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. 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. No one thought of and no one had
smoke stack scubbers to keep what came out 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.).

China is like that now. This revelation could deeply impact their
ability to export food stuffs for a while, though, and maybe it will
be a wake-up call in all countries that bad products damage profits,
and that testing needs bucking up.

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=3058844&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312

BEGIN QUOTES from ABC
April 19, 2007 -- 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

[Posted in FML 5584]