Wang Zhao / AFP - Getty Images

A new strain of bird flu identified in China "is one of the most lethal influenza viruses we have seen so far," Dr. Keiji Fukuda, the World Health Organization (WHO)'s Assistant Director-General for Health Security, tells journalists at a press conference in Beijing on Wednesday.

BEIJING – A new type of bird flu that has killed 22 people in China since March is one of the most deadly strains of influenza known, international health experts said on Wednesday. 

"This is one of the most lethal influenza viruses we have seen so far," said Dr. Keiji Fukuda, the World Health Organization (WHO)’s Assistant Director-General for Health Security. "We are at the beginning of our understanding of this virus."

The H7N9 strain appears to spread more easily to humans than SARS, a different virus that started killing people in Asia a decade ago, experts said. Severe acute respiratory syndrome killed around 800 people globally in 2003 before it was stopped.

"This is an unusually dangerous virus for humans," added Fukuda, who was speaking in Beijing alongside leading flu experts from around the world.  

The delegation from United States, Europe, Hong Kong and Australia, as well as China, have just concluded a week-long investigation that took them to affected areas in Shanghai and Beijing.

Little is known
The group of experts made an impressive display of international cooperation, but at the same time admitted just how little is known about the virus that has infected 108 people since March.

"We are at the very early stages of this investigation," said Dr. Nancy Cox, who heads Influenza Division at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. "There's a lot to be learned.”

Most of the cases so far have been found in eastern China, around the Yangtze River delta, but in recent days there have been cases in central and northern China, including the capital. Most have been what Fukuda called "sporadic cases."  

He said a few family clusters have been found, which could be the result of exposure to the same source of virus, or limited person-to-person transmission.

But he said: "'Evidence so far is not sufficient to conclude there is person-to-person transmission. Moreover, no sustained person-to-person transmission has been found.”

The experts concluded that live poultry markets were the most likely source of infection.

The experts praised the swift action of Chinese authorities in closing live poultry markets, and said it was "encouraging" that there have been no new cases in Shanghai since its markets were shuttered.

And they called for continued international cooperation against a virus that doesn't recognize borders. 

"The risks of an outbreak situation are shared in a globalized world, where we are all interconnected," said Fukuda.

Legacy of distrust
All of those who spoke today went out of their way to praise the response and of the Chinese authorities and their openness and transparency. There is enormous sensitivity to any suggestion that their presence in China implies any criticism of local efforts.

China still lives in the shadow of the SARS pandemic, which began here a decade ago and killed hundreds worldwide, including in the U.S. It was made worse by an initial cover-up by the Chinese authorities.

"The response reflects earlier and strong investments in health and preparedness made by China," said Fukuda.

SARS also left a legacy of distrust, which was on display earlier in the week in Shanghai, when a press conference by the local government and WHO was gatecrashed by the daughter of a couple infected with H7N9. The 26-year-old demanded information about her quarantined father; her mother had died.

"The hospitals and medical staff appear friendly to members of the media like you but have responded in a lukewarm manner to inquiries from family members like me," she told the South China Morning Post. She was taken away by officials.

The experts said that in the absence of so much basic information about the extent of the public health risk it was critical to maintain a high level of awareness. They also noted that the weather is warming up in China, which might provide a bit of a respite and buy them some important time, since H7N9 -- in common with other influenza -- spreads less easily in the spring and summer.

Related:

• A new openness as new bird flu virus spreads in China
• Six more diagnosed with new bird flu in China
• Scientists ready to re-start bird flu experiments

This story was originally published on Wed Apr 24, 2013 6:19 AM EDT

AFP – Getty Images

Chinese authorities have closed some live bird markets in an attempt to stop the spread of a deadly strain of bird flu. A vendor, above, washed a chicken stall in a poultry market in Hefei, China, shortly before it was due to be closed Thursday.

BEIJING -- It began in late February when an 87-year-old man started coughing up phlegm. A high fever followed, he struggled to breathe and was dead just 13 days later.

