Melamine, a substance used in fertilizer in Asia, but not rat poison, has been found in Canadian pet food blamed for killing cats and dogs across North America, US officials and experts said on Friday.
Melamine, also used in the manufacture of plastics, was found in samples of pet food manufactured by Menu Foods and tested in Food and Drug Administration (FDA) laboratories, FDA official Stephen Sundlof at a news conference said.
Melamine was also found in wheat gluten imported from China and used in the Menu Foods products, he said.
PHOTO: EPA
Cornell University scientists detected melamine in the urine or the kidneys of dead cats that participated in the original taste testing study, he said.
"Melamine is an ingredient that should not be in pet food at any level," said Sundlof, who leads the FDA's veterinary medicine center.
But he emphasized that the scientists were not yet fully certain that melamine had caused the recent spate of pet illness and deaths in the US and Canada.
Menu Foods yesterday renotified retailers of its March 16 recall of pet foods, citing possible contamination.
In Toronto, Menu Foods CEO Paul Henderson said, "the important point today is that [the] source of that adulteration has been identified and removed from our system. ... We have removed the problem from our system."
"As a result, I can say with complete confidence today to consumers, to our customers, to governments that Menu Foods continues to uphold the high standards for which it has been known since 1971. Our products are safe," Henderson said.
A New York state laboratory, working with Cornell scientists, on March 21 identified amnoptrin, a rat poison which is banned in the US, in samples of Menu Foods pet food.
But Donald Smith, dean of the college of veterinary medicine at Cornell, said that the university's scientists could not confirm the state lab's findings.
"We have not been able to at Cornell yet confirm the presence of aminopterin in either the food, wheat gluten samples or any body tissues," Smith said on Friday at the news conference.
Menu Foods has recalled pet products sold under 95 different brands in the US, Canada and Mexico. The FDA has received more than 8,000 complaints from consumers whose pets have fallen ill or died after eating the food.
Class-action lawsuits have been filed against Menu Foods in the US and Canada.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said that its investment plan in Arizona is going according to schedule, following a local media report claiming that the company is planning to break ground on its third wafer fab in the US in June. In a statement, TSMC said it does not comment on market speculation, but that its investments in Arizona are proceeding well. TSMC is investing more than US$65 billion in Arizona to build three advanced wafer fabs. The first one has started production using the 4-nanometer (nm) process, while the second one would start mass production using the
A TAIWAN DEAL: TSMC is in early talks to fully operate Intel’s US semiconductor factories in a deal first raised by Trump officials, but Intel’s interest is uncertain Broadcom Inc has had informal talks with its advisers about making a bid for Intel Corp’s chip-design and marketing business, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter. Nothing has been submitted to Intel and Broadcom could decide not to pursue a deal, according to the Journal. Bloomberg News earlier reported that Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is in early talks for a controlling stake in Intel’s factories at the request of officials at US President Donald Trump’s administration, as the president looks to boost US manufacturing and maintain the country’s leadership in critical technologies. Trump officials raised the
‘SILVER LINING’: Although the news caused TSMC to fall on the local market, an analyst said that as tariffs are not set to go into effect until April, there is still time for negotiations US President Donald Trump on Tuesday said that he would likely impose tariffs on semiconductor, automobile and pharmaceutical imports of about 25 percent, with an announcement coming as soon as April 2 in a move that would represent a dramatic widening of the US leader’s trade war. “I probably will tell you that on April 2, but it’ll be in the neighborhood of 25 percent,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago club when asked about his plan for auto tariffs. Asked about similar levies on pharmaceutical drugs and semiconductors, the president said that “it’ll be 25 percent and higher, and it’ll
CHIP BOOM: Revenue for the semiconductor industry is set to reach US$1 trillion by 2032, opening up opportunities for the chip pacakging and testing company, it said ASE Technology Holding Co (日月光投控), the world’s largest provider of outsourced semiconductor assembly and test (OSAT) services, yesterday launched a new advanced manufacturing facility in Penang, Malaysia, aiming to meet growing demand for emerging technologies such as generative artificial intelligence (AI) applications. The US$300 million facility is a critical step in expanding ASE’s global footprint, offering an alternative for customers from the US, Europe, Japan, South Korea and China to assemble and test chips outside of Taiwan amid efforts to diversify supply chains. The plant, the company’s fifth in Malaysia, is part of a strategic expansion plan that would more than triple
RSS