Pigs might have eaten recalled pet foods

Officials with local hog operations, Goldsboro Milling in Goldsboro and Murphy-Brown in Warsaw, said today that salvaged pet food contaminated with an industrial chemical was not used at any of their farms.

"We're double checking our entire system to make sure, but we don't have any reason to believe we've been exposed to any of the contaminated feed," said Don Butler, director of government relations and public affairs at Murphy-Brown. "We're learning as much as we can about where the contaminates came from, but we don't use any pet food derivatives in our feed.

"We manufacture virtually all of our own feed and we have tight quality controls."

Hogs at other farms across the country, though, particularly in California, New York, South Carolina, Utah, Ohio and North Carolina, are suspected of eating the tainted food.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said the urine of some hogs tested positive for the chemical, melamine, in South Carolina and California, as well as on a 1,400-hog farm in the western part of North Carolina.

Stephen Sundlof, the FDA's chief veterinarian, would not say if any of the affected hogs had entered the food supply.

"At this point, I don't have a definitive answer other than to say that the issue is being addressed," he said.

But North Carolina Agriculture Department officials were much more optimistic that they had quarantined the affected farm in time.

"The system worked here and these animals were intercepted before they were allowed to leave the farm," said Mary Ann McBride, assistant state veterinarian. "We want people to know the food is very much safe."

Goldsboro Milling director of operations John Pike explained that they have few concerns about the news because not only do they have a lab on-site where they test all their feed ingredients, but they also manufacture all of their own feed themselves.

"That was some farm that uses feed waste ingredients, and you do open yourself up when you bring some of those waste ingredients in. They're usually cheaper, but your quality control is a little tougher," Pike said. "We don't do anything like that. Our quality control is good.

"We don't buy anything but straight ingredients and mix our own feed here. We do extensive testing and we feel confident about our feed supply."

Goldsboro Milling, which sells to Smithfield Foods, has farms in North Carolina and Indiana, producing nearly 1.2 million hogs a year.

Murphy-Brown, which Butler said is the largest pork producer in the world, has farms in nine states. It produces more than 15 million hogs worldwide, including seven million in North Carolina. It, too, supplies Smithfield Foods.

The contaminated pet food found in the hog supplies is suspected of being linked to the more than 100 brands of cat and dog food that have been recalled by pet food companies since animal deaths began to be reported about a month ago.

Investigators have found melamine in at least two imported Chinese vegetable proteins used to make pet foods. The chemical possibly was used to skew analyses that measured the protein content of the ingredients, wheat gluten and rice protein concentrate.

A second, related chemical called cyanuric acid also has been found to contaminate rice protein concentrate samples, Sundlof said.

FDA officials said the hogs were fed salvaged pet food made with the tainted rice protein concentrate. The food was given to the animals prior to the products' recalls, said Michael Rogers, who directs field investigations for the FDA.

There were no direct shipments of either of the two ingredients to firms that make food for humans or for animals used as food, Rogers said.

However, the FDA also said it planned to begin testing a wide variety of vegetable proteins at firms that imported the ingredients to make everything from pizza dough to infant formula, and protein shakes to energy bars. The ingredient list includes wheat gluten, corn gluten, corn meal, soy protein and rice bran.

The analyses, which the FDA plans to begin later this week, will look at producers of both food for humans and animal feed, said Dr. David Acheson, the chief medical officer within the agency's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition. Acheson stressed that there was no evidence that any of the other vegetable proteins had been contaminated, but that the FDA wanted to "get ahead of the curve" and raise awareness among manufacturers.

Adulterated food cannot be legally fed to either humans or animals, Sundlof said.

Meanwhile, the FDA is sampling for melamine and related compounds in all wheat gluten, rice protein and corn gluten coming into the United States from China.

Also Tuesday, the FDA said another pet food company, SmartPak, had recalled products made with tainted rice protein concentrate. The company said the recall covered a single production run of its LiveSmart Weight Management Chicken and Brown Rice Dog Food.

-- The Associated Press contributed to this report.

 

Hogs in California ate tainted pet food

Staff and News Service Reports

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

(04-25) 04:00 PDT Washington -- Salvaged pet food contaminated with an industrial chemical was sent to hog farms in California and five other states, federal health officials said Tuesday. It was not immediately clear whether any hogs that ate the tainted feed then entered the food supply for humans.