His death in Shanghai, China, was one of 13 fatalities out of 41 known cases to date of a new form of bird flu that experts warn may pose a "serious human health risk."

On Saturday, China's center for disease control announced the first case in Beijing, and outside of eastern China. The seven-year-old girl, whose parents work in the live poultry trade, was stable in a hospital in the capital, media reports said.

Around the world, scientists are now beginning to examine samples of the virus with a significant question in mind: Could this strain of the disease cause a global pandemic?

This international network of scientists keeps constant watch for good reason.

In 1918 and 1919, a flu pandemic killed between 20 million and 40 million people, more than the total death toll of World War I, more in a year than the Black Death of 1347 to 1351. More recently, an H1N1 swine flu pandemic was blamed for more than 284,500 human deaths worldwide between April 2009 and August 2010.

So far, the signs are that this is a localized outbreak. The number of cases is low and the virus -- an H7N9 strain -- does not appear to be capable of jumping from one person to another.

But each case represents a chance for the virus to mutate into one that is highly infectious in humans. And it is an unusual strain -- normally avian diseases make birds sick first, giving an early warning sign, but this one does not.

Scientists have established it is from an "avian reservoir" but still don't know the precise source. Chinese officials have dismissed suggestions of a connection with the large number of dead pigs and other animals found recently in rivers.

Many in China are understandably worried, with some deciding to avoid eating chicken, even though it poses no threat if properly cooked.

KFC’s parent company Yum reported on Wednesday that sales in its Chinese restaurants had dropped by 13 percent in March, saying “publicity associated with avian flu in China has had a significant, negative impact.”

Even Jiangsu Zoo, just north of Shanghai, reportedly stopped feeding chicken to animals such as lions and tigers and started giving them a traditional medicinal herb called ban lan gen.

Xie Li, an accountant in Shanghai, admitted she was “kind of nervous.”

“Now, we only eat vegetables," she said. "My daughter's school is measuring students' temperatures. We were told that we should eat less eggs or not touch eggs because they might have some excrement from chickens."

But others in the city of 23 million people were more sanguine.

Yan Zhanlin, a 40-year-old businessman, said he was “not scared, because there are not many cases, and the number of deaths is not high” and the virus had not yet spread between people.

“Today, I went to a train station, and I only saw few people wearing masks,” he said.

But even he said he had stopped eating “poultry, pork and other meat.”

Tang, a company manager in his late 20s, who declined to give his full name, was also relatively unconcerned.

“I do not fear [the virus] at all. It is just a kind of flu, and will pass quickly,” he said. Avoiding poultry was “not too bad, because it forces us to eat vegetables and fish, which are nutritious,” he added.

'Watching very carefully'
Perhaps in a sign of the country's nervousness, People's Liberation Army Colonel Dai Xu claimed the U.S. was behind the outbreak, saying the U.S. had used "bio-psychological weapons" to cause the deadly 2003 Sars outbreak and the current flu one, The South China Morning Post reported.

Such allegations aside, this apparently local problem is being treated seriously on a global scale.

Samples of the virus – or non-infectious nucleic acid from it — are being sent to scientists in up to 140 national influenza centers recognized by the World Health Organization, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Work has already started in the U.S. to make a vaccine against the new strain -- just in case.

Scientist John McCauley, of the U.K.’s National Institute for Medical Research, received his consignment on Thursday.

“We’re watching very carefully the events there [in China] because we are aware although there’s no human-to-human transmission, these are unusual infections people have been getting from an avian reservoir,” he said.

“China will need to identify the source and hopefully be able to control the cross-species transmission,” he said. “We’re watching very carefully to see how it does.”

“In the meantime, the national influenza centers around the world are developing their ability to detect this newly emerging virus” and also working on vaccines, McCauley said.

Experts needed to find out how vaccines would perform “in case this virus becomes pandemic,” he said.

Coincidentally, John Oxford, a professor of virology and an expert on the 1918 flu pandemic, was in Shanghai about eight weeks ago -- roughly the same time that the elderly man first fell ill – for a meeting about hygiene, important in the fight against viruses such as flu.

