Chicken in Melamine Sauce

I was afraid to open up my Merck Index, the bible of chemists this afternoon after reading that huge amounts of chickens were fed melamine tainted feed. Here's what my Merck Index of Chemicals and Drugs had to say about the compound. It's also called 2,4,6-Triamino-s-triazine or cyanurotriamide. The cyano prefix indicates it's in a class of compounds called nitriles. Whether or not this is extremely toxic is something I plan to investigate this afternoon. But, if pets are dying from this they will downplay the toxicity of it. The Merck Index says it is prepared from urea, a source of nitrogen with a distinct ammonia smell. Urea is used in feed as a partial source of nitrogen for ruminants. I'm going to look in my toxicology books to see what else I can find out, but this is not good and yes I eat chicken often but I don't eat pork. I do have a predisposition for kidney failure so I am going to look into this to protect myself. Here's what CNN says:

People have eaten millions of chickens that were given feed tainted with recalled pet food, federal officials said Tuesday, though they said the threat to human health is minimal.

The announcement came after an investigation of chicken farms in Indiana found that 38 of the facilities had given contaminated feed to poultry raised for human consumption, and that 2.5 million to 3 million people ate them.

The officials added that they expect to discover that chickens on possibly hundreds of farms in other states were also given tainted feed.

According to The International Programme of Chemical Safety [pdf]:

The toxicity to mammals is also low. Studies ranging from skin irritation to carcinogenicity are available. Melamine is not genotoxic but it causes carcinomas of the urinary bladder at high doses in male rats only. Formation of bladder stones occurred and these calculi are necessary for the induction of tumours. Carcinomas are induced by continuous irritation of the bladder epithelium by the calculi, so
that melamine acts only indirectly as a non-genotoxic carcinogen. A threshold concept can be used. Melamine is not irritating to skin and eye, not sensitising and not teratogenic. No relevant risk was detected for humans. The estimated margin of safety for workers is at least 210

Melamine is a flame retardant and used in polymer resins. Elevated water intake is seen in higher doses. The urinary tract is the target organ. It has a diuretic effect and produces bladder stones. male rats were more susceptible to bladder stones, which then formed carcinogenic tumors. The main concern at this point would be how long has the animal feed been tainted and your intake of chicken. It is quite possible that melamine has been added to feed for quite a long time.

Upon further reading a point is well made in this New Scientist article. Basically, melamine toxicology studies indicate bladder problems with ingesting melamine but not kidney disease. However, in most articles I have read it indicates pets drinking large amounts of water after eating contaminated food which is a symptom of melanine ingestion. The bottom line is that they aren't sure what chemical is responsible for pet deaths or they are just not saying.

However, six weeks on from the first cases, no one can yet be sure what the poison is.