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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 Outbreak Spreads to 42 States • Feds Seize Rodent-Infested Food at Wisconsin Warehouse • Missouri Company Recalls 14,000 Pounds of Beef Due to E.Coli • California Firm Recalls Beef Products • Feds Seize Millions in 'Unsanitary' Produce From Tennessee Company • Consumer Group Proposes Food Label Makeovers • Beef Recall Produces Call For Plant Closing • Consumer Reports: Most Store-Bought Chicken Contains Harmful Bacteria • FDA Seeks Permanent Injunction Against Sharkco Seafood • Two Companies Pull Meat, Poultry Products Over Health Concerns • Food Safety Group Presses Senate For Action • New Report Recommends Enhanced Food Tracing Guidelines --- • 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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