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No Evidence of Illness from Tainted Food, U.S. Officials Say

U.S. food safety system strengthened after melamine scare

There is no evidence linking human illness to certain Chinese food imports tainted with melamine or melamine-related products, U.S. officials say.

In May 9 testimony before the House Committee on Agriculture, officials from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) said that the U.S. government thoroughly has analyzed the potential human impact of processed pork and poultry products that had been affected by the Chinese imports and is confident that the food supply in the United States is safe.

"At this point, we have no evidence of harm to humans associated with the processed pork and poultry products," said the FDA's assistant commissioner for food protection, David Acheson. He added that the investigation continues and testing is still going on, and appropriate action will be taken if new evidence warrants it.

A risk assessment completed by five different U.S. agencies found that even under the most extreme scenarios, the potential exposure from consuming meat from hogs and chickens known to have been fed animal feed containing melamine "was about 2,500 times lower than the dose considered safe," said Kenneth Petersen, assistant administrator of the Office of Field Operation in USDA's Food Safety Inspection Service, who also testified.

The low risk is due to the high dilution of the contaminant, first discovered in some pet food in the United States. Some of the pet food unknowingly was sent as salvaged feed to various hog, poultry and fish farms throughout the country, the officials said.

Melamine was found in only one ingredient of pet food, which was only part of the total feed given to some livestock. In addition, melamine and its analogs are not known to accumulate in the animals. Finally, those animal products are only a small part of the average American diet, Acheson said.

In March, U.S. food safety agencies received thousands of reports of pet illness caused by the consumption of contaminated pet food. The investigation revealed that the source of contamination was imported pet food ingredients containing the chemical melamine and its analogs.

Melamine is an organic compound often used to produce a fire-resistant polymer (plastic) with many household and industrial applications. According to news reports, several U.S. specialists are in China investigating how melamine came to be in the contaminated pet food.

FDA has identified the Chinese supplier, Xuzhou Anying Biologic Technology Development Company, as directly involved in the distribution of the contaminated food, Acheson said. Another Chinese company, Binzhou Futian Biological Technology, is also under review.

Acheson said that about 15 percent of the U.S. food supply is imported, but for some products, imports account for 50 percent to 60 percent of the supply.

Although no recalls of food for humans were announced in the United States after the contamination incidents, some hogs and chickens continue to be withheld from processing pending test results and further USDA and FDA risk assessments, Petersen said.

The animal feed investigation "will continue until we are completely satisfied that the underlying cause has been determined, the scope identified and corrective action is initiated and found effective," Acheson said.

The full text of the prepared testimonies of Acheson and Peterson is available from the House Agriculture Committee Web site.

Source: U.S. Department of State

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