China often uses melamine in animal feed

Melamine has no nutritional value but because it is
nitrogen rich, it raises the nitrogen level of feed, making it appear that the
feed is higher in protein without increasing its nutritional value. That makes
it attractive to makers of feed for stock animals such as pigs, chickens, and
fish, as well as companies that make prepared foods for household pets such as
cats and dogs.

Commonly used
Customers either don’t
know or aren’t concerned about the practice, said Wang Jianhui, manager of the
Kaiyuan Protein Feed company in the northern city of Shijiazhuang.
“We’ve
been running the melamine feed business for about 15 years and receiving
positive responses from our customers,” according to Wang. “Using the proper
quantity of melamine will not harm the animals. Our products are very safe, for
sure,” Wang said. Despite Wang’s claim of safety, pet food tainted with melamine
apparently has resulted in kidney failure in an unknown number of cats and other
animals across the United States.

No rules or regulation
“A lot
of animal food companies buy melamine from us to add in the animal feed,” said
Ji Denghui, manager of Sanming Dinghui Chemical Trading Co. based in the eastern
province of Fujian. “This can lower the production cost and increase nitrogen
levels.”
“As far as I know, there are no rules of regulations that make this
illegal. As to whether melamine is toxic or not, I believe it won’t do any harm
if there is only very small amount,” Ji said. “Otherwise, those companies could
not do that.”

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(Source: AP)