Article #21 Hogs quarantined after eating tainted pet food

Salvaged pet food contaminated with an industrial chemical was sent to hog farms in as many as six states, federal health officials said Tuesday. It was not immediately clear if any hogs that ate the tainted feed then entered the food supply for humans.
Hogs at a farm in California ate the contaminated products, according to the Food Safety and Inspection Service. And on Wednesday, a farm in western North Carolina was quarantined after melamine was found in its hogs, state officials said.
Officials were trying to determine whether hogs in New York, 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 — have been quarantined.
The FSIS was trying to determine whether the hog farms in the states other than California actually fed the material to their animals, spokesman Steven Cohen said in a statement. Hogs that were confirmed to have eaten the tainted food were processed at a federally inspected facility in California, Cohen said.
“All of that meat is under control at the facility,” he 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.
“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.
The California Agriculture Department said separately it was trying to contact 50 people who bought pork that may have come from pigs fed food containing melamine. The state’s health department recommended humans not consume the meat, but said any health risk was minimal.
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