He said the situation in China was “getting a little more worrying.”

“I don’t like the sound of it. Every day I open up the reports and find out someone else has died,” he said. “I just don’t like to see the figures going up day after day.”

“So far there’s no human-to-human transmission. What’s tomorrow going to bring, what’s the next day going to bring? You don’t know and I don’t know,” he added.

But Oxford, of the U.K's Queen Mary, University of London, stressed there was “no need for anyone to start flapping at the moment.”

“I don’t think we should start thinking of 1918 scenarios, definitely not,” he said.

Bobby Yip/Reuters

Officials from the Center for Food Safety get a blood sample from a chicken imported from mainland China at a border checkpoint in Hong Kong on Thursday.

A group of Chinese scientists, writing in the New England Journal of Medicine, also warned that the “pandemic potential of these novel avian-origin viruses should not be underestimated.”

“Severe avian influenza A (H7N9) infections, characterized by high fever and severe respiratory symptoms, may pose a serious human health risk,” it added. “We are concerned by the sudden emergence of these infections and the potential threat to the human population.”

However – mirroring the split on the streets of Shanghai – other experts were less worried.

Adolfo Garcia-Sastre, a microbiology professor at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York and principal investigator for the Center for Research on Influenza Pathogenesis, said while it was “too early to be able to conclude anything …  the probabilities are very low” that a global pandemic is looming.

He was comforted by the lack of a surge in the numbers of people with the disease.

“It’s not that it’s increasing by ten times per week, I think right now the number of cases is what you would have expected from the original numbers,” he said.

“Right now there are no major indications to become highly alarmed.”

Ian Johnston reported from London.

Related:

Deaths from new bird flu underscore grim fears, reports show

US rushes to make vaccine against new bird flu -- just in case

New H7N9 bird flu has officials worried about skimpy resources

This story was originally published on Sun Apr 14, 2013 12:47 PM EDT

A new report on three of the first patients in China to contract a novel strain of bird flu has U.S. officials worried about a grim scenario that includes severe illness with pneumonia, septic shock, brain damage and multi-organ failure.

All three of the patients died, according to a Thursday report by a group of Chinese scientists in the New England Journal of Medicine.

“It is possible that these severely ill patients represent the tip of the iceberg,” wrote Dr. Timothy Uyeki and Dr. Nancy Cox, both of the influenza division at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in a perspective piece accompanying the article.

The reports chronicle the early days of an outbreak of a new influenza A virus, H7N9, which has never before been seen in humans. As of Friday, Chinese officials said it had infected at least 43 people in four Chinese provinces and killed 11 in the past two months.

On Saturday, China's center for disease control confirmed the first case of the new bird flu strain in Beijing: A seven-year-old girl whose parents work in the live poultry trade has been infected.

The patients described in the report included two men, ages 87 and 27, both from Shanghai, and a 35-year-old woman from Anhui. All had preexisting health conditions and two had been exposed to chickens at live poultry markets in the previous week. They became ill between Feb. 18 and March 13 and died between March 4 and April 9 of severe complications, the report said. 

The virus, which has been traced to a reassortment of genes from wild birds in east Asia and chickens in east China, “raises many urgent questions and global public health concerns,” the U.S. researchers wrote.

It’s particularly concerning because the virus clearly has the potential to cause severe disease, it has genetic characteristics that suggest that it might be better adapted than other bird flu strains to infect mammals -- including humans -- and people have no resistance to it, the U.S. scientists reported.

The virus doesn’t make birds sick, so it may spread widely and remain undetected until people become ill.

In addition, previous vaccines developed to fight other H7 strains did not invoke strong immune responses in humans, the U.S. scientists wrote. Even so, researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said they received an isolate of the virus from China on Thursday and were continuing to rush efforts to create a vaccine, a process that could take several months.

