[ SHOWGSD-L ] Re: Article: A Genetic Engineered Food Disaster?
- From: "Paula Cooke" <psharp212@xxxxxxx>
- To: showgsd-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, Germanshepherds4Show@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2007 19:27:49 -0700
I wonder if Carmen and Jim did it!!
Paula, 174 days and counting
----Original Message Follows----
From: "Barbara Allen" <BarMarGSD@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To:
<showgsd-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>,<GSD911@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,<germanshepherds4show@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,<amergsd@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [Germanshepherds4Show] Article: A Genetic Engineered Food
Disaster?
Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2007 21:18:55 -0400
Largest Pet Food Recall Ever: A Genetic Engineered Food Disaster?
a.. By Dr. Michael W. Fox
April 5, 2007
Straight to the Source
I have received several letters from dog and cat owners thanking me for
saving their animals lives because they were feeding them the kind of
home-made diet that I have been advocating as a veterinarian for some years.
These letters came after the largest pet food recall in the pet food
industrys history.
On March 23, the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets
announced that rat poison in contaminated wheat gluten imported from China
was responsible for the suffering and deaths of an as yet uncounted numbers
of cats and dogs across North America. The poison is a chemical compound
called aminopterin.
Veterinary toxicologists with the ASPCA and American College of Internal
Veterinary Medicine shared my concern that there may be some other food
contaminant (s) in addition to the aminopterin that was sickening and
killing many pets. Experts were not convinced that the finding of rat poison
contamination was the end of the story.
On March 30, the FDA reported finding a widely used compound called melamine
(formed by dehydration of urea and used in the manufacture of plastics, as a
wood resin adhesive, and in slow-release urea fertilizer), in the suspect
pet foods. The FDA claims the melamine was the cause of an as yet uncounted
number of cat and dog poisonings and deaths. The FDA could not find the rat
poison, aminopterin, in the samples it analyzed; however a lab in Canada, at
the University of Guelph, has confirmed the presence of rat poison. There
may be other substances of a hazardous nature not yet discovered in these
manufactured pet foods that include other ingredients considered unfit for
human consumption, and from around the world.
The Associated Press cited the Environmental Protection Agency as having
identified melamine as a contaminant and byproduct of several pesticides,
including cryomazine. People began to question if there is also pesticide
contamination of the wheat gluten. Is there a possibility of deliberate
contamination, or is it the result of gross mismanagement and lack of
effective food-safety and quality controls that accounts for levels of
melamine reported to be as high as 6.6% by the FDA in samples of the wheat
gluten?
A brief internet search quickly reveals that the widely used insect growth
regulator cryomazine is not only made from melamine, but it also breaks down
into melamine after ingestion by an animal. Wheat gluten is wheat gluten,
fit for human consumption, so the question remains, what was wrong with this
gluten that it was only bought for use in pet food?
On April 3 Associated Press named the US importer as ChemNutra of Las Vegas,
reporting that the company had recalled 873 tons of wheat gluten that had
been shipped to three pet food makers and a single distributor who in turn
supplies the pet food industry.
What of the uncounted number of people whose cats and dogs became sick, and
even died? Several letters that I have received indicate costs of in the
thousands of $ per animal; and what of long-term care costs for animals
suffering from chronic kidney disease?
While Congressional hearings are now being called for by grieving pet
owners, and class action suits put together, this debacle could have
catastrophic consequences not only for conventional agribusiness, of which
the pet food industry is a lucrative subsidiary, but also for the
agricultural biotechnology industry, with its millions of acres of
genetically engineered crops around the world.
I reach this conclusion, until there is evidence to the contrary, for the
following reasons:
1. The wheat gluten imported from China was not for human consumption,
because, I believe, it had been genetically engineered. The FDA has a wholly
cavalier attitude toward feeding animals such frankenfoods but places some
restrictions when human consumption is involved (yet refuses appropriate
food labeling).
2. The rat poison aminopterin is used in molecular biology as an
anti-metabolite, folate antagonist, and in genetic engineering biotechnology
as a genetic marker. This could account for its presence in this imported
wheat gluten.
3. The plastic, wood preservative, contaminant melamine, the parent chemical
for a potent insecticide cyromazine, could well have been manufactured
WITHIN the wheat plants themselves as a genetically engineered pesticide.
This is much like the Bt. insecticidal poison present in most US commodity
crops that go into animal feed.
4.So called overexpression can occur when spliced genes that synthesize such
chemicals become hyperactive inside the plant and result in potentially
toxic plant tissues, lethal not just to meal worms and other crop pests, but
to cats, dogs, birds, butterflies and other wildlife; and to their creators.
(For details, see my book Killer Foods: What Scientists Do to Make Food
Better is Not Always Best. Lyons Press, 2004).
How else can one account for samples of pet food containing as much as 6%
melamine? It was surely not mixed in such amounts when the wheat gluten was
being processed, but rather was already in the wheat, along with the
aminopterin genetic marker. My suspicion is that the FDA was aware that the
gluten came from genetically engineered wheat that was considered safe for
animal consumption.
I could be wrong. But a greater wrong is surely for the pet food industry to
use food ingredients and food and beverage industry by-products considered
unfit for human consumption; to continue to do business without any adequate
government oversight and inspection; and for government to give greater
priority to agricultural biotechnology and the patenting of genetically
engineered crops and animals, and not to organic, humane, ecologically sound
and safe food production.
I believe that there is evidence of gross negligence, not simply on the part
of the pet food industry, but by all who are responsible for food quality
and safety in the global market that is clearly dysfunctional. The Pet Food
Institute should start an emergency fund to compensate all veterinary
expenses incurred as a result of this---and any future---mass poisonings of
peoples beloved animal companions.
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