Update; Melamine Added to Boost Protein?

   Did any of you see the report earlier this week on CNN showing the company where the wheat gluten came from? It is a very run down operation, with rocks holding pieces of roofing material in place on the warehouse. There were sacks sitting outside in the dirt and workers were covering them while CNN was filming. I wonder if the operators of the business would think of adding a substance to boost protein levels; I think it's more likely they added the melamine to increase the weight of the sacks to fool buyers.

It is a very run down operation, with rocks holding pieces of roofing material in place on the warehouse. There were sacks sitting outside in the dirt and workers were covering them while CNN was filming. I wonder if the operators of the business would think of adding a substance to boost protein levels;

Don't forget this is a very different culture. We see that and think it's like that because they can't afford anything better. Most likely it's like that because the ownership gets their cut first, followed by the stockholders, followed by the government, then operations, then way down the list come the employees - and very little difference is made between warehouse grunts and "brain trust" workers - the ones who would have come up with the melamine seeding idea.

Many new entrepreneurs in China take little pride in their holdings, only valuing them for how much they bring in. It's a sad legacy of the Cultural Revolution - in the past in China, those in power would have taken great pride in an aesthetically pleasing work environment (though they may have been just as unjust to their dependents [8|], but then we in the West have this wonderful thing called the Industrial Revolution on our consciences, too).

I'm guessing what they meant to say is that when they sell wheat gluten, the buyer? tests it for its concentration of protein, and melamine, being a nitrogen-containing molecule like protein, probably tests "as protein" in their test. So you dope a poor-quality batch of wheat gluten with some melamine and pass it off as a higher-quality product.

 
  [linkhttp://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0704/06/acd.01.html]http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0704/06/acd.01.html[/link]
 
        JOHNS: Dan Watts is a chemist with the New Jersey Institute of Technology. He says melamine is rich in nitrogen. Protein is rich in nitrogen. High levels of nitrogen would make wheat gluten appear to have lots of protein. But the chemical wouldn't actually raise the protein levels at all.So, basically, the theory FDA is investigating is that someone could have been trying to run a scam, with no reason to believe any pets would get sick as a result of it.

WATTS: And not necessarily setting out to do anything that was going to be harmful, perhaps setting out to do something that was a commercial fraud.
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JOHNS: Until now, no firm research has ever suggested that melamine could be harmful to dogs and cats. And the government is still not certain whether the chemical itself has actually sickened or killed the pets, or if melamine is actually a so-called marker for some other toxic substance.
 
 
    The transcript also says that the levels of melamine were 6 percent or higher, which is why the FDA thinks it was added intentionally and not an accident.

isn't wheat gluten commonly eaten by humans in china, as a "meat substitute" in certain dishes, like soy?   I wonder if many chinese people have been eating poison.

I was wondering the same thing.  But then the vendors may have only sold the 'bad' stuff out of country...especially if they are the ones that "made it bad" to begin with.

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Read this article earlier:
 
[linkhttp://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/04/05/ap/world/main2653693.shtml]http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/04/05/ap/world/main2653693.shtml[/link]
 
The tainted wheat gluten underscores China's dismal food-safety record. Mass food poisoning cases are common in the country, many blamed on cooks who disregard hygiene rules or mistakenly use industrial chemicals instead of salt and other ingredients.

Last year, seven companies were punished for using banned Sudan dye to color egg yolks red. In 2004, at least 12 infants died from malnutrition after drinking formula with little or no nutritional value in eastern China's Anhui province.

Other recent cases include 30 high school and primary students who became sick this week after eating beef soup at a small restaurant in Zhejiang province in eastern China.

Last month, 57 people were hospitalized in Zhejiang after eating food laced with rat poison, while nearly 400 people were hospitalized with possible food poisoning after a wedding banquet in Yunnan province in southern China.

 
Scary stuff but then I remember our own food scares here.