Scientists are expected to start growing more of the virus to share for use in several ways, including not only developing a vaccine, but also creating a blood test that can detect previous human immune system protection against the virus, and testing to see whether the virus remains susceptible to antiviral drugs.

CDC officials also will use it to create a diagnostic test that could be used to detect infection in travelers who return to the U.S. from China with symptoms of flu, or those who’ve been in contact with someone who’s been sick.

Officials with CDC and the Food and Drug Administration are working to quickly expedite approval and manufacture of the kits, said Mike Shaw, associate director of laboratory science for the CDC's flu division. About 400 diagnostic kits, which each can perform 1,000 tests, may be complete by Monday, he said. They could be shipped as early as next week to public health labs across the country. 

The CDC has urged local public health officials to watch for signs of sick travelers from China. So far, about 10 people who recently traveled from China to the U.S. have been tested for the H7N9 virus because of suspicious symptoms, officials said.

"So far, everyone that has been tested in the U.S. has been negative," Shaw said. 

The virus remains contained to China and there is no evidence of sustained person-to-person transmission, both good signs, scientists said.

But as the U.S. researchers concluded, vigilance remains high.

“We cannot rest our guard,” they wrote.

Related: 

US rushes to make vaccine against new bird flu -- just in case

Don't panic over new bird flu outbreak, CDC cautions

New H7N9 bird flu has officials worried about skimpy resources

This story was originally published on Fri Apr 12, 2013 7:40 AM EDT

Nine people have died and 28 are confirmed infected with a new type of bird flu in eastern China, the official Xinhua news agency said Tuesday. But officials say China's come a long way in watching for and controlling new disease outbreaks.

Chinese authorities are rushing to test patients with respiratory illness to see how far the new H7N9 bird flu has spread. They’re also starting culls of chickens and other birds, which are suspected of spreading the infection, and have closed some live bird markets.

The new strain of flu -- never before seen to cause serious illness in people -- appears to have first started making people ill in February. Chinese authorites announced  the first cases in March.

On Tuesday, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention activated its Emergency Operations Center, or EOC, in Atlanta in response to the H7N9 outbreak, spokesman Tom Skinner said. The EOC was activated at Level 2 of three levels and involves dozens of personnel, he said. A Level 1 activation would signal an agency-wide response.

Flu occasionally passes from animals to people, and most experts believe that new pandemics of influenza have originated in animals – most likely pigs, but also possibly chickens and ducks. Dr. Arnold Monto, an expert on influenza and other infectious diseases at the University of Michigan, notes that several cases were reported last summer of people infected with a strain of flu called H3N2 from pigs at state fairs.

One woman died but the flu did not spread widely.

“What is going on in China is a little scarier,” Monto told NBC News. “The reason it is a little scarier is that it seems to be causing severe disease.”

There’s no evidence yet that people are infecting one another -- which is the main requirement for flu to spread among human populations and cause epidemics. Chinese authorities believe everyone who has been infected caught it somehow from a bird.

While Chinese officials were accused of covering up the outbreak of SARS -- severe acute respiratory syndrome -- in 2003, Monto and other U.S. health officials say a lot has changed.

“What (these reports) tell us is that the Chinese are very good at influenza surveillance and detecting these variants,” he said. “In the old days, they probably would not have been able to report them.”

The World Health Organization and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have been working hard to encourage Chinese health officials to test people for new types of flu, including helping them build new testing facilities. 

The CDC’s Dr. Joe Bresee says concerns over H5N1 bird flu, which has infected 622 people in 15 countries and killed 371 of them, kick-started efforts.

“The surveillance system in China has really dramatically improved over the last decade or so since the introduction of H5, the catalyst for that,” Bresee told reporters last week.

“They have a wide dispersion of labs that can detect flu, generally speaking, using the best methods, called PCR. They have well over 400 of these labs around the country that have grown up over that last few years. They really do have the ability to look for flu, wherever it is, in the country,” he added.

H5N1 has been steadily infecting poultry and people since 2003, but has never mutated into a form that spreads easily from person to person. Xinhua reported late on Monday that a 2-year-old died of H5N1 in Bangladesh – the first death there, although there have been six cases.

