Okay, this would be a spectacular boost for my conspiracy theory if it pans out. We've all read the speculation that melamine by itself isn't likely to cause acute renal failure, but this is the first time I've seen someone wonder if it goes straight back to the grain. Both GMO wheat and rice have existed for years (thank you again, Monsanto). We are a great customer for this type of product, too, since North America is virtually the only country in the world that prohibits labelling of GM products. And since the United States is the world leader in production of Biotechnology Crops, the last thing they'd want to have surface would be to have GM crops end up being responsible for this nightmare.

Some are calling melamine a ‘marker’ for something else that hasn’t yet been determined.” Theories abound as to how melamine got into the wheat gluten. Federal Drug Administration veterinarian Stephen Sundlof told CNN that it could have been added as a “cheap filler”. But according to Michael W. Fox, B. Vet. Med, Ph.D., D.Sc., M.R.C.V.S, melamine is “not cheap” and costs about 50% more than wheat gluten. “I believe the China contaminant is the tip of the iceberg, and could become the scapegoat,” says Dr. Fox. In fact, he speculates that the Chinese wheat was genetically engineered or modified (GMO), and this is the source of the problem.

“It most probably was,” he states, “since it was not imported for human consumption, and was possibly an experimental crop with anti-fungus blight and viral disease genetic insertions that could have gone haywire as a result of ‘overexpression’. Melamine, the parent chemical for a potent insecticide cyromazine, could possibly have been manufactured within the wheat plants themselves as a genetically engineered pesticide.” Alternatively, the culprit could be glyphosate, says Dr. Fox, an herbicide that is absorbed by crops that are genetically engineered so that they escape harm while the weeds in the field around them die.
To date, the FDA has not stated whether or not the wheat is GMO. Mark Ullman, legal counsel for ChemNutra, the company that imported the wheat gluten told Animal Wellness that the wheat gluten “was not supposed to be [genetically modified] but that ChemNutra did not specify non-GMO on its order” so in fact it may well have received a genetically engineered product. Thus far, GMO wheat has been frowned upon for human consumption in North America, but the FDA does not regulate its presence in pet food or animal feed. Furthermore, as with human products, genetically engineered foods do not have to declare their “altered” status on North American labels.


http://www.animalwellnessmagazine.com/art/aV93_62.htm

Hmmm... something to think about....

Zen, Dr. Fox's comments were made in the early days, before China admitted melamine had been intentionally added. Of course, this may be a worry for the future...and not just for pets.

Another article on this speculation:

http://tedeboy.tripod.com/drmichaelwfox/id74.html


LARGEST PET FOOD RECALL EVER:

FULL INQUIRY CALLED FOR: AND ACCOUNTABILITY

By Michael W. Fox B.Vet.Med., Ph.D., D.Sc. M.R.C.V.S.

Updated May 20, 2007

In March 2007, millions of concerned pet owners became aware of the massive recall by Menu Foods of 60 million cans and packages of contaminated, poisonous cat and dog food, in an effort to prevent the development of acute kidney disease and even death in the nation’s pets. This one company in Canada, Menu Foods Income Fund, produced over one billion containers of pet food in 2006. This compounded and processed food for dogs and cats was distributed to the major brand name pet food companies and mega-stores for sale under very different labels.

So which labels to trust? And how can one trust the industry when Menu Foods, after receiving many complaints about problems with its products, took 3 weeks to notify the FDA after running feed tests on some 50 cats and dogs that resulted in the unnecessary suffering and deaths even more animals. Noted in the press as a ‘horrible coincidence’, the CFO of Menu Foods sold about half of his stake in the company three weeks before the widespread pet food recall.

On March 19, The FDA notified the press that the manufacturer, Menu Foods, had performed tests on 40-50 dogs and cats on Feb 27, ostensibly one week after receiving reports of dogs and cats dying from kidney failure. Seven of the test animals died, cats being more severely affected than dogs.

