newslineU.S. Bans Wheat Gluten Imports from Chinese CompanyU.S. Bans Wheat Gluten Imports from Chinese CompanyU.S. Bans Wheat Gluten Imports from Chinese CompanyAfter finding contaminated wheat gluten in pet food, the U.S. banned imports of the item from one Chinese company on Friday and suggested further scrutiny of other wheat imports.After finding contaminated wheat gluten in pet food, the U.S. banned imports of the item from one Chinese company on Friday and suggested further scrutiny of other wheat imports.After finding contaminated wheat gluten in pet food, the U.S. banned imports of the item from one Chinese company on Friday and suggested further scrutiny of other wheat imports. In an import alert issued March 30, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said that wheat gluten imported from Xuzhou Anying Biologic Technology Development Company Ltd. of the Wangdian Industrial Zone in China, contained melamine, a synthetic plastic that may be implicated in recent pet deaths and illnesses that may have occurred after the animals ate pet food containing the toxin. The FDA is still actively tracing the path of the contaminated wheat gluten, it said last week, but it does not believe the ingredient has made its way into human food. Initially 95 brands of pet food produced by Canada-based Menu Foods Inc. were recalled March 16, but since the FDA’s discovery of melamine, several additional pet food items were recalled, because they used the same wheat gluten supplier as Menu. The barred Chinese company told the Associated Press that it did not produce the impacted wheat gluten but instead purchased it from other sources, according to a report published Monday on MSNBC.com. The FDA import alert does not bar other companies from sending their wheat gluten products here, but it does recommend FDA’s field representatives sample and screen for wheat gluten coming from China and the Netherlands, a country that Chinese wheat gluten might travel through. 04-03-2007
