the human body, and that federal investigators simply haven't had enough time to do a thorough investigation.
Halloran also called for the USDA to require labeling of meat from animals that may have eaten contaminated feed. USDA spokesman Keith Williams said the agency would not require meat packers to take that step.
sacbee.com
USDA clears suspect meat
OK To Eat Meat From Pigs And Chickens That Ate Contaminated Pet Food Scraps Say US Agencies
Main Category: Nutrition / Diet News
Medical News Today
Article Date: 08 May 2007
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.
medicalnewstoday.com
USDA clears suspect meat
Millions of chickens, hogs that ate tainted pet food are declared safe for human use.
By Jim Downing - Bee Staff Writer
Last Updated 12:01 am PDT Tuesday, May 8, 2007
Story appeared in BUSINESS section, Page D4
Tests of hogs and chickens that ate melamine-laced pet food in recent months suggest that eating the animals' meat poses virtually no health risk to humans, the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported Monday.
The agency also announced that it had released to market roughly 20 million chickens that were being held on farms identified as having received shipments of the contaminated pet food, a decision one consumer group called premature.
An additional 6,000 hogs and 100,000 chickens raised on farms where the feed tested positive for melamine are still being held pending further test results. An estimated 3 million broiler chickens that ate melamine-tainted feed were sent to market in February and March.
Melamine, an industrial chemical used in plastics manufacturing, is believed to have been added deliberately to shipments of common pet food ingredients from China to boost their apparent protein content. The chemical has been implicated in a wave of illnesses and deaths in cats and dogs over the past two months that has prompted the recall of more than 150 brands of pet food. Melamine moved into the human food supply via scrap pet food sold to livestock operations.
Federal investigators believe the chemical was diluted to negligible concentrations before it reached consumers' dinner plates. At the farm, the scrap pet food was typically mixed with other feeds.
Once ingested by a hog or chicken, most of the melamine appears to have been excreted rather than being taken up into muscle or fat tissue, said Robert Buchanan, senior science adviser for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition.
Analyses conducted at the University of California, Davis, found melamine at a concentration of roughly 10 parts per billion in meat samples taken from animals that ate the contaminated feed, Buchanan said.
Using that figure as a starting point, federal scientists estimated the likely maximum daily exposure to the chemical for a person eating nothing but the tainted meat. Even in that extreme case, the exposure would still be 250,000 times less, per pound of body weight, than the maximum "safe" daily dose of melamine for rats.
Melamine toxicity in humans has not been studied directly, and rats and humans have very different responses to some toxins. But it would be extraordinarily surprising if such a low dose of melamine turned out to be harmful to humans, Buchanan said.
Jean Halloran, a food safety specialist at Consumers Union, the nonprofit publisher of Consumer Reports magazine, criticized the agency's decision to release the 20 million chickens into the food supply. She said too many uncertainties remain about the effects of melamine on the human body, and that federal investigators simply haven't had enough time to do a thorough investigation.
Halloran also called for the USDA to require labeling of meat from animals that may have eaten contaminated feed. USDA spokesman Keith Williams said the agency would not require meat packers to take that step.
sacbee.com
