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Melamine-Related Pet Food Recall Went Unnoticed

FDA delayed posting the April recall until July

By Lisa Wade McCormick
ConsumerAffairs.com

August 20, 2007

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Information obtained by ConsumerAffairs.com reveals that although a rendering plant in Texas recalled more than one million pounds of melamine-tainted meat and bone meal products in April, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) did not post information about the recall until July.

Darling International took the action during the height of the largest pet food recall in U.S. history.

When it finally did post the notice, the FDA listed the move as a Class III enforcement action, which means “use of or exposure to a violative product is not likely to cause adverse health consequences.”

The FDA’s Web site states Darling issued two separate recalls on April 20 of 682,600 pounds of dry rendered tankage -- or meat and bone meal products -- because the products contained melamine.

That's the chemical that triggered the massive recall in March of millions of containers of pet food, and is blamed for causing kidney disease and deaths in thousands of dogs and cats nationwide.

The FDA said Darling International processed the melamine-tainted bone meal products at its Wichita, Kansas, plant and distributed them in the Sunflower State and in Nebraska.

News of this latest melamine-related recall -- and its delayed posting -- alarmed pet owners nationwide. They fear the tainted products could have made their way back into their pets’ foods.

They also wondered why the FDA didn’t immediately post the recall.

“The FDA made no mention on its site of this recall until July 25th, and it's listed as a Class III recall,” cat owner, Don E. of Washington, told ConsumerAffairs.com. “So a meat and bone meal product, adulterated with melamine that could be used in pet food, is a Class III recall. But melamine in pet food is a Class I recall.”

Pet owner Mike G. of Florida raised similar concerns.

“Why would this firm which deals in rendered animal proteins, not in vegetable proteins, have to recall products containing melamine?” he asked. “This was in late April, about when it was learned that 'salvaged pet foods' had been fed to hogs, chickens, and farm-raised fish.

“Does something not seem right?”

A spokesman for Darling International says his company understands pet owners’ worries.

But Ross Hamilton, international director of governmental affairs and technology for Darling, said none of the melamine-tainted meat and bone meal products wound up in pet food.

“I empathize with pet owners and my message to them is none of this got into pet food,” he told ConsumerAffairs.com.

The contaminated material, however, did get into commercial feed for pigs and chicken.

“The loads that were recalled did go into to animal feed…commercial animal feed,” Hamilton said. “But after it left our facility, it was blended with other feeds, and at that point, the FDA said the melamine wasn’t detectable in the food. It was diluted down through normal procedures and by the time it got into commercial feed, it was so diluted that you couldn’t detect the melamine.”

The FDA and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) tested animals that consumed the melamine-tainted feed. Those tests concluded that meat from these animals is safe for humans to eat.

“There is very low risk of human illness from eating such meat,” the FDA states on its Web site.

How did the melamine-tainted materials wind up at Darling’s Irving, Texas, plant?

“One of our facilities inadvertently received it from Menu Foods (Emporia, Kansas) plant and we didn’t find out it contained melamine until after the recall began,” Hamilton said. “When the FDA was doing a trace-out from Menu, they found some of this material -- it’s meat scraps -- that we routinely pick up from Menu.”

He added: “We have manufacturing hazardous plans in place for hazards that we are aware of. But this one (melamine) was one that we weren’t aware of. This was one that we had to add to our list; it was a surprise to us.”

Hamilton said the FDA didn’t “cover-up” this recall, as some pet owners have alleged. He said the agency simply didn’t make it public until it finished its investigation.

“We worked with them on this recall,” Hamilton said. “They’re pretty meticulous and delayed posting this until they had closed out their investigation.”

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