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| USDA: Many Indiana chickens need culled |
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By ANN HINCH
Assistant Editor
INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. — Under an agreement between USDA and the owners of eight Indiana chicken breeder farms, approximately 100,000 birds are to be euthanized because they consumed feed containing the same contaminant(s) linked to nationwide pet food recalls during the past two months.
State Veterinarian Dr. Bret Marsh said, as of Friday, the chickens had not been destroyed, but were restricted from being sold or processed for meat. He added there are no restrictions at this time on their hatching eggs or chicks, and there are no edible eggs involved.
Last week, USDA and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) jointly announced these eight breeding farms and 30 broiler farms had purchased feed containing some of the contaminated pet food. The food was made with wheat gluten imported from China, which contained melamine and related compounds.
Diluted effect
USDA and FDA believe all broilers that ate the feed, approximately 2.7 million, have already entered the human food supply. There has not been a recall issued for their meat or related products, perhaps because USDA and FDA believe none of those products are still on grocery shelves.
“Our current belief is that the contamination to human health from contaminated pork or poultry is extremely low,” Dr. David Acheson, chief medical officer for FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, said.
He explained it is normal for processors to mix some pet food into livestock feed such as for chickens and, also in recent news, swine. To date, USDA and FDA say none of the affected swine or poultry have died as a result of the contaminated feed, unlike the thousands of cats and dogs alleged (while some deaths have been linked to the pet food, others are still under investigation).
Acheson said this is because only 5-8 percent of wheat gluten was melamine. While this was apparently a high enough concentrate to harm pets, he said in livestock feed it was diluted with other ingredients. USDA and FDA believe it is of even lower risk to humans because people eat more than meat, which in itself supposedly dilutes melamine even further.
“People who eat poultry and pork do not eat exclusively poultry and pork,” Acheson said.
Investigation
Shortly after the chicken-feed problem was announced, Indiana Rep. Brad Ellsworth (D-8), Rep. Joe Donnelly (D-2) and Rep. Baron Hill (D-9) wrote FDA a letter requesting an investigation into “regulatory failures that may have contributed to this incident.”
Ellsworth said as of last week he hadn’t received any calls from voters on this issue, but “people look to us to protect their interest in those areas” and Congress is the public’s “first line of defense” in making certain such laws and policies are in place. Mainly, he said the Congressmen want to determine what, if anything, needs to be done policy-wise within FDA to make certain this doesn’t happen again.
As for where the affected chicken farms are located, FDA and USDA had not released that information as of press time and Ellsworth said even he didn’t know, but he understood why people might be curious. “Certainly, that has to be in your mind, how this affects your local economy,” he said.
Indiana is not a high-producing state for broilers. In fact, USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) groups it with several other states because the numbers are so low.
Deputy Indiana NASS Director Greg Matli said in 2002, the state produced only 3.8 million broilers and other meat-type chickens from 572 farms.
Indiana did, however, have the third-highest number of layers in the country (more than 24 million as of this March) and the fourth-highest number of eggs produced for 2006. Matli said 8.9 percent of the state’s ag economy, or approximately $494 million, is comprised of all chicken products; eggs account for 40 percent of this total.
At this time, no other states’ chickens are affected, but FDA and USDA are continuing their joint investigation. To that end, they are working with U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which is holding for inspection any import from China of protein concentrates of vegetable origin.
Acheson said they are also working with local and state authorities – such as the Indiana State Chemist’s office – to raise awareness with retailers about products in recall and to inspect manufacturers for traces of contaminated wheat gluten or rice protein. |
| 5/9/2007 |
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