FDA Must Improve Inspections
St. Cloud (MN) Times
Friday's release of a document called "Important Alert No. 99-26" by the Food and Drug Administration went largely unnoticed by the mainstream media.
Its primary purpose was to block the importation of wheat gluten produced by the Xuzhou Anying Biologic Technology company in Peixian, China.
But a bit of investigation suggests it should also raise frightening questions about globalization, government regulators and the safety of our food supply.
Pet food
The story behind the alert began in December with the decision by Toronto-based Menu Foods to buy low-cost wheat gluten from China for use in pet food.
Menu Foods then blended the gluten, which is used as a thickener, into at least 95 products for such well-known labels as Mighty Dog, Iams, Eukanuba, Ol' Roy and dozens of store brands sold nationwide.
By February, veterinarians began to receive calls from people whose dogs and cats appeared listless, were losing weight and were exhibiting other symptoms diagnosed as acute renal failure.
Late that month, Menu Foods fed its products to several dozen cats and dogs in a trial, and March 2 the first of those test animals died. Eight more soon followed.
Some reports claim Menu Foods had received complaints that its products were sickening pets as early as December, but by March it was clear: There was something toxic in the food.
Once the source of the kidney failure was linked to pet food, several labs set to work identifying the cause.
Eventually a urea-based product called melamine, a common ingredient in plastic resins, was found in samples of wheat gluten used in the pet food at concentrations as high as 6.6 percent — so high the crystals were visible to the naked eye.
How it got there is a mystery, but it has been traced to wheat gluten produced in China and imported by Menu Foods.
Vulnerable consumers
This might have remained a human interest story with an emphasis on grieving pet owners if not for three factors.
First, the contamination forced the recall of about 60 million cans of pet food valued as high as $35 million, affecting millions of pet owners.
Second, although the FDA has reported only 16 official animal deaths related to the food, they had received more than 8,000 consumer complaints by Friday, suggesting the real toll may be much higher. (Self-reports by owners on one Web site alone have already tallied almost 3,000 deaths.)
Third, and most frightening, was this statement from FDA spokesperson Stephen Sundlof last week: "There are really no differences in the regulation of animal food and the regulation of human food... The same people that inspect human food plants also inspect pet food plants."
If that system failed our pets, how long will it be before it fails us as well?
So a story about grieving pet owners has become a tale of the dangers of global markets, where tainted food from poorly regulated, low-cost foreign producers can end up on our tables.
It's also a story of our failed food inspection system, long known for being understaffed, underfunded and far too beholden to the companies it is intended to monitor.
But in the end it's a story about our vulnerability as consumers, forced to accept the word of corporate mouthpieces and government regulators that someone, somewhere, is looking out for us.
Back in the days when food came from local farms any outbreak of disease or case of contamination would necessarily be limited and easy to trace.
But today's processed foods include dozens of ingredients, often from far-away factories and spread among hundreds of products.
It's the FDA's job to make sure that system is safe, but if it took months of mystery and thousands of animal deaths to discover the tainted pet food, how well is the system working?
While most of us ignore the vague terrorism alerts that occasionally raise us to "threat level orange," Important Alert No. 99-26 should have more people seeing red.
