Looks like the China scare caught this in the dragnet Kirk Tainted livestock feed in U.S. Company added melamine RICK WEISS; The Washington Post Published: May 31st, 2007 01:00 AM WASHINGTON An Ohio company has long been adding the industrial toxin melamine to animal feed ingredients, and those feeds have been consumed by livestock and fish meant for human consumption, officials with the Food and Drug Administration said Wednesday. The FDAs announcement was the first indication that a U.S. company had used melamine as an animal feed ingredient. Previously, the problem of melamine in animal feed was thought to be contained to China, where manufacturers had added it to wheat gluten. The Ohio company was adding the chemical as a binding agent to hold feed granules in pellet form, in contrast to the recent pet food scandal, which involved imported ingredients that were spiked with melamine to provide a false measure of protein content, officials said. But as with the pet food scandal, they said, the levels of melamine involved appear to be too low to pose a health hazard to any humans who might have eaten animals that consumed the tainted feed. The company, Tembec BTLSR Inc. of Toledo, sold the melamine-laden feed ingredients to Uniscope Inc. of Johnstown, Colo., which used them to make three finished food products one for cattle, sheep and goats, and two meant for fish and shrimp. The contamination came to the FDAs attention May 18 after officials from Uniscope tested for melamine in the feed components they were buying something the FDA has been encouraging food producers to do. The FDA began an investigation the next working day, officials said. As the culmination of that process, officials said, Tembec initiated a formal recall Wednesday of its products, and the company has stopped adding the chemical. It remains unclear why Tembec did not stop the practice of using melamine months ago given the intense publicity generated by the pet food scandal, during which officials repeatedly made it clear that melamine is not an approved additive for human or animal food. What they knew and didnt know before will be part of the investigation as it unfolds, said David Acheson, the FDAs assistant commissioner for food protection, during a telephone news conference Wednesday. Officials said they didnt know how many animals might have eaten the food or how long the practice of making the pellets with melamine has been going on. But the presumption, Acheson said, is that its a longstanding practice. Melamine levels in the companies livestock feed were so low as to not pose any risk to the animals, much less to consumers, Acheson said. Levels in the fish and shrimp feed were high enough to raise some concerns about those animals health, but are still very unlikely to pose a human health risk, he added. Acheson said that the two fish feed products that Uniscope made from Tembecs tainted ingredients were exported to other countries. The FDA is trying to track the amounts and destinations of the feed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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