秃公
加入时间: 2006/09/12
文章: 1667
经验值: 1777
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作者：秃公 在 罕见奇谈 发贴, 来自 http://www.hjclub.org
Mao insists that the discovery of melamine, if it is confirmed, would be the first time this has happened in China. "We are fully co-operating with the investigation," says Mao. "We are helping the authorities. We know that the sale of agricultural products to the USA is a sensitive area. We do not refute the news, but we need to know more about it."
The FDA does not yet know how the chemical got into the wheat gluten. What is certain is that it shouldn't have been in food. "This is not an acceptable additive to food. It shouldn't have been there," said FDA Commissioner Andrew von Eschenbach in a Monday briefing.
Wheat gluten is the protein found in wheat flour. It is used to add protein and thicken pet foods. It also is used in human foods. In Chinese cuisine, wheat gluten is often used as a meat substitute in vegetarian dishes.
The Chinese supplier sells both animal-feed-grade wheat gluten and human-food-grade gluten. Menu Foods, which manufactured most of the recalled pet foods, has said that the wheat gluten it used was human food grade.
There is "no evidence" to suggest that any of the wheat gluten from the melamine-positive lots got into the human food supply, says von Eschenbach.
No new recalls have been announced since Saturday. But FDA's enforcement director David Elder said Monday that the investigation is "open and ongoing. It's impossible to say that there won't be further recalls. We're going to follow the trail."
FDA researchers can't say for certain that it is melamine that has sickened and, in some cases, killed the animals. "The information in the scientific literature doesn't show the type of injury we're seeing," says Neal Bataller at the FDA's Center for Veterinary Medicine.
"But there's a very strong association between the wheat gluten and these problem. We can't rule out melamine as a direct causative agent," Bataller says. But he also noted that the presence of melamine could merely be an indication that there's another, more dangerous, contaminant in the gluten.
FDA officials don't yet know how much wheat gluten came into the USA from Xuzhou Anying. The contaminated gluten entered the country between Nov. 3 and Jan. 23, Bataller says.
Exports currently account for less than 10% of the firm's business. Both domestic and foreign sales are rising, says Mao, who didn't provide details. Xuzhou Anying set up a trading company last year to help boost overseas sales. "We only started exporting to the USA last year," Mao says. "It is a great market for us to develop."
The agricultural inspection system in China is thinly spread, says Beijing-based agricultural consultant Hu Xiaolan. The system is "very complete, but it is still hard to get every department to fulfill its function," Hu says. "There are not enough people or funds to undertake all the inspections."
Ma Ying, head of the Fodder Division of the Animal Husbandry Department of China's Ministry of Agriculture, says the inspection system in China is based on production licenses. "Each year we issue or renew 2,000 licenses for the 15,000 animal feed producers in China. That's about 13%. In addition, we have an approval number system for each new product that means we inspect about 50% of all producers each year."
In addition to these central government inspections, provinces also conduct their own inspections, Ma says. "In 2006, we inspected 11,800 batches of the 110 million tons of animal feed produced in China. Of the compound feed we inspected, including that used for pet food, 95% was approved," he says.
Michael Rogers, director of the FDA's division of field investigations, says it has over 400 investigators actively focused on the pet food recall. The agency has so far tested 430 samples of pet food sent in by consumers.
Normally the agency gets 5,000 consumer complaints a year on all products. "This issue has generated about 9,400 reports of concerns or complaints. The sheer volume is extraordinary," says von Eschenbach.
Contributing: Elizabeth Weise in San Francisco
作者：秃公 在 罕见奇谈 发贴, 来自 http://www.hjclub.org |
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China denies role in pet food recall
