Please FDA Let the Consumer Decide.

In today's FDA press conference (live blogged by flying fingers of Christie Keith) they talked about the 2.5 - 3 million chicken that were fed feed from China that was tainted with melamime (and possibly other substances) back in February.

The chickens were processed (killed) and distributed (sold to you).
But they will not tell us the names of the companies that sold these chickens.

Chicago Tribune: You say it’s too late to do a recall, but why not name the companies and let the consumers decide?

Here is Christie's live blogging notes: PLEASE NOTE this is NOT an offical transcript, the offical transcript will be out soon:

Dr. Peterson: It’s more than just the shelf life of poultry or swine. As Dr. Atchison suggested, if you look at the potential exposure, the risk is very low for the factors he mentioned. The wheat gluten and rice gluten were just small components of the pet food. The way swine and poultry were raised, defined rations. Pet food byproducts are a small part of the feed. If anything fed for a brief period of time. Look at frequency of people consuming pork or chicken. All those things together, along with no evidence of harm to people eating pork and chicken. We made a decision not to recall.

Granted this is not an exact transcript. I wish I had been on the call I would have recorded it and played if exactly back for you all.

What a load of chicken manure! I wish I had this exactly. A few notes.

1) The feed they are talking about was fed to the chicken's in February. Remember the recall didn't start until March 16. What does that mean? Was this feed based on pet food that was dumped or was it a gluten that went into some other product?

2) The tests on RATS that said that Melamine was a problem was JUST on Melamine, NOT on a combination of melamine and other things.

Come on. Name the names. Let the consumer decide.