Thread: Bush Wants To Allow Cooked,Packaged China Poultry Into US

Bush Wants To Allow Cooked,
Packaged China Poultry Into US
Patricia Doyle, PhD
5-9-7

Hello Jeff -- Here it is, in black and white, US government is going to allow poultry from China:

"Government authorities are working on a proposal to allow chickens raised, slaughtered, and cooked in China to be sold in the United States, and under current regulations, store labels do not have to indicate the origin of the poultry."

The above statement could not be any clearer. For the sake of global trade and global economy, the US is going to allow imports as mentioned above.


The US consumer has NO WAY to know the country of origin of the poultry product. I guess that is clear. As the article mentions, the chicken is even cooked and packaged in China. No way to be sure it is free from bird flu either, except the word of our 'trustworthy' food supplier in China.

Again, WHY oh WHY are we allowing our enemy to feed us?

I tell you what WE consumers can do, "DO NOT BUY CHICKEN, ANY CHICKEN, BECAUSE WE DON'T KNOW IF IT CAME FROM CHINA.


We need to write letters to the FDA, Congress, every grocery store chains and also poultry companies like Tyson and Perdu, etc, and let them know we refuse to buy any chicken until the imports from China STOP!...and until the country of origin is on the label of the poultry package.

We still really do NOT know, for certain, that melamine was the source of the poison in the Chinese gluten. Yes, it may be part, but we do not know what other toxic dump chemicals were in the gluten.

If this continues, we may see people in the US buying their poultry at live markets and slaughtering the chickens themselves. As usual the consumer is getting stiffed, big time.

This must stop. I am not objecting to trinkets imported to the US from China, but I do strongly object to food from China. This must stop. Every bit of food imported to the US MUST be labeled with country of origin, and that includes products using ingredients from China and other countries.

Can you really trust our food supply?

Patty


US Proposal To Allow Chicken Imports From China Raises Health Concerns
By Diedtra Henderson
The Boston Globe
5-10-7

WASHINGTON -- In China, some farmers try to maximize the output from their small plots by flooding produce with unapproved pesticides, pumping livestock with antibiotics banned in other countries and using human feces as fertilizer to increase soil productivity. (Note - the same unregulated chemical pesticide and antibiotic abuses occur in Mexico and Latin America. The use of raw human sewage is also common and is often used to achieve 'organic' status in Latin American fruit and grain farming. -ed)


But the questionable practices do not end there: Chicken pens are frequently suspended over ponds where seafood is raised, recycling chicken waste as a food source for seafood, according to a leading food safety expert who served as adviser to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Suspect Chinese agricultural practices could soon affect consumers in the United States. Government authorities are working on a proposal to allow chickens raised, slaughtered, and cooked in China to be sold in the United States, and under current regulations, store labels do not have to indicate the origin of the poultry.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, China's top agricultural export goal is opening the U.S. market to its cooked chickens.

Representative Rosa DeLauro, a Democrat of Connecticut who is fighting the change, says that China does not deserve entry to the coveted, closed poultry market.

Agricultural exports from China to the United States ballooned from $1 billion in 2002 to nearly $2.3 billion in 2006, according to the USDA Economic Research Service. DeLauro, head of an agricultural subcommittee in the House of Representatives, said Congress should signal its willingness to restrict imports from China until Beijing improved food safety oversight.

"There is deception," DeLauro said. "There is lax regulation, and they've got unsanitary conditions. They need to hear from us they're at risk. Congress has to look at limiting some of their agricultural imports."

The USDA, which shares food safety oversight with the FDA, says that its proposal to allow the sale of Chinese chicken is in the early stages and that there will be many opportunities for the public to be heard on the matter. Under the plan, any country seeking to export meat, poultry, or egg products to the United States must earn "equivalency," with documentation that its product is as safe and wholesome as the domestic competition.

