When you ask the tough questions to regulatory authorities…questions they don’t want to answer…my experience has been they do one of two things: ignore your questions or give you a very lame excuse. Here’s the latest lame excuse.
Federal and State law is crystal clear – a pet food is considered adulterated/illegal if it contains the tiniest portion of a non-slaughtered animal. But pet food regulatory authorities refuse to enforce law. Their lame excuse…there is no legal definition for what a slaughtered animal is.
Last week, AAFCO President and the AAFCO Animal Ingredients Investigator told consumer advocates they cannot enforce law because there is no legal definition to “slaughter”. This week FDA told us a similar response.
My question sent to FDA…
The Federal Food Drug and Cosmetic Act – Title 21, Chapter 9, Subchapter IV, Section 342 (adulterated food) states “A food shall be deemed to be adulterated-
(a) Poisonous, insanitary, etc., ingredients
(5) if it is, in whole or in part, the product of a diseased animal or of an animal which has died otherwise than by slaughter;”So – my question is – what does ‘otherwise than by slaughter’ mean? How does FDA define ‘otherwise than by slaughter’ in regards to food? How does FDA determine a food would be adulterated due to containing an animal which has died otherwise than by slaughter? How does FDA define a slaughtered animal and how does FDA define an animal that has died otherwise than by slaughter?
FDA responded with…
The Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FFDCA) requires that all animal foods, like human foods, be safe to eat, produced under sanitary conditions, contain no harmful substances, and be truthfully labeled. Processed pet food goes through a kill step, such as rendering, which is designed to kill harmful bacteria. In addition, canned foods, whether intended for animals or humans, must be processed in conformance with the low acid canned food regulations to ensure the food is free of viable microorganisms.
Let me stop here with FDA’s response. For the FDA to say that “all animal foods, like human foods, be safe to eat, produced under sanitary conditions, contain no harmful substances, and be truthfully labeled” is very wrong. ‘Animal foods’ such as cattle feed are allowed to contain chicken poop. ‘Animal foods’ such as cat and dog food are allowed to contain 4D animals (dead, diseased, dying and disabled). Chicken poop and 4D animals are not in the least ‘like human foods’. Chicken poop and 4D animals are breeding grounds for dangerous bacteria that when “goes through a kill step, such as rendering” produces dangerous endotoxins that can sicken or kill pets. And ‘truthfully labeled’? No again. There is not one pet food that ‘truthfully’ informs the consumer the pet food could contain diseased animals or non-slaughtered animal material.
The FDA continued…
The Federal Food, Drug & Cosmetic Act does not define “animal which has died otherwise than by slaughter.” The United States Department of Agriculture regulates meat and poultry products intended for human food, and you may wish to contact them as well with this question.
My response to FDA: No, you can’t pass this off to USDA. FDA is responsible for enforcing the laws of the Federal Food, Drug & Cosmetic Act. I am confident FDA would swiftly take action against a human food that contained a non-slaughtered animal. Why are they not enforcing the same law with pet food?
Plus – FDA has written Compliance Policies that use the very same terminology as law. FDA’s Compliance Policy 690.300 Canned Pet Food states: “POLICY: Pet food consisting of material from diseased animals or animals which have died otherwise than by slaughter, which is in violation of 402(a)(5) will not ordinarily be actionable, if it is not otherwise in violation of the law. It will be considered fit for animal consumption.”
FDA cannot claim the agency has no definition for a term they have written further policy on. Wrong.
And lastly FDA stated…
The Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO) maintains the most complete list of animal food ingredients with their definitions to ensure consistency across all states. We recommend you contact AAFCO for examples and more information about how common this practice may be.
FDA works in cooperation with AAFCO. There is little done at AAFCO without FDA approval. Also, AAFCO is not charged with enforcement of the FD&C Act – FDA is. To further pass the buck to AAFCO is wrong.
FDA – accept your legal responsibility. Enforce the FD&C Act with pet food.
And by the way…Pet food regulatory authorities claim they don’t have a legal definition to what a slaughtered animal is, but Wikipedia provides details that slaughter facilities began to include “good standards of hygiene” as early as 1852. So for more than 150 years, the slaughter of animals for food has been an industrialized method.
Pet food regulatory authorities claim they don’t have a legal definition to what a slaughtered animal is, but there are detailed laws that govern the humane methods of slaughter – the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act.
The (lame) excuse there is no definition to slaughter is no excuse. It’s time to clean up pet food. Non-slaughtered animals recycled into pet food are a violation of state and federal law. Animals should NOT become living landfills to dispose of waste. Who is pet food regulatory authorities protecting? Pets or the Pet Food Industry?
