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DeLauro Calls For USDA to Halt Chi Com Chicken

PORKER

Well-known member
DeLauro Calls For USDA to Halt Rule

Allowing Chinese Chicken into the United States

Washington , D.C. – With questions swirling around China ’s food safety system and the increasing frequency of reports highlighting the country’s lax regulations, Congresswoman Rosa L. DeLauro (Conn.-3) sent the following letter to Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns about the Food Safety and Inspection Service’s (FSIS) intent to move forward with a rule that would allow domestic Chinese chicken to be imported into the U.S. Currently, chicken from the U.S. can be shipped to China to be cooked and processed and then sent back to the U.S.

“Given the recent controversy over contaminated food products imported from China and the recent news accounts describing the unsanitary conditions in food processing facilities in that country, I have become more alarmed about FSIS’s dogmatic insistence on moving forward with a proposal that would allow domestic Chinese chicken to enter the country. There has yet to be any interest from U.S. companies in shipping raw poultry to China for processing so it can be exported back to the U.S., and expanding this plan to include domestic Chinese chicken would be dangerous,” said DeLauro.


The text of the letter follows:



May 1, 2007



The Honorable Mike Johanns

Secretary of Agriculture

United States Department of Agriculture

Room 200-A, Jamie L. Whitten Building

12th Street & Jefferson Drive, SW

Washington , DC 20250-0002



Dear Mr. Secretary:

I am writing to strongly urge you to remove the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as a country eligible to export processed poultry products to the United States under the provisions of 9 CFR 381.196. I also urge you to cease all regulatory proposals to expand the PRC’s ability to export food products under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS).

As I have indicated to you in previous meetings, I have been opposed to FSIS’ decision to grant the PRC equivalency status so that it would be eligible to export processed poultry to the United States provided that raw poultry was slaughtered in either the United States or Canada (71 FR 20867, April 24, 2006).

The rule granting PRC equivalency status was ill-advised for a number of reasons:

1) There were inadequate safeguards to ensure that the poultry would be processed under sanitary conditions and under proper food safety controls. FSIS inspectors found filthy conditions in both 2004 and 2005 when they visited Chinese poultry processing and slaughter facilities;

2) The PRC has not been able to control the rampant smuggling of poultry and poultry products to other countries around the world, including the U.S. Smuggled poultry products from the PRC have been the subject of a number of seizures here in the U.S. that have been investigated by USDA’s Office of Inspector General.

3) From an economic standpoint, it was unrealistic since a North American firm would have to export raw poultry to the PRC for processing only for it to be shipped back here to the United States; and

4) The PRC has been a focal point of avian influenza outbreaks in the world, increasing the threat of bringing the disease to the U.S. ;

Perhaps the most troubling aspect about this rule was how it was expedited through the regulatory process so that it could be presented to PRC President Hu Jintao during his visit to the White House in April 2006. FSIS published the proposed rule on November 23, 2005, closed the public comment period on January 23, 2006, and approved the rule on April 20, 2006. This is an alarming rate considering the food safety implications of the rule.

Not surprisingly, no U.S. company has been interested in shipping raw poultry to the PRC so that it can be processed and exported back to the United States . The PRC’s Administration for Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ) has acknowledged that the rule is not economical and now is seeking USDA approval to export processed Chinese domestic poultry to the U.S.

In January 2007, Dr. Richard Raymond, USDA’s Under Secretary for Food Safety, assured PRC officials that the agency would begin the regulatory process to permit the PRC to export poultry products to the U.S. that were processed from slaughtered birds of domestic origin. As late as April 30, 2007, Dr. Raymond was quoted in press reports that he still is proceeding with rulemaking on this issue.

After all of the recent controversy over contaminated animal feed that originated in the PRC and the recent news accounts describing the filthy human food detained by the Food and Drug Administration that was exported to the United States by the PRC, it is alarming that USDA still is considering the approval of food imports from the PRC.

It is necessary to rescind the April 24, 2006 regulation granting the PRC equivalency status to export processed poultry to the U.S. and halt the regulatory efforts to expand the scope of that equivalency status until the PRC can demonstrate that it has a modern food safety regulatory system that can adequately police its food processing establishments. USDA should use its authority to enforce food safety standards of meat and poultry imports to protect our food supply.

Sincerely,



ROSA L. DeLAURO

Chairwoman

House Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture

Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration,

and Related Agencies


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Sandhusker

Well-known member
Doesn't Mrs. DeLauro know that she's obstructing trade and that trade is the most important thing in the world, eclipsing safety and national security?
 

Econ101

Well-known member
Sandhusker said:
Doesn't Mrs. DeLauro know that she's obstructing trade and that trade is the most important thing in the world, eclipsing safety and national security?

Globalization is inevitable---if we don't stop it!
 

PORKER

Well-known member
US: Another Chemical Emerges in Pet Food Case

by
DAVID BARBOZA, The New York Times
May 9th, 2007




A second industrial chemical that regulators have found in contaminated pet food in the United States may have also been intentionally added to animal feed by producers seeking larger profits, according to interviews with chemical industry officials here.

Three Chinese chemical makers said that producers of animal feed often purchase or seek to purchase a chemical called cyanuric acid from their factories to blend into animal feed.