Related:

• Bird flu team heads to China
• CDC says don't panic over bird flu
• Little evidence of global bird flu threat

AFP - Getty Images

Chinese health workers collect bags of dead chickens at Huhuai wholesale agricultural market in Shanghai on Friday. Authorities in Shanghai began the mass slaughter of poultry at a market after the H7N9 bird flu virus, which has killed five people in China, was detected there, state media said.

Could the recent outbreak of illnesses or death from a new strain of bird flu be the beginning of the next pandemic? Were I a betting man, I'd say the odds are against it. The world is far better prepared and aware than it was even just a few years ago. But because of that greater vigilance, we know there is a potential threat from the H7N9 virus that has now killed six people and infected 14, so far all in China. No responsible scientist would discount it.

As the World Health Organization’s FAQs on H7N9 phrases it, “Any animal influenza virus that develops the ability to infect people is a theoretical risk to cause a pandemic. However, whether the influenza A(H7N9) virus could actually cause a pandemic is unknown.” 

All flu viruses pass among many species, especially birds, pigs and humans. They come in many strains, and they mutate frequently. The big danger is a new one that would be both deadly to humans and to which humans have no immunity. The Spanish flu of 1918, for example, which mutated as it jumped between pigs and people, killed an estimated 20 to 40 million people worldwide.

The new strain is different from H5N1 avian influenza, which has killed 371 people out of 622 infected in 15 countries since 2003.

One of the most frightening aspects of this latest outbreak is that it is occurring suddenly over thousands of square miles in China. A Chinese blogger put together this map of the cases up to Thursday morning. The University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy translated the map and checked out the information.

“It is very alarming to have so many cases appear so suddenly over such a wide area,” the center’s director, Dr. Michael Osterholm, told NBC News. 

Another cause for concern: No one knows where the deadly virus is coming from. The guess is chickens. Similar H7N9 viruses occur in birds, including chickens in China, the United States and throughout the world. But with modern genetic technology scientists can identify strains precisely. On Thursday, Chinese officials said they had found the virus in a pigeon near a Shanghai market. If the virus is being spread by chickens or pigeons, it is does not appear to make them sick, so culling sick animals might be a very difficult path to containment.

So far, it appears that the virus doesn't spread easily among people. The WHO has said that more than 400 close contacts of confirmed cases are being closely monitored, with no evidence of person-to-person spread. However, there were reports by the official Chinese news agency Xinhuan late Thursday that one person who'd had contact with a dead victim was showing flu symptoms including fever, running nose and itching throat. If numbers continue to increase the new virus could remain a public health menace, but if people don’t catch it from one another it can never be a pandemic.

The controversial recent research on “killer flu viruses” has now been vindicated, experts say, because it showed just what genes need to change to allow person to person transmission.  So far, the new virus lacks the genes it needs to spread among people.  But experts warn the more viruses circulate, the greater chances for a mutation that will allow for spread among humans.

The global health community has begun discussions about making a vaccine, and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced on Thursday plans to start preparing a vaccine, just in case.  The CDC has also developed a diagnostic test for H7N9 and is submitting it to the Food and Drug Administration for approval, a spokeswoman said. The tests might be available shortly, but a vaccine would likely not be widely available for months. Tests have found that the virus is sensitive to Tamiflu and other anti-influenza medications which many nations have stockpiled. Let’s hope they are not needed.

Related:

WHO: No sign of 'sustained' bird flu spread between humans

Some 500 dogs and nine cats may have died after eating chicken jerky pet treats made in China, according to updated complaints logged by federal veterinary health officials.

A new tally of reports filed with the Food and Drug Administration shows the agency has received 2,674 reports of illness involving 3,243 dogs, including 501 deaths. The agency also has received reports of nine illnesses in cats, including one death, the FDA said.

That’s up from an estimated 2,200 reports of illness, 360 dog deaths and one cat death reported last summer. So far, though, FDA has not been able to confirm a link between the treats and the ailments. 