Hogs at a farm in Ceres (Stanislaus County) ate the contaminated products, according to the Food Safety and Inspection Service. Some of those pigs were sold to a small slaughterhouse near Half Moon Bay, where they are being held for observation and testing, a manager said Tuesday evening.

Officials were trying to determine whether hogs in New York, North Carolina, South Carolina, Utah and Ohio also may have eaten the tainted food.

"I don't have a definitive answer other than to say that the issue is being addressed," Stephen Sundlof, the Food and Drug Administration's chief veterinarian, said when asked if any of the hogs had entered the human food supply.

The FDA said the urine of some hogs tested positive for the chemical melamine in North Carolina and South Carolina as well as California.

Investigators have found melamine in at least two imported Chinese vegetable proteins used to make pet foods. Pet food companies have recalled more than 100 brands of cat and dog food since the first cases of animal deaths linked to the chemical were reported a little more than a month ago.

California food inspectors said the hogs that ate the contaminated feed came from the American Hog Farm in Ceres, which acquired tainted pet food scraps from Diamond Pet Foods in Lathrop (San Joaquin County).

American Hog Farm sold 42 pigs to Bar None Ranch near Half Moon Bay.

A manager at Bar None, who did not want to be identified, said the suspect pigs are being held in isolation.

"They've been here for two weeks, and they're all healthy and happy pigs, sitting around and eating and doing everything else pigs do,'' the manager said. "Nothing wrong with them.''

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/04/25/MNGGSPF0JP1.DTL

 

 

Chemical found in N.C. hog feed

NICHOLE MONROE BELL

The industrial chemical that triggered a nationwide pet food recall and is blamed for killing more than a dozen dogs and cats has gotten into the feed at a hog farm in Western North Carolina, state officials said Tuesday.

Hogs at the farm tested positive for melamine, a chemical used to make foam and plastic, but health officials said there was no immediate danger to consumers because the pigs have been quarantined. They said the animals appear healthy, and none had been sent for slaughter.

An S.C. hog farm is among several nationwide believed to have received tainted feed.

Officials in both states declined to release the names or locations of the farms involved, and said no others in the Carolinas are believed to have been affected. North Carolina is the nation's second-largest hog farming state, behind Iowa.

The quarantines are the latest twist in a saga that has ensnared many pet food companies and more than 100 varieties of products since March. Hogs are frequently fed "salvage" food, which includes pet food that has spilled from bags during manufacturing and is therefore unsuitable for dog and cat consumption.

N.C. officials said the Food and Drug Administration alerted them late Friday that it had traced a shipment of potentially tainted feed to the Western North Carolina farm, which has about 1,400 hogs. The food and pigs were tested over the weekend, and results received Monday revealed melamine in both.

It's unclear whether the meat of the pigs is contaminated, officials said. N.C. officials were awaiting FDA guidance on the pigs' fate and how to proceed.

"The system worked and these animals were intercepted before they were allowed to leave the farm," said Mary Ann McBride, assistant N.C. state veterinarian. "We want people to know the (hog meat) is very much safe."

S.C. officials said they placed one farm with 800 hogs under quarantine while they await test results. They said they were still gathering information and attempting to determine whether that farm had sent hogs elsewhere before the quarantine.

"It's something everyone is vitally concerned about," S.C. Agriculture Commissioner Hugh Weathers said.

Both farms received their feed from a Diamond Pet Food processing plant in Gaston, S.C. That food contained a rice protein concentrate from San Francisco-based distributor Wilbur-Ellis, which has issued a recall.

Nationally, hog farms in California, New York, Utah and possibly Ohio are suspected to have received tainted feed, said Steven Cohen, spokesman for the Food Safety and Inspection Service, an agency within the U.S. Department of Agriculture. He said most were small farms, and fewer than 10 were involved.

FDA officials believe three pet food ingredients -- wheat gluten, rice protein concentrate and corn gluten -- imported from China were tainted by melamine.

Last week, three pet food makers, including Wilbur-Ellis, recalled products containing rice-protein concentrate imported from China. An earlier Menu Foods recall involved food tainted with wheat gluten.

Diamond Pet Foods President Mike Kampeter said in a statement that the sale of pet food remnants to farms is commonplace, and that the food it provided to farmers came before the company was notified the rice protein concentrate may have been contaminated.

"We have been working closely with regulatory officials, and will continue to do so until this issue is resolved," Kampeter said.