Pet food was poisoned for profit.
Some Suspect Chemical Mix in Pet Food - New York Times
XUZHOU, China, April 10 — Behind an unmarked gate in this booming city well north of Shanghai lies a large building at the heart of an investigation over tainted pet food that has killed at least 16 cats and dogs in the United States, sickened 12,000 and prompted a nationwide recall.This is the property of the Xuzhou Anying Biologic Technology Development Company, a small agricultural products business that investigators have identified as the source of contaminated wheat gluten that was shipped to a major pet food supplier in the United States.
Some American regulators suspect there was deliberate mixing of substances. They are looking into the possibility that melamine, the chemical linked to the pets’ deaths, was mixed into the wheat gluten in China as a way to bolster the protein content, according to a person who was briefed on the investigation.
Though American and Chinese regulators are searching for answers, local residents and workers are unwittingly providing clues about how the pet food supply may have become contaminated.
The case is also exposing some of the enormous challenges confronting the global marketplace as China becomes a worldwide supplier of agricultural products.
There are strong indications that Xuzhou Anying, a company with a main office that seems to consist of just two rooms and an adjoining warehouse here, possessed substantial supplies of melamine and even sought to buy quantities of it over the Internet.
[snip]
there are indications that Xu- zhou Anying has manufacturing facilities in this area and also had access to melamine, which is sometimes used as a fertilizer in Asia. For instance, in recent months Xuzhou Anying has posted several requests on Web trading sites seeking to purchase large quantities of melamine.
In a March 29 posting on a site operated by Sohu.net, a big Chinese company, officials of Xuzhou Anying wrote, “Our company buys large quantities of melamine scrap all year around.” There were also postings on several other trading sites like ChemAbc.net.
[snip]
The question that regulators, agriculture experts, and food producers and distributors may now be asking is whether other substances added to food imports can broadly contaminate the American food supply. The F.D.A. has said none of the contaminated wheat gluten leaked into human food.
[snip]
Chinese regulators say they are now carrying out a nationwide inspection of wheat gluten supplies. American regulators have banned all wheat gluten from China, but there has been no domestic recall so far of gluten produced by Xuzhou Anying; the company’s wheat gluten can be used to make bread, baked goods and other food.
[more at above link]
And how, exactly, can the FDA be so sure none of this wheat gluten is in human food?
They can't.