Fraud? Tainted pet food may have been intentional

UPDATE: First it was melamine-laced wheat gluten in products from Canadian-based Menu Foods. Then contaminated rice protein supplement was found in canned and bagged pet food from California manufacturer Natural Balance Pet Food.

Now, another manufacturer has recalled food laced with melamine-contaminated corn gluten. And even more alarming is the growing possibility of contamination of the US food supply.

it appears that some of the contaminated rice protein concentrate made its way in to hog feed. The extent of the problem isn’t known. It’s also not known if hogs fed the contaminated food have made it into the human food chain, the FDA reported.

“We do understand that one of the companies that was manufacturing pet food had some pet food that was unfit for pets and it made its way into some hog feed,” Sundlof said. “We are following up on that.”

Meanwhile in South Africa, melamine has been found in Royal Canin pet food company’s Vets Choice and Royal Canin dry dog and cat food sold exclusively in South Africa and Namibia. The source of the melamine appears to be from corn gluten imported from China, according to published reports. source

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Why would anyone knowingly contaminate pet food with a lethal industrial chemical? The answer may lie in the Watergate-era admonition, "Follow the money." Economic fraud is being investigated as a possible motive in the growing pet food scare.

The probe was recently expanded as a recall was announced by California-based Natural Balance Pet Foods, as melamine was found in rice protein supplement used in certain canned and bagged foods. However, officials stressed that they had found "no evidence" that the lethal additive had entered the human food supply.

FDA investigators want to look at a Chinese production facility, but have been denied visas by the Chinese.

UPDATE 2:  Is it more than just melamine contamination?

Scientific literature says melamine is not very toxic, says Steven Hansen, a veterinary toxicologist and director of the ASPCA’s Animal Poison Control Center in Urbana, Ill.

Levels for the melamine were as high as 6.6% of the wheat gluten, FDA’s Sundlof says.

That would mean if a wet pet food contained even 5% wheat gluten, it would have 3,300 parts per million melamine, Hansen says.

But a study on dogs in 1953 fed them 30,000 parts per million of melamine for one year and “nothing happened,” says James Popp, president of the Society of Toxicology.  source

Either the 1953 study is wrong, or there is another toxin at work.