Agriculture officials would review records, conduct on-site audits, and confirm that foreign laboratories could ensure the safety of the food, said Steven Cohen, a spokesman for the department's Food Safety and Inspection Service. The agency would also inspect imported products as they enter the United States, he said. "This is a process that has barely begun, and there is a very lengthy review," Cohen said.

According to Lucius Adkins, president of United Poultry Growers Association, the idea "should be strangled in infancy." The group represents more than 700 producers in Georgia, one of the leading U.S. poultry producing states.

"You don't know what conditions existed in that plant" in China, he said. In addition, no U.S. government representative in China would be watching poultry being slaughtered and processed, he said. "It's going to come here packaged."

The National Chicken Council, which represents companies that produce 95 percent of U.S.-grown poultry, has not taken a position on the proposal.

Currently, the United States imports almost no poultry, except for a small amount of chicken exported by Canadian producers, said Richard Lobb, a spokesman for the trade association.

But Americans do eat food from around the world, Lobb said.

"People don't have any problem with potpie from Canada. How they would feel about frozen chicken from China or specialty Chinese products that are canned or dried or something, I don't know."

In China's agricultural system, many farmers toil on one-acre plots, while U.S. farmers often work thousands of acres, said Michael Doyle, director of the Center for Food Safety at the University of Georgia and former chairman of the FDA's science advisory board.

In China, "there are hundreds of thousands of these little farms," Doyle said. "They have small ponds. And over the ponds - in not all cases, but in many cases - they'll have chicken cages. It might be like 20,000 chickens in cages. The chicken feces is what feeds the shrimp."

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has found that up to 10 percent of shrimp imported from China contains salmonella, he said. Even more worrisome are shrimp imported from China that contain antibiotics that no amount of cooking can neutralize.

Last month alone, the FDA rejected 51 shipments of catfish, eel, shrimp, and tilapia imported from China because of contaminants like salmonella, veterinary drugs, and nitrofuran, a cancer-causing chemical. A long history of such test results spurred the FDA to begin working proactively with Chinese farmers on safer seafood production methods, Doyle said. Even in poultry produced in the United States, there is contamination with salmonella, he said.

"In terms of veterinary drugs and pesticides, well, good food handling practices won't fix that," Doyle added. "That has to be addressed in the country of origin."


http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/05/09/ ... hicken.php



Patricia A. Doyle DVM, PhD
Bus Admin, Tropical Agricultural Economics
Univ of West Indies

Please visit my "Emerging Diseases" message board at:
http://www.emergingdisease.org/phpbb/index.php
Also my new website:
http://drpdoyle.tripod.com/
Zhan le Devlesa tai sastimasa
Go with God and in Good Health


http://www.rense.com/general76/pooul.htm

Send the first packages to arrive to the White House and let the king's food testers eat it first.

W

How stupid can our gov't be.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

All food from China, including supplements, etc. should be banned.

Period.

"Government authorities are working on a proposal to allow chickens raised, slaughtered, and cooked in China to be sold in the United States, and under current regulations, store labels do not have to indicate the origin of the poultry."

They are taking away our ability to make informed choices!
Since our pets, our pigs, our chickens and our fish have been compromised by contaminated pet food from China, can we expect a better quality of food to come from them?

It is my intention never to buy any food item that comes from China but how can I do that when the food is manufactured there and then repackaged in the US?
Vitamin C is a good example of this. The ingredients come from China and the powder is sent to the US where it is pressed into pill form and packaged. The Chinese have practically taken over the entire production of Vitamin C and raised the price by almost 5 times!
If you look closely at some packages in the small print you will see that it says...packaged in the USA. But that is not enough. We deserve to know where these foods and vitamins originated! Who is looking out for the best interest of the American people? Don't count on the USDA.They inspect only about one percent of the food coming into the country!

Whats next?

Hi Proud!

