Pet Food Recall

DR. ACHESON: Thank you. This afternoon I would like to address two issues with you all, which are two new ones, and then obviously old issues if we have to address that in Q and A. But I'm going to focus on two.

The first is related to a misrepresentation of the wheat gluten and the concentrated rice protein. I want to preface it by saying as you are all aware we have been following wheat gluten and rice protein concentrate from two sources in China, and have undertaken a number of tests with those related to the detection of melamine and melamine-related compounds. As part of our strategy just to ensure that we are following this in all possible directions, a portion of both the wheat gluten and the rice protein concentrate that was already a concern because of melamine has been further analyzed by our forensic chemistry center. And we have discovered that these products, labeled wheat gluten and rice protein concentrate, are we believe mislabeled, and that they actually contain wheat flour that is contaminated with the melamine and melamine-related compounds.

As we discussed previously, none of these products have been used as ingredients directly in the human food supply. We are not talking about a new set of ingredients. These are the ones we have been tracking since the beginning of this situation. We've just taken the analysis of those a little further. And to reemphasize what we've discovered is that these are not wheat gluten and rice protein concentrate, but are in fact wheat flour contaminated with melamine.

The FDA considers this product to be mislabeled based on what I've told you and we're considering possible enforcement options. Again I want to emphasize that these mislabeled products are from the two Chinese firms previously discussed, previously identified in prior discussions and press conferences. None of this changes the findings regarding the levels of melamine or melamine-related compounds in relation to the risk assessment and its feeding to animals. So that part is essentially unchanged.

Source: TRANSCRIPT OF MEDIA BRIEFING UPDATE BY FDA AND USDA REGARDING ADULTERATED ANIMAL FEED