WSU Expert Available to Talk About Contaminated Chinese Pet Food Found in Chicken, Hogs, Fish

The tainted Chinese ingredients that got incorporated into U.S. pet foods and chicken and pig feed have now been found to be contaminated wheat flour, and it has made its way to fish hatcheries in the U.S. too. Rasco is available to talk to media representatives about it and its repercussions for humans and the economy. 

“I don’t think fish that were fed contaminated feed [tainted wheat flour protein component] are dangerous for human consumption,” Rasco said. “But this is just another symptom of Chinese dumping garbage onto international markets, particularly food products, and this is potentially dangerous. Many of us have known for many years that some Chinese products don’t meet U.S. standards and that some unscrupulous Chinese companies intentionally contaminate, adulterate and misbrand food products, but there had not been a single incident that caused enough fury to get the action necessary to stop this. If it wasn’t for the impact of cats and dogs dying, and the political interest in this, we would not have found this out. 

“This melamine and cyanuric acid contaminated wheat flour is also a very sophisticated type of fraud, because conventional lab testing of the food for protein or nitrogen would not detect this contamination, unless the labs are looking specifically for the contaminant.” 

Rasco said that although the Chinese government is doing something about it, is not enough. “The Chinese government is involved in the fraud, since they are part owners of many food and chemical companies in China,” she said. “It’s disturbing how widespread this fraud is with Chinese products. They dump poor quality and unsafe products on our market and others across the world. Most producers can not compete with the Chinese companies on price because of the widespread fraud.” 

The WSU researcher thinks the solution to prevent Chinese products that don’t meet U.S. requirements from entering the U.S. market is to impose trade sanctions against China. “Inspecting food at the border is not the answer,” she said.