We have a meeting this afternoon with FDA regarding endotoxins ignored in pet food – will share details of this meeting as soon as I can.
Wishing you and your pet(s) the best,
Susan Thixton
Pet Food Safety Advocate
Author Buyer Beware, Co-Author Dinner PAWsible
TruthaboutPetFood.com
Association for Truth in Pet Food
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Sherrie Ashenbremer
March 10, 2016 at 11:50 am
OUR FDA IS USELESS, They may as well not exist. Why do our tax dollars pay for use less people like this. I could go on and on about how terrible the FDA is
Mark Morton
March 10, 2016 at 1:12 pm
Worthless damn government! Everything connected to the Federal Government, except the military, is a total waste of money; and most of it is totally unconstitutional!
Sally
March 10, 2016 at 2:51 pm
I agree with you Mark !! I was thinking that exact same thing !
T Allen
March 10, 2016 at 4:09 pm
Do not exempt the military from that statement. If the US public knew the amount of fraud, waste and abuse in the military it would be shut down.
Jill R
March 10, 2016 at 7:34 pm
If you had any idea what our military is really doing you would retract your statement. The US military takes 79% of our taxpayer dollars to fund our industrial/military complex. Can you imagine what those dollars might do if they were spent on schools, or a REAL health care system, or maybe even FREE EDUCATION instead of saddling all our kids with thousands (hundreds of) dollars of debt? Our military is also flying all the planes that are in the middle of this horrendous scheme to save the earth by covering our skies day and night with toxic spray. Think I’m making this up? All the information is out there. Check out geoengineeringwatch.org and be prepared to be shocked. Our military is a joke.
Dianne
March 10, 2016 at 4:13 pm
If there is no legal definition of a slaughtered animal, how do they decide if an animal put into human food is slaughtered or not? Shouldn’t this also come under something similar to GRAS. Generally regards as safe, or generally regarded as slaughtered?
T Allen
March 10, 2016 at 4:19 pm
Susan- Do you have a list of people in Congress or other important offices that have been receptive to these concerns and/ or non-receptive? Do you have a document that we can send to our reps that outlines these concerns (including the required pages of references)? Not a real good time with elections but it’s time to start putting pressure on States to make changes which will eventually lead to Federal changes. Monsanto is starting to feel the pain, so are food producers with GMOs and pet food companies are taking notice. The new Beneful commercial (with her eating cheese sticks) makes me sick and I’m looking to help bring them down!
Janet Velenovsky
March 10, 2016 at 5:03 pm
Stay on them, Susan! You are my hero!
Andrea
March 10, 2016 at 6:36 pm
Seems the FDA has been more concerned with stopping people from importing kinder eggs into the US, than the safety of our fur babies’ food. It’s deplorable!
Laurie Matson
March 11, 2016 at 2:26 am
The FDA is protecting the Pet Feed Industry, no doubt about it. Because they are such a filthy rich industry, they are paying the FDA off to work FOR THEM!!! It is so obvious it makes me sick. All Government is corrupted, every single agency is!!!
Peter
March 11, 2016 at 8:01 am
We must remember that the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act was created, and responsibility for administration of the act was imparted to the FDA, in the late 1930s because people were dying. In 1933, Kallet & Schlink published “100,000,000 Guinea Pigs: Dangers in Everyday Foods, Drugs, and Cosmetics,” describing that the FDA was held in “regulatory capture”: created as a state regulatory agency to act in the public interest, but instead advancing commercial or special interests that dominated the industries it was charged with regulating. We still have this “failure of government.” Rregulatory capture ultimately encourages a business model wherein large firms impart negative economic and moral social costs on consumers (the third party in the relationship). The FDA has undertaken a specific and direct effort to undermine federal food safety law.
M Jones
March 11, 2016 at 10:59 am
This could be a long reply, however, I’ll try to make it short. Bashing the government bureaucracy and the military won’t solve the problem. People should keep in mind that there are many agencies within the government and you depend on the people running these agencies to do the job they were hired to do. Some are good, some are bad just like any other entity. As a 35 year employee of DOD and frequent dealings with others outside of DOD I can tell you that politics is the worst culprit, everybody practices and it’s the same in business. Think of the present crop of candidates that bash government and claim too many regulations. The FDA has regulations, but doesn’t enforce them, so do others. My point here is until voters stand up and know who and why they are voting nothing changes. If enough people stood up claimed change and knew the facts something might happen. Has a petition ever been generated to make sure the regulations are enforced and sent to the Executive Branch? My understanding is they have to provide an answer if the petition has 100K signatures. We can never change some of these agencies until a suit is filed in Federal Court, which obviously cost a lot of money. Any lawyers read this newsletter?