ChemNutra, Food Safety
The Wheat Gluten That Wasn't Was...What?
By Judi McLeod
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Chinese scam artists in the thriving food additive export industry, whose products killed off and sickened thousands of pets, are straight from a horror movie.
Problem is the heartache they cause is in real life.
The latest episode of the horror movie could easily be titled The Wheat Gluten That Wasn't Was...What?
According to Michael Fox, B. Vet. Med., Ph.D. D.Sc., M.R.C.V.S. 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." (animal wellness magazine, June-July issue).
"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. But on the otherhand the FDA has confirmed very little about anything for worried consumers.
While Dr. Fox speculates about weeds around wheat plants, neighbours around China's Xuhou Anying Biologic Technology Development Co. reported that noxious fumes spewing from the factory had killed off entire trees.
Melamine bossman Mao Lijun, who razed his factory just days before the Federal Agricultural Department arrived on their fact-finding mission to the Orient arrived, seems to have dropped from the headlines.
At last count Lijun was being held in Jiangsu province on "unspecified charges". Shanghai and county police were never available for comment.
Steve Miller, CEO of Las Vegas-based ChemNutra, the company that distributed suspect wheat gluten to pet food manufacturers is hosting a Pet Food Ingredients Safety Summit for ingredients importers, analysis laboratories and manufacturers "to begin drafting import standards and specifications for pet food ingredients, not only from China, but around the world.
"Just as E. coli incidents have forced retailers and restaurateurs to get more directly involved with ensuring the safety of growers, the melamine adulteration of pet food mandates that importers and manufacturers establish new protocols for ensuring the safety of our suppliers" states a May 15 ChemNutra media communiqu.
ChemNutra has "volunteered" to serve as the coordinator of a one-day conference tentatively scheduled for July 14, 2007 in "off the strip" Las Vegas.
It doesn't take much imagination to envision white-coated Chinese scientists experimenting with food ingredients in faraway labs.
With poisoned pets still an unsolved mystery, the mainstream media is finally throwing the spotlight on the Peoples Republic of China.
The Washington Post reported on Sunday that mushrooms laced with illegal pesticides, dried apples preserved with a cancer-causing chemical and frozen catfish laden with banned antibiotics were among the 107 food imports from China that the FDA detained at U.S. ports--just last month alone.
"For years, U.S. inspection records show, China has flooded the United States with foods unfit for human consumption. And for years, FDA inspectors have simply returned to Chinese importers the small portion of those products they caught--many of which turned up at U.S. borders again, making a second or third attempt at entry."
That's misadventures with the Peoples Republic of China, American style.
"Deithylene glycol, a poisonous ingredient in some antifreeze, has been found in 6,000 tubes of toothpaste in Panama, and customs officials there said yesterday that the product appeared to have originated in China." (New York Times, May 19, 2007).
"Diethylene glycol is the same poison that the Panamanian government inadvertently mixed into cold medicine last year, killing at least 100 people. Records show that in that episode the poison, falsely labeled as glycerin, a harmless syrup, also originated in China."
Luis Martinez, a prosecutor looking into the diethylene glycol shipments said that the toothpaste lacked the required health certificates and had entered the market "mixed in with products intended for animal consumption". (Emphasis CFP's).
Meanwhile more than two months later it's still a story about "The Wheat Gluten That Wasn't Was...What?"
Canada Free Press founding editor Most recent by Judi McLeod is an award-winning journalist with 30 years experience in the print media. Her work has appeared on Newsmax.com, Drudge Report, Foxnews.com, Glenn Beck. Judi can be reached at: judi@canadafreepress.com
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