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The FDA

.. exemplifies

that he who is paid

by the poultry killers

dances to their tunes

as the FDA does

NOTHING to stop

Mad Chicken practices.

*******************

14 million Ohio chickens at Buckeye are being given cattle

parts. Leininger, Buckeye CEO, is incorrect in saying

chickens cannot get Mad Chicken from Mad Cow.

http://www.mad-cow.org http://www.madcowboy.com

http://www.madeer.org http://www.keeper.org RFK suing EPA

http://www.hsus.org suing EPA

http://www.sierraclub.org suing EPA



Beleaguered megafarm says its chicken feed follows rules



05/31/03



Casey Laughman

Associated Press





Columbus- The state's largest egg producer has met the requirements

of federal inspectors who said the company needed to change the way

it handled and labeled chicken feed and has not been penalized,

Buckeye Egg Farm's chief operating officer said yesterday.



The megafarm was sent a warning letter by the U.S. Food and Drug

Administration in March that detailed "significant deviations" from

the department's guidelines for feed production.





William Leininger, the company's CEO, said the company

received "merely a warning letter."



Leininger said the company has responded to the letter and is now in

compliance with the regulations.



Owner Anton Pohlmann is trying to sell the company under threat of

being shut down by the state for a history of environmental problems,

including swarms of insects, clouds of manure dust and water

contamination.



The Buckeye Egg operation has about 9.75 million laying hens and

facilities in Licking, Hardin and Wyandot counties. The company is

the country's fourth-largest egg producer and produced about 2.7

billion eggs last year.



Ohio Environmental Council spokeswoman Susan Studer King said the

company markets under dozens of brand names and that consumers can't

be sure which brands might be from the company.



A message was left for the FDA's Cincinnati District Office.



After an inspection of Buckeye Egg's feed mill in Croton, about 23

miles northeast of Columbus, the FDA said the procedures for handling

and labeling chicken feed needed to be changed.



It said the megafarm was not properly recording the amount of

antibiotics it used in its feed and did not properly label feed that

could contain cattle parts. Cattle cannot be given feed that contains

cattle parts due to the possibility of mad cow disease being

transmitted.



Leininger said the feed is used solely for chickens, which cannot

contract mad cow disease. He said the company did comply with the

FDA's requirements and now labels its feed with a warning against

giving it to cattle.



The company was also told it was failing to carefully measure and

monitor the amount of antibiotics it put in its feed. If the dosage

was too high, the risk of egg consumers being exposed to antibiotics

unfit for human consumption and of developing medication-resistant

strains of salmonella increases, according to environmental,

agricultural and food-safety officials.



Leininger said the antibiotics warning was due to the way the company

measured the amounts it puts in the feed. He said that the department

told the company to start recording the actual amount of antibiotics

used, instead of the amount the company expected to use.



"At no time was the general public ever at risk," Leininger said.



That's not good enough, said King. She said the Environmental Council

feels the company should be closed down after repeated violations.



"They've been given every last chance there is," King said.