The succession of recalls chips away at public confidence in the safety of the nation's food supply and those charged with protecting it. In the past few months, contaminated peanut butter, spinach, lettuce, beef and pet food have sickened or killed people and animals. The FDA needs to plug the holes in its food safety net to better protect the public's health and peace of mind about the food supply. It can issue voluntary food safety guidelines, but relies on foreign and domestic food...

Unfortunately, some livestock could not be recalled since they were already on their way to your plate. Late last month, federal officials were doing another round of damage control, this time contacting pork and poultry producers in nine states about melamine-tainted feedstock and culling suspected animals. Milk protein concentrate, which enters the United States as an industrial-grade ingredient to make adhesives and which has never been subject to consumer-safety testing or given...

Their feed was supplemented with pet food scraps containing melamine and related compounds. Previously, the department cleared thousands of pigs given feed also made using pet food scraps. While the dog and cat food was lethal to some pets, the diluted use of pet food scraps in animal feed apparently did not sicken any farm animals. The chickens, bred to lay eggs hatched for chicks, had been held on Indiana farms after eating feed that included an industrial chemical blamed in the deaths...

Rockoff Sun reporter Originally published May 16, 2007 WASHINGTON // Stung by one of the largest recalls in pet food history, makers of dog and cat foods are developing a plan to prevent future contamination by hiring private laboratories to verify that foreign suppliers are shipping the right products and meeting quality standards. Safety steps for pet foods - baltimoresun.com Contact Us . Place an ad . Subscriber Services . Site Map . Print Edition . Services. Rockoff Sun reporter...

As a consequence of the drought last summer, many livestock producers and horse owners have had to cull or liquidate animals they would rather have kept if they had anything to feed them. With that in mind, along with the hay shortage, people have frequently been forced to buy hay from unfamiliar sources and certainly without any known history of how the hay was produced, harvested, or even where it came from. That information led to a full scale media blitz from various organizations...

Investigators are trying to get a handle on just how much pet food tainted with an industrial chemical called melamine made its way into products consumed by pets as well as by hogs and chickens. Meanwhile, two Democratic lawmakers have introduced legislation that would give the FDA the power to order mandatory recalls of adulterated food products. WASHINGTON -- Federal health investigators suspect they'll find more farms received tainted animal feed, but stress the threat to people is minimal.