Chinese defend using melamine in animal feed

BEIJING — In the United States, it is feared as a killer of cats and dogs and a potential threat to humans.

Yet in China, the mildly toxic chemical melamine is commonly used in animal feed and is even praised by some customers, according to the managers of a feed company and one of the chemical's producers.

"Using the proper quantity of melamine will not harm the animals," said Wang Jianhui, manager of the Kaiyuan Protein Feed company in the northern city of Shijiazhuang.

Feeding animals food containing melamine risks introducing the chemical into the food chain through their meat or eggs. Scientists say there is no evidence that people could get sick but say they know too little about how the chemical reacts with other substances to be sure it is safe.

Chinese wheat gluten containing melamine was blamed in a wave of pet deaths in March due to kidney failure. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) investigated, and nearly 100 brands of pet food made with the ingredient were ordered recalled. Adding the chemical to food is illegal under U.S. law, and China last week said it was banning its use in food products.

Usually used to make fertilizer and plastics, melamine has no nutritional value but is rich in nitrogen, meaning it raises the nitrogen level of feed. That makes products appear to be higher in protein, and can lead to higher prices for feed for stock animals as well as for household pets.

James Kapin, a member of the American Chemical Society's executive committee on health and safety, said testing on rats and mice has shown melamine to be toxic only at extraordinarily high levels.

However, he said manufacturing the pet food or the animals' own metabolism may have changed the melamine into something more hazardous.

Some pet food was shipped to hog farms in several U.S. states for use as feed and was later discovered to have another ingredient, rice-protein concentrate, that had been imported from China and was tainted with melamine. Thousands of U.S. hogs that were fed contaminated feed were ordered destroyed to prevent adulterated meat from reaching consumers.

The contaminated gluten was traced to a trading company based in eastern Jiangsu province, Xuzhou Anying Biologic Technology Development Co., and a firm in the nearby province of Shandong, Binzhou Futian Bio-technology Co. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has blocked wheat and rice gluten from both companies pending an investigation.

China's government said last week it would allow FDA investigators to visit.

Xuzhou Anying managers have said they have no idea how the melamine got into the gluten, which they claim was acquired from other firms and sold to a third company that exported it.

However, suspicions were raised when the company was found to have posted an online advertisement in March seeking to buy melamine.