Contamination spreads to humans

The FDA is also examining imported proteins used in products like pizza, protein bars and baby formula.
CHICAGO TRIBUNE
WASHINGTON -- The tainted pet food scare, which has swelled into a serious crisis for animal lovers, now has spread to humans.
California officials have revealed that the contamination got into the food chain. About 45 state residents ate pork from hogs that consumed animal feed laced with melamine from China. Melamine is used to make plastics, but it also artificially boosts the protein level -- and thus the price -- of the glutens that go into food.
It was already fatal for some pets: 17 cats and dogs are confirmed dead, more have likely died without being reported, thousands have suffered kidney problems and 57 brands of cat food and 83 of dog food have been recalled. On top of that, roughly 6,000 hogs will be destroyed because they ate tainted feed.
The effects of melamine on people are thought to be minimal, but no one really knows. Its consumption by humans is considered so improbable that no one has even studied it.
But they are studying now. What last month was a limited recall of canned pet food is on the verge of becoming a full-fledged public health scare, potentially overwhelming government agencies and raising troubling questions about U.S. food safety in the global economy and in the post-Sept. 11 era.
Slow response
The Food and Drug Administration, criticized by some in Congress for responding too slowly, is struggling to catch up with the implications of the spread of melamine-contaminated glutens from China to hogs, and the human food chain. The FDA is still trying to get its investigators into China, where a skeptical government only last week assented to investigators' visa requests.
At a time when food imports are growing, and only 1 percent to 2 percent of food imports receive any government scrutiny, critics say the outbreak reveals the shortcomings of a weakened food safety bureaucracy, the inadequacy of existing regulations and the inability of the FDA, which has suffered significant cutbacks, to protect the food supply.
"They're reactive, not proactive," said Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., whose House subcommittee on investigations last week held a hearing on food safety. If the problem was imported pet food additives, he asked, "How does it then get to hogs? They've known about this for some time. What did they do with it?"
In a statement, the FDA said that "food safety funding" for the year ending last Sept. 30 "was 376 million." But funding for the agency's Center for Food Safety has dropped from 48 million in 2003 to about to 30 million in 2006, according to the center's 2006 budget priority statement. Full-time jobs in the Center for Food Safety have also been cut from 950 in 2003 to about 820 in 2006, according to the budget statement.
How widespread?
The FDA's real detective work may be just beginning. Having found many sources of contamination, investigators must now determine exactly how widespread the problem is and how it began.
The importer of the bad wheat gluten, ChemNutra Inc. of Las Vegas, contends that its Chinese manufacturer, Xuzhou Anying Biologic Technology Development Co., illicitly added melamine to the gluten to boost the measurable protein level and thus the price of the shipment. If so, the FDA may find itself pursuing criminal charges against the Chinese company.
Scores of pet food brands have now been recalled in the U.S. for fear that melamine-contaminated glutens were used in their manufacture. They include canned and dry dog food and dog biscuits that are made in places as widely scattered as Utah, Missouri and South Carolina.
The FDA is also examining imported vegetable proteins earmarked for human products like pizza, protein bars and baby formula. That investigation, still in its early stages, hasn't uncovered any contaminated ingredients, but the agency, an FDA doctor said, wanted to "get ahead of the curve."
The melamine-laced food reached hogs because surplus pet food -- crumbled and broken food bits rejected as unsuitable for dogs or cats -- was sent to hog farms and turned into feed. The FDA says bulk shipments of feed were delivered to hog farmers in California, Utah, Ohio, Kansas, Oklahoma, New York, North Carolina and South Carolina. FDA officials said they were also concerned contaminated livestock feed may have been shipped to Missouri.
"It's absolutely a terrible nightmare story," said Eric Nelson, a Wisconsin feed specialist and president of the Association of American Feed Control Officers. "It just doesn't seem to get any better, and I'm sure it's not over."