Chemical producers said that it was common knowledge that for years cyanuric acid was used in animal and fish feed in China. In the United States, cyanuric acid is often used as a disinfectant in swimming pools.

Two of the chemical makers said feed producers here used it because it was high in nitrogen, enabling feed producers to artificially increase the protein reading of the feed.

“Cyanuric acid scrap can be added to animal feed,” said Yu Luwei, general manager of Juancheng Ouya Chemical Company in Shandong Province. “I sell it to fish meal manufacturers and fish farmers. It an also be added to feed for other animals.”

The revelation is interesting not just because it is another indication that Chinese animal feed producers were intentionally doctoring the ingredients they sold but because the practice of using cyanuric acid may provide clues as to why the pet food in the United States became so poisonous.

American regulators already suspect that Chinese companies mixed an industrial chemical called melamine into animal feed because it is high in nitrogen and can be used to artificially bolster protein levels.

In recent weeks, scientists trying to determine what led to one of the largest pet food recalls in history say the deaths and illness of thousands of pets in the United States have been linked to melamine and other melamine-related compounds.

But scientists have had difficulty finding the precise cause of the deaths. Neither melamine nor cyanuric acid, which is a melamine-like compound, is thought to be particularly toxic.

Now, however, scientists studying the pet food deaths say the combination of the two chemicals, mixed together with perhaps some other related compounds, may have created a toxic punch that formed crystals in the kidneys of pets and led to kidney failure.

“I’m convinced melamine can’t do it by itself,” said Richard Goldstein, an assistant professor at the Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine. “I think it’s this melamine with other compounds that is toxic.”

Scientists and veterinarians in the United States and South Africa say that contaminated batches of wheat gluten, corn protein and rice protein sold to pet food makers often contained a mixture of melamine and cyanuric acid.

In South Africa, about 30 dogs died earlier this year from pet food imported from China that was tainted with melamine and cyanuric acid.

Fred Reyers, a veterinary clinical pathologist in South Africa, said that he thinks that either impure melamine or impure cyanuric acid mixed together formed crystals in pets that blocked the kidneys and led to kidney failure.

“This may be an unexpected byproduct in manufacturing melamine,” he said. “When you make melamine, on the edges, you get impurities.”

Recently in the United States, some contaminated pet food and protein meal also found its way into hog and chicken feed, which led the government to ask farms to quarantine and slaughter some animals as a precautionary measure.

But on Monday, a joint assessment by scientists working for the Food and Drug Administration, the United States Department of Agriculture and several other federal agencies said there was a very low risk of danger to humans who consume meat from animals that were accidentally fed melamine-tainted feed.

The scientists said the dilution was a major factor in lowering the risk. The government also said that both chickens and hogs fed the melamine-tainted feed appear to be healthy.

But in pets, which apparently consumed a higher concentration of melamine, the result was often kidney failure or death.

F.D.A. officials were in China last week and may still be here meeting government officials and trying to visit factories to better determine why melamine was placed in the feed.

But interviews with Chinese animal feed producers, melamine companies and traders and other chemical makers over the last two weeks indicate that melamine and cyanuric acid are often added intentionally to animal feed to cheat buyers.

“I’ve heard that people add cyanuric acid and melamine to animal feed to boost the protein level,” said Yang Fei, who works in the sales department of the Shouguang Weidong Chemical Company, which is in Shandong Province, where some of the contaminated pet food ingredients came from.

Shao Gen, general manager at another chemical maker, the Tengzhou Yinfeng Chemical Company, said cyanuric acid can be added to fish feed, noting it’s not nutritious but can help clean up the fish pond.

He added: “It can probably be added to feed for other animals. Is it legal? There is no law banning the practice. As far as I know, the practice was imported from other countries.”

Animal feed producers say they can buy a lower grade of protein, and then mix in a little melamine, which is high in nitrogen. The meal then appears to have higher protein because protein readings are usually noted by reading nitrogen levels.

Often, the animal feed producers say they do not buy pure melamine, which is used to make plastics and fertilizer, but impure melamine scrap from chemical factories, which is much cheaper than pure melamine.

Feed producers say they believed it to be legal and nontoxic, though they acknowledge they are cheating buyers. Scientists looking at the pet food deaths, however, say melamine scrap may have impurities and related compounds, like cyanuric acid, which could turn it more toxic.

Chinese chemical makers say they also produce a chemical which is a combination of melamine and cyanuric acid, and that feed producers have often sought to purchase scrap material from this product.

Melamine scrap or cyanuric acid scrap often costs one quarter of the price of pure melamine or cyanuric acid and is much cheaper per protein count than wheat or corn meal.

Cyanuric acid scrap is often even cheaper than melamine scrap, producers here say, which is one reason it may have been mixed in or used as a substitute for melamine in the pet food ingredients.

Many producers here say they aren’t aware of the regulations forbidding the use of melamine or cyanuric acid in animal feed and they say they do not know it is potentially harmful.

“The substance is nontoxic; it’s legal to add it to animal feed,” Mr. Yu at Juancheng Ouya Chemical, said of the sale of cyanuric acid. “The practice has been around for many years. I often sell it to animal feed makers.”
 
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