The new figures come less than a week after two of the largest retailers of pet chicken jerky treats issued voluntary recalls of several popular brands after New York state agriculture officials detected unapproved antibiotics in the products.

Nestle Purina PetCare Co. recalled its popular Waggin’ Train and Canyon Creek Ranch brand dog treats, and Del Monte Corp. officials recalled their Milo’s Kitchen Chicken Jerky and Chicken Grillers home-style dog treats from shelves nationwide.

In addition, two more firms have recalled their treats as well, including Publix stores, which recalled its private brand Chicken Tenders Dog Chew Treats and IMS Pet Industries Inc., which withdrew its Cadet Brand Chicken Jerky Treats sold in the U.S.

The voluntary recalls effectively remove the pet treats from store shelves nationwide, but FDA officials say they still haven’t solved the mystery of what’s been making animals sick. They say tests by the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets found trace amounts of antibiotic residue, but that the levels don’t pose a threat to animals or people.

“Based on the FDA’s review of the NYSDAM results, there is no evidence that raises health concerns, and these results are highly unlikely to be related to reports of illnesses FDA has received related to jerky pet treats,” the agency said in a statement.

The New York agriculture agency used a common test to detect chemical contaminants in foods, said Joe Morrissey, a department spokesman. They relied on liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry, or LC-MS/MS. The tests revealed four antibiotics not approved for use in poultry in the U.S. and one antibiotic that may be used, but is limited to nearly undetectable limits in the finished product.

FDA officials will continue to investigate animal illnesses tied to jerky treats. Since 2007, the agency has warned consumers several times that jerky treats are not necessary for pet health and that eliminating them won’t harm animals.

The agency last spring inspected five Chinese plants that made jerky treats. Officials weren’t allowed to take samples for testing. Now, inspection reports released about the fifth site, Yantai Aska of Yantai, China, shows that plant officials falsified records regarding imports of glycerin, a key component in the jerky treats.

Officials with China’s regulatory agency, the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, or AQSIQ, suspended the firm’s export certificate as a result of the March 2012 inspection.

Related stories: 

• Firms withdraw chicken jerky pet treats over antibiotics
• 3 big brands may be tied to chicken jerky illness in dogs, FDA records show
• China stiff-arms FDA on jerky treat testing, records show

Greenpeace, perhaps best known for its battles at sea to protect whales and the oceans, has gotten itself involved in a huge controversy over genetically modified food.

The group is charging that unsuspecting children were put at risk in a “dangerous” study of genetically engineered rice in rural China. It’s a serious claim, because it is putting research seeking to put more nutrition into food at risk.

Genetically engineered rice has the potential to help solve a big nutritional problem—vitamin A deficiency.  A lack of vitamin A kills 670,000 kids under 5 every year and causes 250,000 to 500,000 to go blind. Half die within a year of losing their sight, according to the World Health Organization. I think Greenpeace is being ethically irresponsible and putting those lives at continued risk.

Research involving children is often highly controversial.  Putting children at risk when there us no certainty of benefit in the hope of gaining new knowledge is, at best, ethically dubious.  Research done on kids when the risk is great rightly sets all of our moral teeth on edge.

That is the charge Greenpeace is screaming ethical bloody murder about. They say Chinese children were given dangerous genetically engineered rice in a study without any consent from the kids, parents or the approval of the appropriate review bodies. 

Greenpeace does not favor the use of genetic engineering to modify food. It’s been campaigning for years against plans to introduce “golden rice” in China. The claim about the experiment, if true, would drastically slow the very research that will, if successful, lead to a lot more genetically modified food being eaten in China, the U.S. and the rest of the world. Is Greenpeace’s fear of GMOs protecting kids or potentially harming them? The latter seems, sadly, more likely.

As might be expected, the charges of research abuse are causing an explosion of reaction in China. Beijing has launched an investigation, a Chinese researcher has already been suspended and a whole lot of finger-pointing is going on within China. A couple of fingers are also pointing right at the USA, since the rice study was funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the National Institutes of Health. 

