Pet food scandal has scary implications for humans
The recent death of hundreds of beloved pets was traced back to a wheat gluten factory near Shanghai, China. The wheat gluten, a thickener used in pet food, was contaminated with melamine (a chemical used in plastics, fertilizers, and flame retardants). It is believed that the melamine may have been processed or stored in the same containers used for the gluten.
How did the contaminated gluten make it into over 100 brands of US pet food? Chinese ingredients are less expensive than American ones, and so large companies purchase many plant and animal products from China to save on costs. The fact that over 100 brands were recalled speaks to the pervasiveness of Chinese agricultural products contained within American food products.
A very alarming article was published by Forbes Magazine, describing the serious quality control problems that China has been having, and America’s limited ability to screen incoming goods:
Over the past 25 years, Chinese agricultural exports to the U.S. surged nearly 20-fold to $2.26 billion last year, led by poultry products, sausage casings, shellfish, spices and apple juice.
Inspectors from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration are able to inspect only a tiny percentage of the millions of shipments that enter the U.S. each year.
Even so, shipments from China were rejected at the rate of about 200 per month this year, the largest from any country, compared to about 18 for Thailand, and 35 for Italy, also big exporters to the U.S., according to data posted on the FDA’s Web site.
Chinese products are bounced for containing pesticides, antibiotics and other potentially harmful chemicals, and false or incomplete labeling that sometimes omits the producer’s name.
The problems the [Chinese] government faces are legion. Pesticides and chemical fertilizers are used in excess to boost yields while harmful antibiotics are widely administered to control disease in seafood and livestock. Rampant industrial pollution risks introducing heavy metals into the food chain.
Farmers have used cancer-causing industrial dye Sudan Red to boost the value of their eggs and fed an asthma medication to pigs to produce leaner meat. In a case that galvanized the public’s and government’s attention, shoddy infant formula with little or no nutritional value has been blamed for causing severe malnutrition in hundreds of babies and killing at least 12.
Assuming that Forbes has not overstated the case, Americans have good cause for concern about the safety of food that includes ingredients from China – is it only a matter of time before the pet food debacle is played out in humans? I don’t know, but I’m worried. Do you know of any other credible reports about this problem? Please share!
This post originally appeared on Dr. Val’s blog at RevolutionHealth.com.
I had no idea. Thanks, Dr. Val.