FDA: No Sign of Human Illness from Hogs Exposed to Melamine (but are they looking???)

[Shallah Kali]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/29/AR2007042901121_pf.html

In a joint statement, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) stressed, "We are not aware of any human illness that has occurred from exposure to melamine or its by-products." They added that they have identified no illnesses in swine fed the contaminated feed.

The USDA first announced on Thursday that meat from 345 hogs suspected of eating the contaminated feed had entered the U.S. food supply. Some 6,000 hogs suspected of eating the contaminated product have since been quarantined and meat from these animals would be withheld from the food supply, both agencies said.

snip

"Today we notified eight states that adulterated swine products will not be approved to enter the food supply," Capt. David Elder, director of the FDA's Office of Enforcement Office of Regulatory Affairs, said during a Thursday afternoon teleconference.

According to theAP, potentially contaminated pet food scraps may also have found their way to a poultry feed mill in Missouri. That case remains under investigation.

I ask if they are looking for sick humans because no articles have mentioned them examining those who ate the contaminated feed. Taking blood and urin from hogs YES. Testing humans - no. Also consider how California officals advised people who ate suspect pork to NOT go to the doctors:


http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/158956.html

Dr. Kevin Reilly, deputy director of preventive services for the California Department of Health Services, said scientists are having to design tests as they go because so little is known about how melamine affects people. The chemical has caused tumors in rats and is not considered safe for animal foods.

About 100 private customers bought hogs killed and packaged by American Hog Farm during the time they were fed the tainted pet food. The butchered pork was intended for private use and stamped as unavailable for resale, said Dr. Richard Breitmeyer, the state veterinarian. State officials were using farm records to contact those individuals and tell them not to eat the pork.

Reilly said that the risk to humans is considered minimal and that the customers are not being told to seek medical treatment

[whistle]

1. What about chickens and the eggs they produce, factory chicken farms

....will do anything to make and expand profits!

[Kagemusha]

2. I think you're mistaken on two issues.

First of all, the bolded sentence at the end does not say what you say it says. The sentence says customers are not being told to seek medical treatment. That's not the same thing as being advised to avoid medical treatment. Maybe that's what they're doing, but that's not what the article says.

Second of all, the effects of human contamination would be reported to the CDC, and if necessary, the CDC would report the results of this to the FDA and the Dept. of Agriculture. That is not shocking nor novel. That's the way the system works for human disease.

[Shallah Kali]

6. OK so why no article saying the CDC - or anyone - is testing?

I just searched google and yahoo news for CDC centers for disease control melamine hogs in various combinations and all I find is as of april 15 the FDA has asked the CDC to look for an increase in renal failure. I recall a vet group suggesting that possibly animals will get chronic renal failure instead of acute at lessor exposure. this is less severe with renal failure slowing developing instead of in a matter of days causing death. I have two cats with it diagnosed as of last fall who followed that pattern of slow decline just not acting quite like themselves with vomiting 1 or 2 times a week.

hopefully the goverment agencies this time are telling the truth and there are limited risks unlike all the times they said to not expect more recalls then a new batch happening because the FDA told 'em melamine was in it.

[Kagemusha]

7. You know that melamine is used as a drug for humans, right?

I don't remember exactly what it's even used for but, to be tested and cleared for use on humans it obviously went through medical trials. So, broadly speaking, the effects of melamine on humans should be pretty known by now. THAT is the most likely reason why they're saying they expect no problems. So, it's entirely possible that humans are far less threatened by this contamination than animals. Pigs are closer to human physiology than cats or dogs but I'd have no idea if melamine was tested on pigs before being tested on humans... but the CDC and FDA would.

The point being, unless this melamine has effects far different from that expected based on when the drug was being looked at for use on humans by the FDA, which would mean something really unexpected or rather, an unusually high dose of it. The *amount* of melamine hasn't even come close to being addressed here. If as other articles suggest, melamine's been used as a fake protein by Chinese corps for years, what happened here? Maybe a very excess amount of it that had effects that lower amounts didn't.

Sad to say but, it really does seem to me like your cats are far likelier to take the brunt of this than you are yourself.