If these accusations were true, this would be one of the worst research scandals of all time.  U.S.-funded research involving dangerous food made by big, greedy U.S. companies tested on poor, innocent kids in rural China with no consent— who could trust people willing to do that? The only problem with Greenpeace’s cry of scandal is that it is nonsense.

You can look at the paper on line that is setting off this international moral maelstrom.  It appears in the August issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.  The title of the paper is “Beta-carotene in Golden Rice is as good as b-carotene in oil at providing vitamin A to children”.

Without even knowing what the heck this title means, it tells you something very important — this is an experiment that worked!  The engineered rice allowed the kids in the study to get more vitamin A, Guangwen Tang of Tufts University and colleagues report. 

The 68 6 to 8-year-olds in the study got either the “golden rice” or spinach.

The beta-carotene in the title is the substance in carrots that gives them their orange color.  It occurs naturally in other plants, including spinach.  But it does not exist in white rice.  B-carotene is used by your body to help make vitamin A.

If you live in a country that relies heavily on white rice and not much else for food, you may be vitamin A deficient.  The experiment involved tweaking the genes of rice so the plant produced more beta-caroten.  The paper reports that when kids ate this rice in the study, they got as much or more vitamin A then they did eating their usual diet or one supplemented with other sources of carotene.  The experiment worked.

Well, you may say, even if the experiment worked, it still is not right to put kids into a nutrition study without their parents’ knowledge or the proper review. True, but the study was neither risky nor lacking in review.

GMO food has been eaten by almost everyone reading this column for years.  No study has shown any health danger. The researchers who conducted the China study rightly did not worry about the safety of the rice.  The researchers only wanted to see if it helped put Vitamin A into the kids who ate it.  It did.

What about consent and review, which Greenpeace says did not happen? The paper says otherwise. 

“The study recruitment processes and protocol were approved by the Institutional Review Board–Tufts Medical Center in the United States and by the Ethics Review Committee of Zhejiang Academy of Medical Sciences in China. Both parents and pupils [children] consented to participate in the study,” the researchers wrote.

The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition may not be on your bedroom table for night reading but it is a respected journal that is widely read by leading scientists and doctors interested in nutrition.  Either the researchers have put into print before their peers the biggest flat-out lie since Bernie Madoff denied he was running a Ponzi scheme ,or the critics screeching about Chinese kids being used as “guinea pigs” have a whole lot of explaining to do.

Maybe, despite the researchers’ efforts, something went wrong in terms of families really understanding they were in a study.  Even if there were no reason to think children were ever at any real risk, that would be a problem. It’s worth checking out, if for no other reason to inform future studies and prevent stinks like this one.

The result of the study shows that there is another tool available to fight the death and blindness caused by diets poor in food that creates vitamin A. The world’s leaders need to be sensitive to fixing real, ongoing problems in trying to do research ethically when subjects are poor and vulnerable.  The world needs to tell organizations that have an irrational fear of GMO food even when it might help save kids lives and sight to head back out to sea.

Art Caplan, Ph.D., is the head of the division of medical ethics at the NYU Langone Medical Center

Related links:

China investigating GMO rice study

Big Food girds for California GMO fight

Oregon farm group sues over GM canola

waggintrainbrand.com

Waggin' Train chicken jerky tenders, sold by Nestle Purina Pet Care, are among top brands of Chinese-made pet treats linked to illnesses and deaths in U.S. dogs.

Newly posted results of more than five years of testing chicken jerky pet treats made in China appear to confirm assertions from government officials that they don’t know what’s making America’s dogs sick, even as complaints about the products have nearly doubled.

Federal Food and Drug Administration officials unexpectedly posted summaries this week of lab results of nearly 300 jerky treat samples collected and tested in the U.S. between April 2007 and June 2012.  To see the results, click here.

