Apr 26, 2007 4:22 am US/Pacific
China Invites FDA Food Inspections, Bans Melamine
BEIJING (CBS News) ―
China said Thursday that it has invited U.S. inspectors to help in an investigation looking at possible contaminated food exports in the wake of a pet food scare in the United States.
Officials from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration will visit, said Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao. The United States has said that wheat gluten contaminated with melamine was exported to the U.S. from China and has been used in pet food linked to the deaths of more than a dozen cats and dogs in the United States.
"The U.S. reported finding melamine in pet food. China attaches great importance to this case. The U.S. FDA wants to send officials to China to exchange ideas and consult on inspection techniques. China will cooperate on this," Liu said.
Some of the pet food contaminated with melamine was sent to hog farms in as many as six states, federal health officials said earlier this week. It was not immediately clear if any hogs that ate the tainted feed had then entered the human food supply.
Hogs at a farm in California ate the contaminated products, according to the Food Safety and Inspection Service. Officials were trying to determine whether hogs in New York, North Carolina, South Carolina, Utah and Ohio also may have eaten the tainted food, the FSIS said. Hogs at some of the farms - it wasn't immediately clear which - were quarantined.
"All of that meat is under control at the facility," FSIS spokesman Steven Cohen said. "It is important to keep in mind this is a small number of farms that may have received this feed."
However, the Food and Drug Administration said the urine of some hogs tested positive for the chemical, melamine, in North Carolina and South Carolina as well as California.
The FDA said it was unclear whether any people consumed the contaminated pork, CBS News correspondent Nancy Cordes reported.
"At this point, I don't have a definitive answer other than to say that the issue is being addressed," Stephen Sundlof, the FDA's chief veterinarian, told reporters when asked if any of the hogs had entered the human food supply. A poultry farm also may be involved, he added.
(© 2007 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
