IRISH WOLFHOUND SOCIETY OF IRELAND

Chinese supplier drill... The Pet-food Protein-gate, part two

William Campbell Douglass II, M.D.

In the last Daily Dose, I exposed the scandalous and all-but-certain truth that somewhere along the line in the manufacturing of many brands and kinds of pet foods, poisonous melamine was being added to these victuals. The purpose:

To sell more pet food by deceiving pet owners into believing the dry vegetable junk food they're feeding their cats and dogs is protein-rich and good for them (it's actually horrible for them, melamine-laced or not). As this crisis has unfolded, more information about how this toxic stuff may have gotten into the foods has surfaced...

And it doesn't look good on the pet-food industry, or on big-box pet supply retailers.

As it turns out, like everything else in this country nowadays, the raw ingredients for ALL of the banned varieties of pet foods came not from hard-working American grain farmers - whose products (though still bad for us and our pets) and harvesting practices are strictly regulated by the USDA, FDA, and other agencies...

But from communist CHINA, where pollution and environmental waste is rampant, regulation scare, and where the jack-booted government values nothing (not even life) so much as the influx of American dollars. And that river of money is enhanced if Chinese raw grains are thought to be richer in protein than grains from other places - even the U.S. of A.

According to FDA sources (like their Chief Veterinarian, for one), raw melamine has been found - not just in the U.S, but in other nations, too - in rice protein concentrate, wheat gluten, and corn gluten supplies earmarked specifically for pet foods. All of these tainted stockpiles were imported from China.

Now, we might have been alerted to this sooner if the FDA were able to monitor more of the foodstuffs we import. According to the AP and CBS, the agency can only test 1% of the food or raw ingredients that cross our borders. I guess their budget is stretched too thin from testing all those drugs - because they're SO good at that, right? But that's another story...

Of course, U.S. regulators can't PROVE that the Chi-comms are lacing Fido's food with melamine without inspecting the Chinese plants and farms themselves. And so far, that invitation hasn't been forthcoming. What HAS been coming out of China (besides killer grains) is a lot of double-talk and denials.

Silent after the first few weeks of the scandal, China is finally acknowledging that shipments of gluten and other food ingredients tainted with melamine originated on their shores. They've also instituted a new ban on the chemical from all food products they export...

But of course, China is rejecting melamine as a cause for any pets' deaths.

China's Foreign Ministry is also claiming that the tainted supplies slipped through their normally rigorous customs inspections because they were destined to be used as pet food. Yeah, I'm so sure - according to the AP/CBS piece, Chinese farmers have a well-documented history of exporting food products contaminated with human waste (ugh), pesticides that are banned in the U.S., and other problems...

Aside from this, FDA investigators are getting the runaround from the Chinese. One of the 3 exporting companies the agency is focusing on claims that food ingredients aren't even part of its core business - but that employees often make side deals to buy, sell and export such items...

Nah, nothing corrupt or unregulated here.

All this brings up an interesting point: Do the big-box retail companies (PetSmart, Petco, etc.) that represent themselves as knowing all about how to raise healthy pets actually even know the least bit about what kinds of foods they're selling - or where they come from? Think about it for a minute...

If they knew that they were buying foods made by companies who bought their likely-contaminated raw ingredients from unregulated sources in shady, off-the-books back room deals - yet sold these foods anyway - what does that say about their scruples?

And if they DIDN'T know about all this, what's that say about their level of expertise in helping your pet lead a long and healthy life?

On the one hand, they're heartless criminal killers - and on the other, clueless dunces.

But again, there are still more layers to this "onion" of a story. Like how the risks of melamine-contaminated pet food aren't limited to Fido, but perhaps have spread to the one who holds his leash, too. More in the next Daily Dose...

Source: William Campbell Douglass II, MD , is editor of The Douglass Report .