[Shallah Kali]

8. Can I have a reference because everything I have read says they don't know what melamine will do to

humans. they assume the risk is low but are not sure. It is not approved for human consumption which is why the FDA is going to kill the hogs and pay pay off the farms $$$$. Then there are the other chemicals found in the pet food - cyanuric acid, amilorine and amiloride. is it one chemical on it's own or the combo which does one in? A woman in canada ate a bite of pet food every day to get her picky shelter dog to eat. after two weeks of Iams she was in the hospital frothing at the mouth and vomiting and her dog was at the animal hospital doing the same. one bite.

then there is the possability of accumulation. do any of these chemicals build up so one slow becomes ill instead of in days? what if low levels still cause kidney damage but in small amounts so it takes a long time to become ill so by the time it happens it can be blamed on getting older, bad genetics, or anything but the meat or bread you have been eating for years? I can't find anything yet saying that anyone knows one way or another so far.

[Kagemusha]

9. I'm sorry, I can't provide such a reference.

I don't even know where one would exist.

I just hesitate to read a line like "they assume the risk is low but are not sure" and bite. I don't have any idea what people mean when they use the words "assume" and "sure" (as in, certain). What's certainty? It's like everyone on DU and the blogs and everywhere assume melamine's a super-poison to humans because they're not sure it isn't and it's had bad effects on pets. Maybe it's true and maybe it's not - substances do not have equal effects across species.

[Shallah Kali]

10. I tried drug databases like medline - no lising for melamine as a drug

as for superpoisons sheesh something in the pet food has killed thousands of pets. There is SOMETHING toxic in there. Not a super poison since not every pet in America died but it IS deadly. I follow the precautionary principle - if no one knows it is safe don't eat. I won't eat it saying 'gee humans aren't like cats and dogs so there is no way I can get ill'. For example I can safely take Aleve and my vet once told me to give it to my arthritic dog but it would kill a cat. Then there are things like mercury and lead which in tiny amounts cause barely noticible problems excepts in fetus and younsters. but once they accumulate there are major mental problems.

Since no one knows what the junk in the pet food, hogs and FDA knows what else I am going to avoid it. If i wanted to be a test subject I would sign up for research studies not eat contaminated junk sold by corporations looking to make a few extra bucks.

[Kagemusha]

12. Look I'm not blaming you for that at all...

My point was pretty simple. Asking the CDC to look for cases of increased renal failure due to food intake is about the only part of the FDA's actions which is NOT questionable. The FDA doesn't have the legal clout to do the CDC's job for it.

I don't know what to make of your being unable to find a reference beyond these media reports. I was under the impression this was not some kind of completely unknown substance, and while it certainly hasn't been approved for eating, there isn't some complete lack of data on it - but you're finding none, and I don't have any to offer.

But don't think I'd ever criticize you or anyone for avoiding food with this - and that's even if the CDC is completely correct and the threat to humans is pretty minimal. What is clear is that if they are wrong and bodies are piling up, it will be the CDC which will pass that information on. That's its job. That part is not strange.

[DawnIsis]

3. I would love to see some independent testing of our food

perhaps it's time that we as citizens make our own Food Safety Group that can independently have food tested. I read an article earlier that said there has been melamine in the gluten for years. There is gluten in almost everything we eat.

I am so sick of the FDA.

[Richard Steele]

4. The B*shCabal™ FDA exists to protect corporate profits, not consumers.

Consider that their biggest concern over "mad cow" tainted
beef was to FORBID a U.S. beef producer from testing (at his own expense)
his product to verify that it posed no risk to his customers....

That should tell you all you need to know about the FDA circa 2007.

[Fridays Child]

5. Well, of course, they're looking, and here's proof...

[SoCalDem]

11. How would they ever even KNOW.. Our food supply is bombarded with so many chemicals

these days, and the air we breathe is loaded with carcinogens and the soil we grow food in is tainted too.. Trust the water?

Any illness that is even suspected, can not be pinpointed to any one thing..and that's why they get away with it :(

and the damage from this sort of thing is usually a cumulative sort of thing anyway, so who's to say that the hotdog you ate on January 14, 2006 was the tipping point when your cells went wacko..and the disease that started then will not make itself known to you for 7-10 years?

NO ONE will ever pay for the contamination of our environment or food supply.. It's just "business"..nothing personal :(

[SpiralHawk]

13. "The FDA is doing a heckuva job." - Commander AWOL

That settles it.