The truth about animal by-products

["Sue Walz" <suesblues@hotmail.com>]

   Hate to keep this can of worms open, but most people aren't aware what 
constitutes "by-products". I worked at a Humane Society when I was 17 & saw 
the "by-products" truck pull up & empty out our freezer of euthanized dogs & 
cats & roadkills of all types! Yes, by-products should be illegal in 
anything consumed by a pet or livestock. It should not be taken lightly, as 
if it was just chicken beaks & feet.
  Beware of "by-products" "meat meal" & other non-defined protien sources! 
Most of the "high quality" dog foods use questionable meat sources. Read 
labels!
   Fogive the forward, but this documents what I'm saying about animal 
by-products:



>Cats and rendered pet food
>Roadkill, dead pets, and pet food
>Cats and BSE: the body count
>
>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>Recycled pets and potential for TSE amplification
>Assuming that a tiny fraction of cats with BSE-FSE ever get diagnosed as 
>such (vestibular disorder more likely, no diagnosis at all likliest), there 
>would be a potential for re-cycling the disease should these infected cats 
>be non-discriminately rendered for pet food:
>From Summer 1996 Earth Island Journal v11, #3 pg 27-31:
>
>   "The rendering plant floor is piled high with raw product. Thousands of 
>dead dogs and cats; head and hooves from cattle, sheep, pigs and horses; 
>whole skunks; rats and raccoons -- all waiting to be processed. In the 
>90-degree heat, the piles of dead animals seem to have a life of their own 
>as millions of maggots swarm over the carcassess."
>   "Rendering plants process decomposing animal carcasses, large roadkill 
>and euthanized dogs and cats into a dry protein product that is sold in the 
>pet food industry. One small plant in Quebec renders 22,000 pounds of dogs 
>and cats per week... The fur is not removed and dead animals are cooked 
>together with viscera, bones and fat at 115 C for 20 minutes."
>
>   "Each year in the US, 286 rendering plants quietly dispose of more than 
>12,500,000 tons of dead animals, fat and meat wasts. ... Baltimore's Valley 
>Proteins "hogger" vat contained an eclectic mix of body parts ranging from 
>dead dogs, cats, raccoons, possums, deer, foxes, snakes, a baby circus 
>elephant, and a police quarterhorse.... In an average year, Baltimore's 
>pound hands over 21,888 dead animals to Valley Proteins [which] sells 
>inedible animal parts and rendered material to Alpo, Heinz, and 
>Ralston-Purina [US pet food manufactureres]"
>
>   "Valley Protein maintains two production lines -- one for clean meat and 
>bons and a second line for dead pets and wildlife. However, VP President 
>Smith reported, that the [final] protein material is a mix from both 
>production lines. Thus the meat and bone meal made at the plant includes 
>materials from pets and wildlife, and are about five percent of that 
>product goes to dry-pet-food manufacturers."
>
>
>
>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>Valley Protein responds
>Gerald F. Smith, Jr., President of Valley Proteins, Inc. responds to your 
>Wednesday, October 23, 1996 transmission at 10:45 a.m. as follows:
>
>   "I was misquoted in the article you referenced. Our plant in Baltimore, 
>MD does indeed process dead domestic house pets which have been euthanized 
>by veterinarians, animal control officials, humane societies and other 
>animal protection organizations. This represents less than one-half of 1% 
>of our Baltimore plant's business on an annual basis. Valley Proteins has a 
>total of nine rendering plants in five states. Except for one pet food 
>producer which purchased approximately 10 tons from our Baltimore plant on 
>three different occasions during the last 12 months, we only sell animal 
>proteins to pet food manufacturers from our facilities which are capable of 
>recycling poultry by-products from poultry slaughter facilities. This pet 
>food producer purchased less than one -half of 1% of our total Baltimore 
>Meat Meal production. Therefore, during the last 12 months approximately 
>300 pounds of our animal protein containing by-products from dead domestic 
>house pets entered the pet food market."
>
>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>Listserve commentary 10.31.96
>Since the renderer (Valley Proteins) mentioned is in the U.S., presumably 
>the meat and bone meal so generated (if the story is true) must be used in 
>pet food in a manner consistent with FDA and USDA regulations.
>First of all, the pet food made must specifically reference the species 
>name on the label. E.g., "chicken byproducts", etc. I personally have never 
>seen "opossum byproducts" or "raccoon meat" or "cat byproducts" listed on 
>ANY petfood I have ever seen.
>
>Secondly, any diseased tissue is inelgible for use in petfood.
>
>IF the story described is true, then most likely any recycled pets/roadkill 
>would be used in fertilizer meat and bone meal. While this might the direct 
>closed-loop feedback suggested.
>
>--------------- The label on Hill's Feline Senior Science Diet includes 
>among the more specific ingredients, "animal fat (preserved with BHA, 
>propyl gallate and citric acid)" and "natural flavor".
>
>
>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>Cats and BSE: the body count
>1994: 16 1995: 8 1996: 6 so far
>
>The first FSE case was reported already in 1990
>(Wyatt et al (1990) Vet.Rec. 126, 513).
>
>Wyatt and coworkers reported 5 more cases in 1991 (Vet Rec.129,233) and
>sometime during 1992 the number of confirmed cases had reached 24.
>
>"Since the first report <..> a further 23 cases have been confirmed
>histologically (J.W. Wilesmith, personal communication).."
>(quote from Journal of small animal practise (1992),33,10,471)
>
>This leaves only a plausible discrepancy (of 28 cases) --
>for further cases confirmed in 1992 and cases from 1993.
>
>Maybe the single case reported from Norway is included in
>the total count mentioned in Devins' article in THE INDEPENDENT?
>
>Total count 72 diagnosed FSE cases can't be far off.
>This leaves only a plausible discrepancy (of 28 cases) --
>for further cases confirmed in 1992 and cases from 1993.
>
>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>BSE in muscle and blood: see the article of I.H.Pattison and G.C.Millson, 
>Distribution of the scrapie agent in the Tissue of experimentally 
>inoculated goats, Journal of Comparative Pathology and Therapeutics 1962; 
>72: 233-44. It demonstrated the scrapie agent in blood and muscle.
>D.H.Adams and W.M.Edgar described the transfer of scrapie with gingival in 
>"Transmission of agent of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, British Medical 
>Journal 1978; 1(6118): 987".
>
>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>



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