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  Millions Of Chickens Fed Tainted Pet Food
  
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/01/AR2007050102071.html
   
   
  Risk to Consumers Minimal, FDA Says
   
  By Rick Weiss
  Washington Post Staff Writer
  Wednesday, May 2, 2007; Page A01
   
  At least 2.5 million broiler chickens from an Indiana producer were fed pet 
food scraps contaminated with the chemical melamine and subsequently sold for 
human consumption, federal health officials reported yesterday.
   
  Hundreds of other producers may have similarly sold an unknown amount of 
contaminated poultry in recent months, they added, painting a picture of much 
broader consumption of contaminated feed and food than had previously been 
acknowledged in the widening pet food scandal.
   
  Pet Food Claims Animal Lives
   
  A widespread contamination of pet food has been linked to the deaths of 
several dogs and cats and thousands of reports of sick animals throughout the 
country.
   
  Officials emphasized that they do not believe the tainted chickens -- or the 
smaller number of contaminated pigs that were reported to have entered the 
human food supply -- pose risks to people who ate them.
   
  "We do not believe there is any significant threat of human illness from 
this," said David Acheson, the Food and Drug Administration's chief medical 
officer. FDA Commissioner Andrew von Eschenbach named Acheson yesterday the 
agency's new "food czar" -- officially, assistant commissioner for food 
protection.
   
  None of the farm animals is known to have become sick from the food, and very 
little of the contaminant is suspected of having accumulated in their tissue. 
Thus, no recall of any products that may still be on store shelves or in 
people's freezers is planned, officials said.
   
  Nonetheless, 100,000 Indiana chickens that ate the melamine-laced food and 
are still alive have been quarantined and will be destroyed as a precautionary 
measure -- as will any other animals that turn up as the investigation 
continues to expand.
   
  The revelations are the latest in a rapidly widening scandal that started out 
with reports of a few deaths of pets. It has mushroomed into a major debacle 
that, even if no human injuries emerge, has exposed significant gaps in the 
nation's food-safety system.
   
  In the first volley of what Hill watchers expect to be a series of proposed 
fixes, Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) and Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) 
yesterday introduced legislation that would give the FDA the power to order 
mandatory recalls of adulterated foods, establish an early warning and 
notification system for tainted human or pet food, and allow fines for 
companies that do not promptly report contaminated products.
   
  Meanwhile, the FDA expanded the number of plant-based protein products from 
China on its "do not import" list, pending the completion of further tests on 
various kinds of glutens, protein concentrates and other products.
   
  At the center of the problem are pet foods spiked with melamine, a mildly 
toxic chemical that can make food appear to have more protein than it does. 
Most of the food went to pets, but scraps were sold in February to the Indiana 
poultry producer, officials said. The contaminated material may have made up 
about 5 percent of the chickens' total food supply.
   
  That small fraction, and the fact that people, unlike pets, do not eat the 
same thing day after day, suggests that consumers who ate contaminated pork or 
chicken would probably have ingested extremely small doses of melamine, well 
below the threshold for causing health effects, officials said. Experts 
conceded, however, that they know little about how the toxin interacts with 
other compounds in food.
   
  Investigators are tracking streams of the contaminated food through several 
states.
   
  "Our sense is that the investigation will lead to additional farms where 
contaminated feed may have been fed to either animals or poultry," said Kenneth 
Petersen of the Agriculture Department Food Safety and Inspection Service.
   
  Officials said the FDA has received 17,000 reports of pets that owners 
believe were sickened or killed by contaminated food. About 8,000 reports, 
roughly half of them involving animals that died, have been formally entered 
into the FDA's tracking system for further analysis.
   
  U.S. investigators have arrived in China, officials said, but inspections of 
production facilities there have been hampered by the start yesterday of a 
week-long national vacation.
   
  "Essentially, all the officials are on holiday," said Walter Batts, part of 
the FDA's China team, adding that one Chinese official had stayed behind to 
help.
   



       
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