Over the weekend, Hong Kong officials reported finding high levels of melamine in eggs shipped from mainland China. This is the first official notice that eggs have been contaminated with melamine. It is believed that the chickens were given feed contaminated with melamine or a related substance, as melamine contamination of fish and animal feeds appears to be widespread in China. Few will be surprised to hear that Chinese officials reportedly knew of the egg contamination problem weeks ago.
But, many readers may be surprised to learn that I warned about such a problem more than a year ago, in my May 6, 2007, diary, "The ominous silence about eggs from gluten-fed chickens."
Warning Signs
In the 2007 diary, I wrote:
On May 4 [2007], the USDA reported that millions of chickens are being withheld from slaughter voluntarily while it investigates whether the birds are "safe" to eat.
May 4 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Department of Agriculture said it is keeping as many as 20 million chickens from slaughter this weekend as officials investigate whether the birds were given tainted feed.
The chickens are in several states on farms contracted to ``large commercial operators,'' USDA spokesman Keith Williams said today in a phone interview. The chickens are being voluntarily held until at least May 7 while the USDA, the Food and Drug Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency decide whether they are safe for eating.
The chickens received feed believed to be tainted with melamine, an industrial chemical that has been found in wheat gluten imported from China, Williams said. The contaminated feed has been connected to the deaths of at least 14 pets and caused the quarantine of hog farms in six U.S. states this year.
Federal authorities banned the sale of meat from the chickens and hogs, but failed to even address the issue of egg contamination, although authorities were well
aware that other contaminants frequently show up in eggs.
The Potential Threat
In my 2007 analysis, I outlined the potential threats to health if melamine had been contaminating U.S. eggs since China began shipping gluten to the U.S., since at least August 2006.
Consider...that the U.S. produces more than 70 billion table eggs a year (2005 figure). Consider that annual per capita (table) egg consumption, at it's lowest, was 233.9 eggs (1999). Consider that U.S. sold $76.4 million of eggs to foreign countries in 2006. Consider that eggs are incorporated into a wide variety of food products, among them mayonnaise, cakes and ice cream.
[Additional note: After the incidents reported in early 2007, FDA officials announced a crackdown on melamine-contaminated gluten.]
The Regulators' Response
Importantly, on April 26, 2007, EU countries implemented a new requirement for US producers of egg products to have hazard analysis and critical control plan, or HACCP, procedures in place. That was the same day that our Food and Drug Administration publicly hinted that chickens may have been fed contaminated feed. Was that a coincidence, or did FDA officials withhold their concerns until the HACCP 'safety net' was in place to lull foreign consumers into complacence? Interestingly, the US had no HACCP requirements for egg products sold domestically, but alleged that a "similar" set of regulations achieves the same goal.
A Call for Action
In a lame-duck administration one week before a presidential election, it's understandably hard to get anyone to focus on food safety. But, unsafe food does not wait for a convenient time to work its damage. Soon...very soon...someone should begin an investigation of FDA's and FSIS' handling of the threat, starting with the classic Washington challenge: What did you know and when did you know it?
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