Authors: David Barboza and Alexei Barrionuevo

Zhang Qiu, China, April 28? When the U.S. food safety regulatory agency went to China to investigate how a chemical substance made from coal entered pet food and killed American dogs and cats, workers in this heavily polluted northern city publicly admitted that this substance is often used Add to animal feed. As a fake protein.

According to melamine waste traders and agricultural workers, for many years, animal feed manufacturers across China have secretly added this substance called melamine to their feed, which is a cheap additive that looks like protein in tests. , Although it does not have any nutritional value. here.

“Many companies buy melamine waste to make animal feed, such as fish feed,” said Ji Denghui, general manager of Fujian Sanming Dinghui Chemical Co., Ltd., which sells melamine. "I don’t know if there are relevant regulations. Probably not. There is no law or regulation that says “Don’t do this”, so everyone is doing it. China’s law is like this, isn’t it? If there were no accidents, there would be no Supervision."

Melamine is at the core of the 60 million packs of pet food recall, after a chemical substance related to the death of at least 16 pets in the United States this month was found in wheat gluten.

No one knows exactly how melamine (which is believed to be less toxic) becomes so deadly in pet food, but its presence in any form of American food is illegal.

The link with China has raised concerns among critics of the Food and Drug Administration that more and more foreign pet foods and human foods are not adequately screened for ingredients.

"They have fewer people inspecting products at the port than ever before," said Caroline Smith Deval, director of food safety at the Center for Science in the Public Interest in Washington. "Before China makes plans to verify the safety of its products, they need to be inspected by US inspectors. This open policy for food ingredients is an open invitation to attack the food supply, intentionally or unintentionally."

Now, with more and more evidence that the contaminated wheat gluten comes from China, US regulators have been allowed to visit the area to inspect food processing facilities.

The US Food and Drug Administration has banned the import of wheat gluten from China after receiving more than 14,000 reports of pets infected with packaged food. Last week, the agency launched a criminal investigation into the case and searched the offices of at least one pet food supplier.

The Ministry of Agriculture has also stepped in. On Thursday, after some pet food ingredients containing melamine were accidentally sent to pig farms in eight states, including California, the agency ordered the isolation or slaughter of more than 6,000 pigs.

Scientists are now trying to determine whether melamine is harmful to humans.

The pet food case also puts China’s agricultural exports under stricter scrutiny because of the country’s poor food safety record.

For example, in recent years, China’s food safety scandals have emerged one after another, from fake baby formula and human hair soy sauce, to cuttlefish soaked in ink to improve color, and examples of feeding eels with contraceptive pills to make them grow longer. And slim.

As far as China is concerned, Chinese officials dispute any claims that melamine from that country may kill pets. But regulators here on Friday banned the use of melamine in vegetable protein for export or for domestic food supplies.

However, from visiting this area of ​​Northeast China, it is clear that melamine has been quietly mixed into China's animal feed for many years, and then sold to unsuspecting farmers as protein-rich feed for pigs, poultry, and fish.

Many animal feed operators here advertise on the Internet seeking to buy melamine waste. Xuzhou Anying Biotechnology Development Company is one of the companies designated by U.S. regulatory agencies to ship wheat gluten contaminated with melamine to the United States. The company issued such a notice on the Internet in March last year.

At the Shandong Mingshui Da Chemical Group factory, huge boiler vats are converting coal into melamine, which is then used to make plastics and fertilizers.

However, the remaining melamine waste, golf-ball-sized white rock blocks, are sometimes sold to local agricultural entrepreneurs who say they mix a powdered waste into animal feed in order to deceive people who raise animals into thinking that they are buying The feed is high in protein.

"If you add melamine waste, it just saves money," said the manager of an animal feed factory here.

Last Friday, in Zhangqiu, a fast-growing industrial city in southeast Beijing, two animal feed manufacturers explained in detail how they purchased low-grade wheat, corn, soybeans or other proteins, and then mixed a small amount of nitrogen-rich melamine waste. The characteristics help the feed record the swollen protein level.

They say that melamine is a new scam because urea is another nitrogen-rich chemical? ? It is illegal to use in pig and poultry feed and is easily detected in China and the United States.

"People use melamine waste to increase the nitrogen content in the test," said the manager of the animal feed factory. "If you add a small amount, it will not harm the animals."

The manager works in a small animal feed factory here, which consists of several storage and mixing areas. He said that he has been mixing melamine waste into animal feed for many years.

He said he is not currently using melamine. But then he took out a plastic bag containing what he said melamine powder, and said that he could dye it in any color to match the correct material.

He said the melamine used in pet food may not be harmful. "Pets are not like pigs or chickens," he said casually, explaining that they can eat less protein. "They don't need to grow fast."

He admitted that the resulting melamine-contaminated feed has a low protein content, which means that the nutritional value of the feed is low.

However, by using melamine additives, feed sellers can obtain higher profits, because melamine waste is much cheaper than soybeans, wheat or corn gluten.

"Adding melamine can really make more money," said another animal feed seller in Zhangqiu. "Melamine costs about $1.20 per ton of protein, while the real protein cost is about $6, so you can see the difference."

Feed producers who use melamine here say that contaminated feed is often shipped to feed factories in the Yangtze River Delta near Shanghai or to Guangdong Province near Hong Kong. They also stated that they know that some feed mixed with melamine has been exported to other parts of Asia, including South Korea, North Korea, Indonesia and Thailand.

There is increasing evidence that China’s protein exports have been contaminated with melamine, and melamine is widely used in agricultural areas like this. But the Chinese government has not issued a recall of any food or feed products.

In fact, few people outside the agricultural industry know about the use of melamine waste. Chinese news media? ? Which one is strictly censored? ? There have not been too many reports on the country’s relationship with the US pet food recall. In agriculture, few people think that there is no harm in using melamine in small doses; they just treat it as cheating on protein, rather than harming animals or pets.

Traders and workers here say that as for the sale of melamine waste, it is becoming more and more popular as a fake ingredient in feed.

At the Hebei Haixing insect net factory that produces animal feed near Hebei Province, a manager named Guo Qingyin said: “Melamine used to be free, but the price has been rising in recent years. Now the consumption of melamine waste in the animal feed industry may be It consumes more than urea."

So melamine producers like Zhangqiu are very busy.

A person named Jing who works in the sales department of the Shandong Mingshui Da Chemical Group's factory said on Friday that prices have been rising, but he said he did not know how the company's melamine waste was used.

"We auction off melamine waste every three months," he said. "I have not heard of it being added to animal feed. It is not used for animal feed."