I emailed Nature Made re the Vit C, that I've been taking for years, when I heard that 4 companies in China had the monopoly on Vit. C. Just got this reply. Pat
----- Original Message -----
From: <mmateus@naturemade.com>
To:XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Sent: Wednesday, May 02, 2007 11:51 AM
Subject: Reference #236748


> Date: May 2, 2007
> To: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
> From: Meghan Mateus, Consumer Affairs Department
> Subject: Reference #236748
>
> Dear Patricia XXXXXXXXXXX:
>
> We recently received your e-mail regarding our Nature Made products. We
> appreciate your question concerning the quality standards of our company.
>
> Besides selling vitamins, we're all consumers too, so we share the concern
> over the safety of ingredients that go into the supplements we take
> ourselves and give to our children. Our company, Pharmavite, does source
> ingredients from suppliers around the world, including Asia and the
> Americas. We personally visit and inspect all new suppliers and only
> partner with those that meet our best-in-class standards. Once approved,
> these facilities are regularly audited for quality assurance. We are proud
> to source ingredients only from highly respected suppliers.
>
> After being received at our manufacturing facilities, raw materials are
> immediately quarantined, sampled and tagged for computer tracking
> throughout the manufacturing process. This process enables us to know at
> all times the exact origin of each ingredient, and ensures only safe and
> high-quality product is released.
>
> Rigorous testing is performed throughout the manufacturing process to
> ensure products of the highest quality. Pharmavite's Quality Control
> laboratory, one of the most advanced in the country, performs more than
> 300 tests daily. All of our ingredients and our water supply are routinely
> tested for harmful contaminants before use.
>
> In addition to our stringent internal safety and quality testing, we
> adhere to the FDA's proposed Good Manufacturing Practices (GMPs) and
> standards set by the United States Pharmacopeia (USP). As an industry
> leader, Pharmavite has been a strong supporter and active participant in
> the initiative led by the Council for Responsible Nutrition, the
> industry's leading trade association, to develop and pass the GMPs, which
> will set manufacturing standards for dietary supplements. These proposed
> regulations borrow heavily from drug industry GMPs and will help build
> trust in the industry. The USP has set pharmaceutical and dietary
> supplement quality standards since 1820. More than 90 of our products
> carry the USP seal, which indicates they have passed the organization's
> rigorous dietary supplement verification program.
>
> We hope you find this information and welcome any additional questions you
> may have. You may contact our Consumer Affairs Department Monday through
> Friday from 7 am to 4 pm PT should you wish to speak with one of our
> representatives.
>
> We thank you for contacting us and hope that you will continue to use and
> enjoy Nature Made products with complete confidence.
>
> Sincerely,
> Meghan Mateus
> Consumer Affairs Representative
> Pharmavite, LLC
> MM:236748-07
> ********************************************
I'm waiting for a response re the DIRECT questions, where do you get your Vit. C? and where is it packaged (sounds like here, but doesn't delineate...their factory could be anywhere)?

Good job on writing them Pat!

You have to have a Masters degree just to cut through the disclaimers in these letters but the fact remains that they did admit to outsourcing the ingredients!

I bet the dog food manufacturers were sending out the same non-sense to consumers too before the entire pet food industry was brought to its knees.

How can they even consider this after the pet food fiasco?

If Castro was allowed in the 70s to supply the US with food, he would have poisoned us all. What makes this government think that the Chinese are any different? I don't care how many inspections these fools make, YOU CANNOT TRUST A COMMUNIST COUNTRY'S GOVERNMENT. I hope this is all reversed by the next President when he gets into office.

The regulations should change so that we all can make informed decisions. It's our right and there should be judges all over this. THERE WILL BE CONSEQUENCES TO THIS. PEOPLE ARE GOING TO GET SICK BIG TIME.

Yesterday I posted an article that fish for eating are now also contaminated by bad fish food.

So now we have....Pork, chicken and fish. Wonder how they will get to the cows?
I just can't believe this is unintentional.