IDALS inspectors seek answers to tainted hog feed
DES MOINES, IOWA - One of only a few companies in the United States processes human food residuals into animal feed, and on Monday federal inspectors were scheduled to visit an Anamosa operation concerning tainted products that have already been found responsible for the death or sicknesses of hundreds of dogs in the U.S.A.
7 May 2007
3 minute read
According to Dustin VandeHoef, communications director for the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship, inspectors are inspecting the operation as a precautionary measure.
VandeHoef said the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration are closely monitoring whether a harmful ingredient known as melamine was able to get into livestock feed in the U.S.A.
Melamine, a toxic chemical added to wheat gluten to increase its protein content, was found to be in imported wheat gluten from China, gluten that is used by many pet food companies in the U.S.
VandeHoef said USDA’s National Veterinary Services Laboratory in Ames is working with FDA to see if some of the tainted pet food scraps may have ended up in batches of food residuals processed at Food Waste Solutions LLC in Anamosa, however ‘‘at this time there are no major concerns. They are just testing and there are no red flags at this point.’’
The USDA said April 26 that tainted feeds were fed to hogs in California, New York, South Carolina, Utah, Kansas and Oklahoma, hogs that the FDA said will not be recalled as the risk to humans becoming sick consuming the meat is very low. However, according to news reports and a statement released by the USDA and FDA, 6,000 hogs that have believed to have eaten the tainted livestock feed have either been traced to individual farms or will be destroyed rather than risk the animals entering the human food supply.
Source: The Messenger
