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More Food Poisonings to Come, Expert Warns

FDA 30 Years Behind, Unable to Deal with Globalization

By Mark Huffman
ConsumerAffairs.com

April 28, 2007

Food Safety • Salmonella Scare Prompts Dairy Recall • Most Consumers Lack Confidence In Food Safety, Survey Says • House Committee Unanimously Passes Food Safety Bill • Food Safety Bill Aired In House • House Committee Moves Forward On Food Safety Legislation • Illinois Meat Packer Recalls 95,898 Pounds Of Beef • Alfalfa Sprouts Linked to Salmonella • Food Safety Results Level Off • Sprouts Recalled Due To Possible Listeria • FDA Warns About Listeria in Salmon • Food Industry Accused of Big Tobacco's Bad Habits • FDA Closes Tortilla Plant • Surface Water May Be Source Of Salmonella • Key Senator Blasts FDA Over Food Safety > • FDA Rolls Out Food Safety Plan • Brits Get Treats, Yanks Get Tricks From Food Companies • Hartz Recalls Rawhide Chips After Possible Salmonella Contamination • Vermont Firm Recalls Possibly-Tainted Ground Beef • Beef Sent to Puerto Rico May Be Contaminated with E. coli • Technology Offers Revolution in Food Safety Testing • Chinese Gorillas Fall Ill as Melamine Scandal Widens • Alfalfa Sprouts Recalled in Salmonella Outbreak • CDC Gives "All Clear" On Salmonella Outbreak • One Death Reported in Oklahoma E. coli Outbreak • Feds Approve Irradiation of Spinach, Lettuce • FDA Issues Warning About Frozen Seafood • Whole Foods Extends Beef Recall • Whole Foods Recalls Fresh Ground Beef • Six New E. coli Cases Reported In Massachusetts --- • More ...

The traumatic pet food contamination that has sickened and killed thousands of animals over the last few months, is not an isolated incident, according to an agriculture expert. Rather, it’s indicative of a serious breakdown in the system.

“Uncontrolled distribution of low-quality, imported food ingredients is a great threat to U.S. public health,” said Dr. Gary Weaver, Director of the Program on Agriculture and Animal Health Policy for the University of Maryland’s Center for Food, Nutrition, and Agriculture Policy.

The problem, says Weaver, is the U.S. has very little direct, hands-on control over the pet food industry.

Incidents like pet food contamination will continue, he says, until the U.S. completes an effective overhaul of its food safety programs.

“FDA appears to be some 30 years behind as they use pre-global economy border food inspection strategies in our new global economy world of massive international food trade from many countries with food safety standards much lower than ours,” Weaver said.

“Billions of dollars' worth of foreign ingredients that Americans eat in everything from salad dressing to ice cream get a pass from overwhelmed FDA inspectors, despite a rising tide of these imports from countries with spotty food safety records.”

Not All Accidental

And it’s not just substandard manufacturing standards and less than optimum workplace conditions that can result in toxic ingredients ending up in food products. Weaver maintains that some contamination is actually by design.

“Unscrupulous people know that adding the industrial chemical, melamine, to food products and ingredients can make that food product and ingredient test as having a higher protein content,” he said,

So how did that melamine get into animal food?

In the most recent case of pet food contamination, several hundred tons of melamine-contaminated wheat gluten was purchased by an import company in Nevada from an animal feed exporter in China. The animal feed exporter mixed together multiple batches of wheat gluten that had been purchased from several unidentified wheat gluten producers in China.

In the U.S., the Nevada-based company that imported the melamine-contaminated wheat gluten sold it to several pet food manufacturers including the Canadian firm, Menu Foods, which manufactures pet food sold under more than 100 brand names sold in Canada, the U.S., and Mexico.

Chinese officials have since told the FDA that these several hundred tons of Chinese wheat gluten were solely intended for industrial use. It was never meant for animal or human consumption as food. Later, Chinese officials told the FDA that they never sold any wheat gluten to the U.S.

Why Wasn't It Screened?

Why wasn’t the wheat gluten screened for toxic substances?

Historically, FDA has never routinely screened food ingredients like wheat gluten or rice protein concentrate because they have not usually been contaminated. Also, Weaver says, FDA focuses on microbial – not chemical – contamination of food products and ingredients.

That could be a problem in the future.

Weaver and other U.S. experts say there are many other potential food ingredient melamine-tampering targets for unscrupulous sellers including whey protein isolates, soy protein isolates, soy protein concentrate, soy grits and soy lecithin.

Globalism Blowback

The pet food contamination is an example of one of the downsides to the global economy. The U.S. now imports many food products and ingredients including cheap wheat gluten from the global marketplace where food safety standards are oftentimes lower than what Americans are accustomed to and will accept.

Many of these imported food products and ingredients can and do change ownership many times, far away in distant lands, before arriving in the U.S.

Many of these particular food products and ingredients are virtually untraceable once things go wrong in the U.S. marketplace. It all adds up to an attractive environment for anyone who wants to cut corners and fatten the bottom line.

Weaver says FDA considers both wheat gluten and rice protein concentrate melamine-contaminations as aberrations because the food ingredients wheat gluten and rice protein concentrate historically have been contaminant-free, but it’s clear he doesn’t agree.

Without fundamental changes, he maintains, the hellish scenario of the last few weeks will happen again and again ... and not just to animals.

“The Congress should adequately increase FDA’s regulatory authority, budget, and workforce so that the FDA can properly protect all of the US food supply,” Weaver said.

“Currently FDA lacks authority to force a disclosure, a recall, or a plant closure except with extreme circumstances including FDA personnel actually finding a hazardous batch of product,” he warned.

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