From:
"Sukie Crandall"
Date: 2007-04-20 17:59:12 UTC
Subject: [ferrethealth] new recall information and 2 links recommended
To: ferrethealth@yahoogroups.com
I sent this to the FHL and FML as well as few other
lists I am on but it seems to be lost in the ether, not
reaching any so far, so I am including it by posting at
the website.
There are some more imported food ingredients
being recalled (with the list looking like it could
expand) and food makers may want to emphasize
sources of their ingredients:
http://www.fda.gov/opacom/7alerts.html
Bill, it looks like the preliminary report you found
last night panned out. The melamine was not from
fertilizer. Instead it MAY have been purposely ADDED
to the wheat gluten, the rice protein concentrate
(though that bag was actually a different color from the
ones without melamine and it clearly stated melamine
as being present, and the corn product in South Africa
TO MAKE THEM TEST THAT THEY HAD HIGHER PROTEIN
LEVELS.
In the People's Republic of China much is similar to the
U.S. in the 50 and early 60s. Profit comes before safety
in many things and the politicians are worried (correctly
or incorrectly -- since politicians anywhere often are
very out of touch with their own people and everyday life
for the majority) that their own populace strongly places
emphasis on income over safety.
For those who think that the '50s were dancing in ice
cream parlors, please, know they were also a time when
most children has serious injuries from products that these
days would be considered unsafe, when we didn't have the
well designed seatbelts of today -- in fact often didn't have
seat belts, when more died of their asthma and air pollution,
when the unsafe compounds used in the home were even
less safe than now, and when rivers would at times burn.=20
The list of what was vastly unsafe could fill books. In fact, it
HAS filled books.
Not that there are not dangers these days. Heck, look at
who managed to buy weaponry and use it in schools. Still,
there were a lot of dangers that don't exist now,including
many environmental ones.
When the nearby Lilco power plant used to clean its stacks
everyone had to be warned beforehand so that wash could
come in, and those of use who lived nearby got a special
cash amount regularly to repaint houses since the ash ate
right through paint. Great to breathe, right? No one thought
of and no one had mechanical and chemical smoke stack
scubbers and extractors to keep what came out was cleaner.
In the U.S. then belching smoke stacks were so much the
symbol of progress and profit that they appeared in
many corporate symbols and even in one state symbol till later
(I've been told by relatives in that state.).
What I am saying is that we need to recall that we as a nation
have a history of corporations having also made similar mistakes
but we are learning as we go along so while we refuse those
products we also have to know that we have a similar past.
China is like that now. This revelation could deeply impact
their ability to export food stuffs for a while, though, and maybe
it will also be a wake-up call in all countries that bad products
damage profits, and that testing of products needs bucking up.
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=3D3058844&CMP=3DOTC-RSSFeeds0312
BEGIN QUOTES from ABC
April 19, 2007 =97 For the first time, investigators are saying
the chemical that has sickened and killed pets in the United
States may have been intentionally added to pet food
ingredients by Chinese producers.
...
Chinese companies may have spiked products with the chemical
melamine so that they would appear, in tests, to have more value
as protein products.
...
there is a possibility for another round of recalls.
...
Melamine, which is used to make plastics in the United States and
as a fertilizer in Asia, contains nitrogen. Nitrogen can appear to
boost the level of protein in products.
END QUOTES
ARTICLE RECOMMENDED.
There is, of course the question whether melamine levels may
increase in animal tissues with repeated ingestion. Currently,
some hogs are being checked, and since a corn product and
perhaps some so far unspotted imported products may be
involved that question may also apply to poultry and to feedlot
animals in general. I don't know if any of those products are
used in farmed fish, but since wheat gluten is used in some
aquarium fish food it is possible that farmed fish may also need
to be tested to see if the compound can accumulate in their tissues.
Sukie (not a vet)
Current FHL address:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ferrethealth
Recommended ferret health links:
http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/ferrethealth/
http://ferrethealth.org/archive/
http://www.afip.org/ferrets/index.html
http://www.miamiferret.org/fhc/
http://www.ferretcongress.org/
http://www.trifl.org/index.shtml
http://homepage.mac.com/sukie/sukiesferretlinks.html
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