May 8, 2007

Iowa inspectors search answers to contaminated hog feed 

As only few companies in the United States process human food residues into animal feed, federal inspectors in the US state of Iowa have visited a feed operation in Anamosa City which has suspected to have processed the contaminated feed which resulted to the sickness or death of dogs few weeks ago.

According to Dustin VandeHoef, communications director for the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship said the inspection is a means of precautionary measure and that Agriculture department as well as the Food and Drug Administration are closely monitoring whether the chemical melamine has entered the country's livestock feed.

Melamine, a toxic chemical added to wheat gluten to increase its protein content, was found to be in imported wheat gluten from China, gluten that is used by many pet food companies in the US

VandeHoef said USDA's National Veterinary Services Laboratory in Ames is working with FDA to see if some of the tainted pet food scraps may have ended up in batches of food residuals processed at Food Waste Solutions LLC in Anamosa. He said however "at this time there are no major concerns. They are just testing and there are no red flags at this point."

The USDA said April 26 that tainted feeds were consumed by hogs in California, New York, South Carolina, Utah, Kansas and Oklahoma. The FDA said however said the hogs will not be recalled as the risk to humans becoming sick consuming the meat is very low. Around 6,000 hogs that have believed to have eaten the tainted livestock feed have either been traced to individual farms or will be destroyed rather than pose risk of having the animals enter the human food chain.