Melamine – Now in Humans
Once again, there’s no evidence that melamine at such low levels would pose any threat to humans. (or pigs, I guess, they have other issues to worry about!). It is the lack of ingredients control, and the casual diversion of food considered unfit for pet consumption to animal feed. If you did this to some other, more dangerous contaminant, and I don’t see any reason why the same thing would not happen, we’d be in a lot more trouble. The U.S did not really learn any lessons from the mad cow scare.
In a way, I am glad this story has unfolded the way it did, slowly, and methodically up the food chain, finally reaching humans. It provides some insight into how the US government “regulates” food, and what needs to be done to shore up this program. (hint, better regulation, more money, more inspectors!). Of course, as a cat owner, (and one who had an unexplained trip to the hospital to treat said cat for puking and general stomach issues), I wish that cats were not the canary in this particular food safety scare, but I guess it really made people pay attention.
Report: Tainted hogs enter food supply – Yahoo! News
Several hundred of the 6,000 hogs that may have eaten contaminated pet food are believed to have entered the food supply for humans, the government said Thursday.
No more than 345 hogs, from farms in three states, that possibly ate tainted feed are involved, according to the Agriculture Department. It appears the large majority of the hogs that may have been exposed are still on the farms where they are being raised, spokeswoman Nicol Andrews said.
Salvaged pet food from companies known or suspected of using tainted ingredients was shipped to hog farms in seven states for use as feed. A poultry feed mill in an eighth state, Missouri, also received possibly contaminated pet food scraps left over from production. The fate of the feed made from that waste was not immediately known.
How long do you really think this has been going on? I would say for years and years. All our enemies have found out how to kill us without having a war! Just poison us from the food that we eat! Like I said, this has been going on for years….what about all the cancer levels…they have grown…all the other things that we wiped out for years are all coming back. Why you say….who has most of the diseases that are popping up? Well, China has all those diseases and now we are getting them over here! And they keep on getting richer and richer. If we can use dead road kill in our pets food and other things….what do you think China adds for all the other diseases? Yes….you are right….they have to many people that die to put them in the ground…maybe they found away to solve that problem???? Remember the movie…..(ancient green) I think that was the name. Who is to say that this is what is happening right now! Something to think about….!
The first thing I said was” They are trying to see if they can get us through the food supply” And then… we… recall ‘all’ of it only to feed it to another species! Duh! Humans are so stupid and self centered.
Only simple greed at work, I don’t think there’s any malevolence on the part of any one involved. It’s a pretty common practice in every industry to use different quality grades of raw materials for different purposes. it is strange in this case that pets and pigs have different standards, they’re both animals!
The FDA will hopefully uncover the extent of the problem (few bad apples, or all of China), and put some more controls into place. Melamine as an adulterant is a new problem, and while it points to a lack of ingredients control in our food manufacturing, it will monitored for, and taken care of soon. But without a comprehensive testing program in place, we’re always going to be reactive, not proactive.
IMHO until we stop over processing our food chain these scare will continue – we must get away from this “chemicalisation” of food…for us OR our pets