Feds Complete Melamine Risk Assessment

Late on the Friday afternoon before a long weekend, five federal agencies released a risk assessment for melamine-tainted foods that found none cause a health threat to people. The report, by the Food and Drug Administration and the Food Safety and Inspection Service, in consultation with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Homeland Security is an interim safety/risk assessment for melamine. Tainted Chinese wheat flour, labeled as wheat gluten, and rice protein concentrate were used to make pet food, and some pet food was mixed with animal feed and fed to hogs, chickens and fish. "The results of the safety/risk assessment indicate that the consumption of pork, chicken, domestic fish and eggs from animals inadvertently fed animal feed contaminated with melamine and its analogues is very unlikely to pose a human health risk," according to an FDA press release. The timing of the report's release -- late Friday before a three-day weekend -- means that reporters and other watchdogs will probably start to comb through the report only today.