[Stonecoldharbours]

I wonder why this is still continuing here? Seems odd to me here, why is it allowed to happen for so long and with so many brands? I wonder if this is a trail run to test our safety standards with pet foods before they start poisioning human foods? Mmmm...I wonder.

[tigerlily]

Who needs terrorists when we have our own government cutting food funding safety. Trader Joe's is importing frozen veggies from China. A country that can't grow it's own food is in a pretty sorry state.
In California, a couple years ago, a woman had started an import business. She was importing stuffed dog and cat toys from China. She just couldn't believe how realistic were the toys. The Chinese were using real fur from dogs and cats. We need to start boycotting products from China. Boycotts used to work. If it's from China, I don't need it!

Clips from Chicago Tribune article:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/busine...l=chi-news-hed

...At a time when food imports are growing, and only 1 percent to 2 percent of food imports receive any government scrutiny, critics say the scare reveals the shortcomings of a weakened food safety bureaucracy, the inadequacy of existing regulations and the inability of the FDA, which has suffered significant cutbacks, to protect the food supply.

"They're reactive, not proactive," said Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), whose House subcommittee on investigations last week held a hearing on food safety. If the problem was imported pet food additives, he asked, "How does it then get to hogs? They've known about this for some time. What did they do with it?"...

In a statement, the FDA said that "food safety funding" for the year ending last Sept. 30 "was $376 million." But funding for the agency's Center for Food Safety has dropped from $48 million in 2003 to about to $30 million in 2006, according to the center's 2006 budget priority statement. Full-time jobs in the Center for Food Safety have also been cut from 950 in 2003 to about 820 in 2006, according to the budget statement.

... The FDA is also examining imported vegetable proteins earmarked for human products like pizza, protein bars and baby formula. That investigation, still in its early stages, hasn't uncovered any contaminated ingredients, but the agency, an FDA doctor said, wanted to "get ahead of the curve."...

[Tama]

This is the way it goes I guess. Make parking lots and build more and more McMansions for the burgeoning population and reduce our farmland and get food from places that are not subject to scrutiny by the dept.s of agriculture of the individual states. Where my mom lives all the corn fields are going to become housing developments. What a gift we are leaving for posterity.

[Stonecoldharbours]

The rich need to eat too I guess, maybe they just dislike having only one vacation in the south of france anymore, just is making them all too depressed here.

[cassy1]

Not just the rich, also the middle class. Where are we buying our new houses from if not the rich farm land. I feel very strongly that Americans need to wake up and bring back to the US, problem is the guys in the power places are all making the bucks from this. Sorry, this is probably meant for another forum, but this dog food thing has really shaken me up.

[tigerlily]

Some of this material has already been posted. The article contained a picture of the melamine. Notice the paragraph on Chinese food scandals.

Filler in Animal Feed Is Open Secret in China - New York Times




April 30, 2007

Filler in Animal Feed Is Open Secret in China
By DAVID BARBOZA and ALEXEI BARRIONUEVO


ZHANGQIU, China, April 28 — As American food safety regulators head to China to investigate how a chemical made from coal found its way into pet food that killed dogs and cats in the United States, workers in this heavily polluted northern city openly admit that the substance is routinely added to animal feed as a fake protein...