In 2007 thousands of family pets worldwide died due to melamine tainted wheat and rice protein imported from China. American pet food companies sales were devastated by the poisonings. I personally will never buy Iam's products as long as the grass grows and the rivers flow. They've saved an estimated ¼ penny per can by using Chinese wheat gluten in their products rather than domestic but just for fun lets look at what melamine is and what it does.

Melamine is an organic based chemical most commonly found in the form of white crystals rich in nitrogen. It is commonly used to make plastics, counter tops, glue and a host of other industrial processes. It is not approved by any national or international governing body for use in food, food products or food processing.

So how could this highly toxic chemical end up in our food supply?

At the time of the pet poisonings, everyone, the Chinese, the American government and the pet food companies all feigned complete shock and dismay. Then a single Chinese suppler was singled out for an accidental contamination but as the mass die-offs of family pets continued unabated, it became clear that more than one Chinese supplier was responsible.

The Chinese company blamed had initially claimed complete innocence and was cooperating in the investigation. The US Congress held hearings in last April but resisted the public's call to regulate the now self-regulating pet food industry.

As universities continued to study what mystery chemical was killing family pets by the thousands and how it had accidentally slipped passed the self regulated pet food industry Cornell reported and verified that it was melamine in March of 2008.

By April 1st both Cornell and the FDA announced that the presence of melamine had been confirmed. The chemical was found in the suspected wheat gluten in raw concentrations as high as 6.6 percent. Stephen Sundlof, the FDA's chief veterinarian said, "There was a sizable amount of melamine. You could see crystals in the wheat gluten."

Thousands of dead dogs and cats all with melamine in their systems, thousands of samples of pet food all contaminated with high levels of melamine--and what does the FDA report to the public? What is their official position? Despite the presence of the industrial chemical in both the food and in the animals, the FDA has made it clear that they are still in the middle of an extensive investigation, and "not yet fully certain that melamine is the causative agent."

Then media silence, they just wait for the story to fade away--just a terrible accident the wheat gluten was only used to thicken the gravy in the wet pet food products they claimed. But it didn't go away instead it reemerged in even a worse form. The poisoning reemerged this time in infant baby formula manufactured in China. By the end of September 94,000 infants have been injured worldwide. Andrew Ferrier, the head of New Zealand's dairy giant Fonterra claimed, "In this case we frankly have sabotage of a product." Perhaps that explains why Fonterra waited more than a month to announce a recall.

Ferrier offered, "that unknown parties were behind the industrial sabotage." Fonterra owns 43% of the Chinese Sanlu Group responsible for the tainted infant formula. While Mr. Ferrier sticks to his claims of industrial sabotage New Zealand's Prime Minister Helen Clark blamed Chinese officials for the almost six-week cover-up.

"They have been trying for weeks to get official recall and the local authorities in China would not do it," she said. "At a local level "- I think the first inclination was to try to put a towel over it and deal with it without an official recall."

The fears of contaminated baby formula swept across Asia and prompted fears of tainted Cadburys chocolates and other products made with milk. Comments on Chinese internet forums such as sina.com suggested that Government and Sanlu officials had colluded to cover up the scandal because of central Government pressure to ensure that no bad news blighted China's hosting of the Beijing Olympics, which finished on August 24. Sanlu is China's biggest milk powder producer and is majority state-owned.

From claims of one of industrial accidents to accusations of industrial sabotage, the scandal spreads to include corporations and even governments as the promises of "never again" still reverberate in our ears. But there is a dirty little secret in the industry and an open secret in China. According to the World Health Organization, "In China, where adulteration has occurred, water has been added to raw milk to increase its volume. As a result of this dilution the milk has a lower protein concentration. Companies using the milk for further production (e.g. of powdered infant formula) normally check the protein level through a test measuring nitrogen content. The addition of melamine increases the nitrogen content of the milk and therefore its apparent protein content."

It's not accidental, it's not industrial sabotage, it is quite intentional--and goes on to this day. Your Food and Drug Administration with a budget of two billion dollars would certainly never tolerate the intentional adding of toxic industrial chemicals for the purpose of fooling quality control tests in infant formula would they?

Small Melamine Amounts in Formula Are Safe, FDA Says

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