Chinese Admit Adding Melamine to Pet Food is Common Practice

Reporters from the Chicago Tribune and the International Herald Tribune today announced that the practice of adding melamine to food for pets is common in China and has been going on for years.

Factories in China use coal to create melamine, which is later sold to be used in plastics and as an industrial fertilizer. The leftover scraps of melamine, usually small chunks, are sold to local businesses who turn the chunks into powder and add it to animal feed to raise the nitrogen level of the feed. Since the protein content of the feed is measured by measuring the nitrogen levels in the feed this makes it appear that the feed has more protein in it than it actually contains. This also boosts the price that the Chinese businesses can charge, since retailers will pay more for "premium" food that contains more protein. One pet food manufacturer who spoke on condition of anonymity said ""If you add it in small quantities, it won't hurt the animals," and that he has been mixing melamine in his product for years.

There is almost no food safety and standards regulation in China, and factory workers and managers interviewed by the Western press admit that spiking pet food with melamine to boost the price is a common and widespread practice. While apparently this practice has been going on for a long time, investigators are still trying to find the cause of the most recent crisis where pet food spiked with melamine killed thousands of pets and made thousands more critically ill.

In response, the FDA has banned all imports of pet food ingredients from China indefinitely. The Department of Agriculture started its' own investigation last week when it quarantined 6,000 hogs around the country who tested positive for melamine after being fed salvaged pet food. It's reported that 45 people have eaten pork products containing melamine, but none have reported any serious illness as a consequence of the tainted food.