This recall eventually involved around 100 different brand names and distributors, including major well known ones such as Iams, Eukanuba, Nutro, Hills, Nutriplan, Royal Canin, Pet Pride, Natural Life vegetarian dog food, Your Pet, America’s Choice-Preferred Pet, Sunshine Mills, as well as store brands such as PetSmart, Publix, Winn-Dixie, Stop and Shop Companion, Price Chopper, Laura Lynn, KMart, Longs Drug Stores Corp, State Bros. Markets and Wal-Mart, and a host of private labels of mainly canned (moist) cat and dog foods. Under each brand name are usually many different varieties of cat and dog foods and this meant that hundreds of different types of pet food were recalled. When coupled with the soon to follow recalls of other pet food manufacturers that had bought the purportedly poisonous gluten themselves and did not contract with Menu Foods, notably other well known company brand names like Purina, Alpo, and Del Monte Pet Products, the quantity of food recalled must be in the hundreds of thousands of tons.

The FDA has no mandatory authority to demand a pet food recall. All recalls are ‘voluntary’, upon written request notification by the FDA. There is no mandatory requirement for pet food manufacturers to inform the FDA in a timely fashion, or any penalty for not doing so. Even so, upon FDA’s request, IAMS recently stopped supplementing pet foods with Cadmium, and in early 2006 Royal Canin ‘voluntarily’ recalled some of their prescription-only dog food that contained toxic levels of Vitamin D 3, that is also, in high doses, used as a rat poison.

This current debacle of the commercial processed pet food industry puts us all on notice. Better quality controls, oversight and testing are called for, but one must be realistic. There have been recent massive recalls of human food commodities, including ground beef, poultry, onions, and spinach. Costs aside, no system of mass production can be fail-safe. The recycling of human food industry by-products, and products considered unfit for human consumption, into livestock feed and processed pet food presents a monumental risk-management challenge.

I began to receive letters from dog and cat owners thanking me for ‘saving their animal’s lives’ because they were feeding them the kind of home-made diet that I have been advocating as a veterinarian for some years. Other letters document the suffering and deaths of several companion animals, their care givers’ disbelief, outrage, and financial as well as emotional loss. These letters came during and after what turned out to be the largest pet food recall in the industry’s history. Many people had veterinary bills in the $ 3-6,000.00 range, many of whom, on fixed incomes, had to take out credit card loans and pay exorbitant interest. I received some letters that described animals going suddenly into acute renal failure prior to the purported November onset of this tragedy.

On March 23, 2007 the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets announced that they had found ‘rat poison’ in contaminated wheat gluten imported from China initially thought responsible for the suffering and deaths of an as yet uncounted numbers of cats and dogs across North America. The poison is a chemical compound called aminopterin.

Veterinary toxicologists with the ASPCA and American College of Internal Veterinary Medicine shared my concern that there may be some other food contaminant (s) in addition to the aminopterin that was sickening and killing many pets. Experts were not convinced that the finding of rat poison contamination was the end of the story.

On March 30, the FDA reported finding a widely used compound called melamine, described as a chemical used in the manufacture of plastics, as a wood resin adhesive and protective, in the wheat gluten. The FDA claimed that the melamine was the probable cause of an as yet uncounted number of cat and dog poisonings and deaths. The FDA could not find the rat poison, aminopterin, in the samples it analyzed. However a lab in Canada, at the University of Guelph, confirmed the presence of rat poison. This chemical is also used, however, as a genetic/DNA marker, and is included in U S Patent 6130207, filed Nov 5, 1997 (Cell-specific molecule
and method of importing DNA into a nucleus).

This could mean, therefore, that the wheat gluten came from genetically engineered/transgenic/GM plants.

Its certainly plausible. GM crops are created by splicing in pesticides, herbicides, insecticides, and other agents (including bacteria) to make them weed and insect resistant.

And renal failure can certainly be caused by pesticides.

Time to go sit on my hands I think. Few things rile me up the way reckless GM experimentation does :(

Its certainly plausible. GM crops are created by splicing in pesticides, herbicides, insecticides, and other agents (including bacteria) to make them weed and insect resistant.

And renal failure can certainly be caused by pesticides.

Time to go sit on my hands I think. Few things rile me up the way reckless GM experimentation does :( No one has ever accused Dr. Fox of being a calming inluence, that's for sure. ;) Given the clear link between melamine and death in the study PATEX posted last week, I am confident this particular incident wasn't caused by GM wheat.

But the whole GM debate does take the wind out of the "Buy American!" slogan, doesn't it?