The documents indicate that FDA scientists at labs nationwide tested for bacterial contamination, for mold and for chemicals used in antifreeze, resins and plastics that can harm pets. They tested for heavy metals and for the melamine and melamine analogs detected in pet food that sickened thousands of animals in 2007.

At the same time, new FDA figures indicate that the number of complaints of animal illnesses and deaths blamed on the treats has risen to more than 1,800, according to Tamara Ward, an agency spokeswoman. 

The lab results show a mere handful of adverse findings related to the popular Chinese-made treats. None of the reports rose to the level of needing regulatory action, such as a recall, the documents indicate.

“This does not represent ALL testing that has and is being conducted by FDA,” Ward said in an email. “Additional testing is currently being conducted through other avenues.”

The FDA released the data a day after NBCNews.com reported that the agency had refused to release results of February inspections of the Chinese plants that make the treats. The agency said releasing the information would violate rules protecting trade secrets and confidential commercial information and that it would interfere with enforcement proceedings. That data remains confidential.

Pet advocates critical of the FDA said that while they welcome the release of the domestic data, the results indicate that the agency is not looking hard enough for the source of the illnesses, including hundreds of reports of vomiting, diarrhea and kidney failure.

“When I scanned down through the list of testing, they all seemed to be centered around the same handful of tests,” said Susan Thixton, who writes the blog TruthaboutPetFood.com. She believes the FDA needs to broaden its view to include other potential toxins. 

"You can't find what you don't look for," she said.

FDA covered bases, experts say
But animal health experts not affiliated with the FDA said the agency appears to be using due diligence to track the source of the problem. Tina Wismer, medical director of the ASPCA Animal Poison Control Center, said the review appears to be complete.

“Looking at what they’re testing for, I’m looking at the list of poisons that we know affect the kidneys and they’ve got their bases covered,” she said.

That’s a view echoed by Marion Ehrich, a professor of pharmacology and toxicology at the Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine.

“From the website provided, it seems analyses of submitted samples have not yet led to the discovery of anything toxic that is consistently present in the samples,” she wrote in an email. “They have been looking at possible suspects (melamine, bacteria, molds, etc.) but nothing is standing out.”

The FDA is working to develop and validate new ways to detect toxic substances for which there are no current tests, said Ward, the agency spokeswoman.

The 284 samples included in the new data were collected after consumer complaints, as part of routine surveillance or as an assignment, Ward said. Of those, only six indicated adverse findings.

Those included salmonella found in three samples, including Dingo and Waggin Train chicken jerky products and in one unidentified product. Mold was found in a sample of Waggin’ Train jerky, too. Low levels of melamine were detected in one sample of Del Monte beef flavor jerky treats, the tests showed. Another Dingo treat had a questionable genetic fingerprint that was sent for further analysis.

In addition, a few samples were positive for undeclared propylene glycol, but not at levels that would have prompted regulatory actions, the documents said.

Most of the tests were like one posted on Aug. 20, 2007 for Waggin’ Train chicken jerky tenders. No melamine or related compounds including ammeline, ammelide or cyanuric acid was found, the test showed. No ethylene glycol or diethylene glycol -- toxic components of antifreeze -- were found.

The FDA has issued three warnings about jerky treats since 2007, including the most recent one last November. That’s a fairly strong action for an agency that typically keeps mum on investigations, said Kimberly May, a veterinarian and assistant director in the communications division for the American Veterinary Medical Association.

“This is as close as they’re going to come to saying there’s a problem,” May said. Officials with Nestle Purina Pet Care Co. and Del Monte Foods, which make the top brands of treats, insist that their products continue to be safe to feed animals as directed on the packages.

But some experts say it’s up to pet owners to be cautious.  

“At this point in time, until we figure out exactly what is going on, I probably wouldn’t feed these,” the ASPCA's Wismer said.

To report complaints about animal illness, visit the FDA’s Safety Reporting Portal.

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• Jerky treats from China blamed for pet deaths; owners sue
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• 3 big brands may be tied to chicken jerky illness in dogs, FDA records show