Pet Food Recall Expanded - Melamine & Wheat Gluten Toxicity
Sunday April 1, 2007
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The latest recall is associated with melamine, found in the wheat gluten ingredient. Melamine most commonly is used to make hard plastics, but one of its other uses is as a fertilizer. Although I can't see how a wheat fertilizer (melamine) and rodenticide (aminopterin) would be present in high concentrations in the food, the contamination may be the result of poor processing, and not some intentional addition. Melamine normally is not considered a toxic ingredient, but the concentration in the gluten may be sufficiently high to cause the formation of crystals in kidney tubules. Although there are two separate toxins now, the damage and symptoms of poisoning are essentially the same (unusual behavior, loss of appetite or vomiting, excessive thirst, excessive urination, diarrhea). In lower doses, melamine acts as a diuretic, so I would say increased thirst and urination would be likely initial symptoms.
Wheat gluten is the ingredient that remains when the starch is washed away from wheat. It is used as a protein source in foods. Gluten also affects the texture of foods. It is possible some pets, particularly cats, are sensitive to these proteins in their diet. While the gluten itself may not be toxic, its presence may have contributed to the reactions from aminopterin and melamine. Many dry cat foods do not contain gluten.
What to Do if You Used a Recalled Pet Food
Photo: Clara Natoli, morguefile.com
Comments
Anything the FDA is involved in is likely fradulent and laden with significant criminal intent. The U.S. FDA describes itself on its website as “the oldest consumer protection agency in the nation.” It also states that its mission is being “responsible for protecting the public health by assuring the safety, efficacy, and security of human and veterinary drugs.” However, the fact that, according to a study published in the JAMA, pharmaceutical drugs are America’s 4th leading cause of death shows how the FDA is really just a corporate-sponsored government agency being used to speed highly questionable drugs to market – at the expense of people’s lives. In the current issue, it woul dnot be unlikely that the FDA planted the melamine in order to exact the backers of the U.S. government an increased level of protectionism.
I know that most of these investigations concern pet food. I am very sorry for all those animals that have passed. I think this problem is much larger and this product melamine is and has been in our human food supply for many years. The FDA has covered up this investigation and this information. We can not find out why we are importing these gluten’s. We can not find out where they are going or too whom they are going. the diabetes rates have skyrocketed throughout the country along with many other diseases like cancer. It is my belief that melamine is the cause and the effects mirror these diseases which are all auto immune diseases. Since the distribution in the human chain is sporadic it has been hard to identify the culprit. The young have been effected the most and the disease rates reflect this. Cereals are the biggest users of these gluten’s in production. We have a major problem here and all imported foods that are imported in non whole food states need to be suspended immediately by the FDA. We are all being systematically poisoned.
Obewan
No one has probably considered the Wood Machinists who manufacture kitchens and other furniture such as worktops, office furniture,etc. Their machinery uses industrial strength saw blades that get very hot AND give off a very fine dust, most of which cannot be seen even with the naked eye but which they MUST and DO breathe in. This dust that they breathe in all day and everyday must contain some melamine when cutting kitchen worktops and laminates which may have have been changed by the heat of the blade.
Also they breathe in ‘Wood Dust’ which has been classified as CARCINOGENIC for years by the IARC. They don’t know what element it is that makes it carcinogenic but it has been classified as such regardless. This was done using research into British wood workers who showed a high incidence of nasal cancers.
Our UK HSE and Unions are failing those who work in the wood trades by allowing employers to get away with either not insisting that wood workers wear masks at all or to provide inadequate dust masks i.e the flimsy DIY standard dust masks that some provide that are useless at filtering out the very fine dust that is produced by modern machinery.
This is killing and/or disabling our wood workers. Their lungs cannot rid themselves of the very fine dust so it sits there for many years causing cancers, respiratory disease, autoimmune disease, etc. Their illness will have a long latency period and will take many years to develop sometimes even up to approx. 40 years. May not even show symptoms until after they have retired. It may start as seemingly something quite minor such as a cough or cold that won’t go away, even SINUS problems that keep reoccuring. By the time the victim becomes aware that they have an illness because of the dust they have breathed in for years it will be too late for many. Genetics as always plays a part and whilst many wood workers will come into contact they may suffer with different illnesses because of their genetics. It just needs that trigger. ‘GENETICS LOADS THE GUN, ENVIRONMENT PULLS THE TRIGGER’.
Worse still is that they then take it home to their families on their clothes, hair and skin. Their wives/partners will inadvertantly wash the contaminated clothing breathing in the dust as they gather it in to take it to the washing machine.
Families too and their homes are then contaminated by these toxic dusts, a dust that sometimes never settles it’s so fine. Their illnesses are then not linked to this contamination but you only have to look at the cases where family members of those working with asbestos have been made ill too by asbestos fibres.
There are also the many other toxic chemicals found in wood composite boards such as MDF and chipboard/particle board, cement board , etc, which may also contain for example silica and formaldehyde also known carcinogenics. Off gassing is not the only problem from these boards. Silica is known to cause certain incurable autoimmune diseases.
I speak from direct experience and over two years constant research. I had to as no one else would help us.
My husband is a wood machinist working in the kitchen cabinet trade. We have both been made incurably ill by the wood dust and dust/toxins from the products he has been cutting over the 30+ years he has been in the trade which will have contained toxins such as melamine. Our lives have been devastated. We are living a nightmare. Both on chemotherapy. Both lost our jobs because of our illness. We both suffer from the very same very rare form of autoimmune vasculitis ‘Wegener’s Granulomatosis’. Both diagnosed some years apart and didn’t meet via a support group. We’ve together for 32 years and married for 27.
They say we may be the only husband and wife couple in the world to have Wegener’s Granulomatosis (autoimmune vasculitis) and it’s because of this, that Doctors, not us, are convinced that there has to be an environmental cause to our illness.
So the moral of the story is ‘Wake up and smell the coffee or should I say the wood dust’. Breathing in any type of dust can and will kill one day. It’s just a matter of when.