NPIcenter.com : Industry Blogs - This is Your 6:00 AM Wake-up Call: The Pet Food Poisonings

Location: Blogs Loren Israelsen
Posted by: loren	4/30/2007 8:00 AM
A recent article titled, “Not Just Pet Food,” published in the Washington Post by Peter Kovacs, is both chilling and accurate, and we better pay attention. (See article at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/22/AR2007042201163.html?referrer=emailarticle.) Mr. Kovacs argues convincingly that the uncontrolled distribution of low quality imported food ingredients, mostly from China, poses a serious public health risk. He notes that most of the world's vitamins are now manufactured in China. This is also true for many other dietary ingredients. He proposes a revision to current regulatory approaches to make importation rules stricter with more vigorous inspections. He also notes that Congressman Waxman recently wrote FDA with respect to lead levels in various dietary supplement products, asking some tough questions and looking for answers. FDA missed their response deadline (April 20), for which they will take a beating. Here are my thoughts. The spiking of pet food ingredients with melamine, a known carcinogen, in order to boost protein assay levels is despicable. It is also illegal. Who would disagree? Why then does our industry tolerate spiking of important botanical extracts or other ingredients? The reason, as usual, is profit. This, too, is of course unethical, illegal and damages our credibility and value proposition to consumers, many of whom rely heavily on us for answers to serious health challenges. How dare we short change them in their moment of need? Spiking and dilution of valuable and expensive materials has been going on for millennia. And, as such, this cannot be seen as a “China” problem. To blame China is to avoid the harder question of why anybody is buying such things, and why are they not testing and rejecting these materials if they discover spiking and adulteration? This problem is one of self-regulation. Too many in the supply chain turn a blind eye for the sake of a few nickels per kilo. Today, China is in the hot seat, but tomorrow it could well be our turn. Just ask the food industry how it feels to deal with spinach, peanut butter and tainted hamburger problems. And, if you think pointing the finger at FDA’s feckless enforcement of DSHEA is an excuse, forget it. Nobody will be interested in excuses if bogus or dangerous products are the lead story on the evening news. We are hearing that the final GMP regulation for dietary supplements will issue in the next month. This may provide another chance to shake out players that are both unwanted and dangerous. It is also possible that this final regulation will be so watered down that it too will not get the quality job done. If so, we will have a once in a lifetime chance to stand up and say that we can do better than that. Who is ready to rise to that occasion? So, take a moment and consider a worst case scenario – an incident similar to the pet food poisonings happens to an important category of supplements (or to any other food category, for that matter). The consequences would be catastrophic, and it would be disingenuous to try to explain or justify why we knew or should have known that this was going on but did nothing. In fact, a lot of people have worked very hard to improve product quality. Thankfully, many companies continue to invest heavily to assure their customers are well served, and they do this despite tremendous economic pressure to compromise. I salute them. The pet food poisonings are a stark reminder of how fast and how badly things can go. Let’s consider this our 6:00 AM wake-up call. Hitting the snooze button is not an option. I, for one, intend to do something, and I suspect some out there aren’t going to like it. See you on the battlefield.

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Re: This is Your 6:00 AM Wake-up Call: The Pet Food Poisonings

By Anonymous on 4/30/2007 4:26 PM

Kudos, Loren, on a timely, important reminder.

While I agree this is problem is not geographically limited to China, the combination of poor farming practices, a water crisis, lack of environmental controls & globalization has created a perfect storm, of sorts, in China. This storm has given us ginseng seized by Federal Marshals, honey contaminated with chloramphenicol, and now gluten and rice concentrates spiked with melamine. (Stay tuned for the verdict on soy and corn.)

As guardians at the gate, the quality of our products begins with raw material selection. A disciplined approach to vendor quality assurance and raw material selection is essential if we are to prevent your worst case scenario from occurring.

Caveat emptor.

Re: This is Your 6:00 AM Wake-up Call: The Pet Food Poisonings

By Anonymous on 5/3/2007 5:55 AM

Unfortumately, the dawn of much stricter government regulation is here. Unfortunately, because costs are going to rise geometrically
and the larger players in the industry will gain and the samll, and mid-size companies will fall by the wayside. Fortunately , because the safety net will expand in terms of ingredient testing. As I have worked
with these "less expensive ingredients from China in the DS category, there is no question that many times, the raw materials have higher sulpher content and moisture content. Heavy metals is another issue, and there are many raw material suppliers that are very good at insuring these materials are tested fro on every lot.

With the internet an ever expanding channel of l distribution, it really is like the wild west. .. unregulated and full of unsubstantiated
claim fraud. It is sad, in the dietary supplement category, self-regulation is an oxymoron and unworkable. Let's see what the GMP guidance looks like.... Loren, I appreciate your hard work and fair balance stance you have taken for our industry.

Re: This is Your 6:00 AM Wake-up Call: The Pet Food Poisonings

By Anonymous on 5/3/2007 1:09 PM

Well stated, Loren. I could not agree more with your view of the situation. Our company manufactures nutritional food bars (for humans) for many top brand marketers around North America and some offshore as well. It is safe to say that the current pet food fiasco could happen in the Natural Food Industry too. Anyone who has their head in the sand on this could be in for a big surprise. Even a small isolated incident hitting today's news entertainment machine can become a massive and sustaining story, at least until some bad acting celebrity takes the news spotlight. People in our industry should keep a sharp eye on all of our ingredients, no matter where they are sourced. Assuming that someone in authority is watching out for QA standards is just not good enough. While we do not use any of the ingredients in question, our company is taking steps to dig deeper into the credientials of all new and current supply sources. We are answering the wake-up call.
Richard Schroeder, President, Nutri-Nation Functional Foods

before people from the outside do it for us. I am happy to report that we got a call from the CFIA to inquire about our experience with Chinese origin ingredients.

Re: This is Your 6:00 AM Wake-up Call: The Pet Food Poisonings

By Anonymous on 5/30/2007 2:26 AM

Pet Food Poisoning what next Human Food Poisoning - this is happening as we speak. We are the first generation outliving our children. When our children get sick and die we don't hear how this has happened. Are our pets more important then our children??? Don't get me wrong I have many pets,cat,dogs,birds,chickens,pigs,frogs,rabbits,deer,moose etc. Our animals eat toxin free food from the day they arrive till the day they leave.

Re: This is Your 6:00 AM Wake-up Call: The Pet Food Poisonings

By kmr1cat on 6/23/2007 12:36 PM

FDA responded as only they can. With a flurry of press releases and now, finally, passage of GMP's, they have had on the shelf for some time. DSHEA, as you know mandated that FDA pass COMPREHENSIVE regulations to implement the law, which is far beyond just GMP's [although they are a good start. They were given, generously, a full 10 years to pass such Comprehensive Regulations from 1994. Now in 2007, they pass a single piece of it, leaving many questions unanswered, thus creating many opportunities for abuse. It is time for COMPREHENSIVE OVERHAUL OF FDA.

Re: This is Your 6:00 AM Wake-up Call: The Pet Food Poisonings	By Anonymous on 2/7/2008 5:01 PM
It is not about where you make the product but how you make the products. One can recall the deaths of 21 with a total of 1,478 cases of eosinophilia myalgia syndrome reported in 1990 with the use of L-Trytophan from Japanese supplier Showa Denko. Did U.S. supplement marketers stop buying raw materials from Japan?

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