Still feeling complacent about pet food contamination? Still believe the human food chain is safe? Not according to the latest — still widely under-reported — news from the FDA.
– Forbes: FDA admits that
“The potential threat to human health from contaminated pet food has now widened to include chickens, with U.S. health officials announcing that melamine-tainted pet product made its way into poultry feed at 38 Indiana farms.”
The agencies also warned that “as the investigation continues, additional farms will likely be identified that received contaminated feed.”
And then, as monkeys flew out their asses, they said that the threat to humans who ate the chicken and pork is low.
Latest FDA Alert “
FDA’s acknowledgment that the agency had received more than ”17,000 consumer complaints relating to this outbreak, and those complaints included reports of approximately 1950 deaths of cats and 2200 deaths of dogs.”
Yes, that’s 41,500 (oops!) 4,150 dead cats and dogs, so far. Not the 18 they were reporting just last week.
Thank you to Elizabeth Weise and Julie Schmit at USA Today for their coverage on the recall issues. In their story today:
“The Food and Drug Administration is enforcing a new import alert [issued April 27th] that greatly expands its curtailment of some food ingredients imported from China, authorizing border inspectors to detain ingredients used in everything from noodles to breakfast bars.
The new restriction is likely to cause delays in the delivery of raw ingredients for the production of many commonly used products.”
Christie Keith of Pet Connection Blog writes in SFGate.com on steps that need to be taken to make the pet food supply safe.
– Government agencies must conduct rigorous and regular inspections of pet food manufacturing plants.
– Regulation of pet food must be streamlined, effective and meaningful.
– require industry transparency and accountability.
– Veterinarians need to be brought more fully into the human public health system, including the tracking of animal illness on a national level.
The FDA was founded in 1938 with one clear mission: “protecting the public health by assuring the safety, efficacy, and security of human and veterinary drugs, biological products, medical devices, our nation’s food supply, cosmetics, and products that emit radiation.”
NY Times mentions the FDA announcement in a couple of grafs in the business section. NY Daily News didn’t bother to cover it at all.
