California Attorney Tom Martin’s Law Blog

At a press conference, federal officials said the contaminated pet-food ingredient from China that has sickened dogs and cats nationwide was wheat flour spiked with melamine.

The Food and Drug Administration theorizes the wheat flour was spiked with melamine to make it look more protein-rich, thus more valuable, than it was. China has admitted two companies exported melamine-tainted product. The FDA also suspects that melamine and melamine compounds in the flour are creating a toxic brew that causes pets’ kidneys to fail.

The recalls’ scope has been vast. The FDA’s Pet Food Recalls List contains more than 5,800 products. The FDA has received unconfirmed reports of 4,150 cat and dog deaths since the first recalls in March.

China’s response? “There is no clear evidence showing that melamine is the direct cause of the poisoning or death of the pets,” the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs argued in a prepared statement.

(Source: USA Today; NPR report: Pet Food Deaths: FDA Blocks Gluten from China.)

This entry was posted on Friday, May 25th, 2007 at 1:25 pm and is filed under Toxic Injury, Consumer Protection, Environmental Enforcement, General Legal . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.