Now We Have a New Czar: Pet Food debacle (C)

May 8th, 2007

By Rowan Wolf
[Originally published 5/01/07]

The food contamination issues, and the lack of oversight by the FDA has now been solved. The FDA has named a Food Safety Czar. Now we can all breathe a sigh of relief and go back to sleep. David Acheson, MD will be responsible for advising FDA Commissioner Andrew C. von Eschenbach on “food safety and defense strategies.”

Just as a side note, I think it is interesting that the United States, a democratic country, has a penchant for naming “czars” of things. It is after all a title that implies emperor, or king, and has imperial connotations. It certainly doesn’t connote any expertise, and generally does not connote much in the way of actual power. Our new food safety czar will advise - not make decisions or actually organize anything. Given the apparent lack of funding for the FDA in the area of food safety, he is not likely to have much of a staff either.

Meanwhile, more and more questionable things are coming to light. Personally, I wish that someone would ask some questions that are just bugging me.

Various reports have said that livestock feed is contaminated, or that livestock was fed contaminated pet food (Millions of Chickens Fed Contaminated Pet Food. Given that these two are interposed and used synonymously, one is led to assume that rejected, and discarded pet food is a regular livestock feed. I don’t know about you, but I think that is a pretty questionable practice. It also means that pet food that was recalled because it was sickening and killing dogs and cats was sent into the livestock feed system. Now that seems criminally dumb (or greedy) to me. Would you take poison and put it deliberately into the human food supply?

I have read several statements over the last week that have essentially said that the levels of contaminants in the ingredients would not harm humans even if they are directly in the food supply (wheat gluten added to bread for example), because humans are bigger than dogs and cats. There are a number of issues with this. First is that not all humans are, and infants and children definitely are comparable size with “pets.” Add to this that concentrated protein - particularly soy and rice, are a fairly common ingredient in infant foods. Seems like that might be an issue. However, no one (except Kelly and I) are even talking about this little “over sight.”

The other big issue is that they (the FDA) has not yet determined exactly what the “contaminants” are, nor why they are causing problems. As I mentioned in an earlier article, Guelph University researchers feel that it is a chemical reaction involving melamine, cyanuric acid and the environment of the digestive system. I have seen nothing regarding the levels of these chemical necessary to cause the formation of the crystals that are apparently implicated in the resultant kidney damage.

According to Richard Lobb of the National Chicken Council:

“The dilution factor is enormous. You have a relatively small amount of pet food byproducts used,” in poultry feed manufacturing, Lobb said.

In fact, “it’s a safe and wholesome product to use,” he added.

If they don’t know what, and how this is happening, then how can they determine what is harmful or not? The pigs and chicken that have eaten the contaminated feed (and my guess that both the pet food used as feed and other feed have the same issue) are also forming the same crystals found in the urine of effected pets, that the “dilution factor” doesn’t matter. Or perhaps, that traces of these elements when ingested still cause the same results.

The other question not being asked or answered is “If pigs and chickens have been fed contaminated feed, does it then show up in the animal or eggs?” Further, since most vaccines are grown in eggs, “Does it make a difference that the eggs used may come from chickens who ate contaminated feed?”

Both the appointment of a “czar,” and the assurances about the safety of our food, sound like a lot of smoke and mirrors, and false assurances to me.

Entry Filed under: NEGATIVE SPACE, SPECIAL SERIES