16 September 2015- Questions are being raised about the safety of certain batches of a Chinese-manufactured MSG by-product bacterial protein after the deaths of approximately 10,000 pigs across at least 15 farms owned by 9 different operators in Italy at the beginning of this year.
An investigation by the Italian health authorities confirmed that the deaths were the result of the presence of a particular strain of Bacillus cereus in at least two batches of granulated MSG by-product bacterial protein, manufactured by MEIHUA Biological Sci-Tech Co.'s factory in Tongliao and sold under the brand name BACTOPLUS in Italy.
Documentation from the Italian authorities indicates that in addition to Italy, distribution of the contaminated MSG by-product bacterial protein occurred in Croatia, the Czech Republic, Romania, and Serbia.
The distributor of this product in Italy has confirmed to Feedinfo News Service that once they were alerted to the issue, they immediately withdrew the Bactoplus product from the feed supply chain and opened up lines of communication with the Italian authorities.
However, the Italian distributor Mazzoleni S.P.A. has expressed frustration that, on the contrary, communication with their Chinese producer has not been to their satisfaction. Mazzoleni insists that despite a series of phone calls, emails, face-to-face meetings and at least one trip to China made especially for the purpose of discussing this incident, they were never shown proof that Meihua was investigating the possibility that the contamination could have originated in their production processes. And indeed, Mazzoleni firmly believes that the contamination must have occurred at Meihua’s production facility. First, they explain that the laboratory tests carried out by the veterinary authorities which established the existence of this contamination were done using unopened bags1, and that at least two rounds of testing carried out on two different unopened samples detected the Bacillus cereus. Second, they have demonstrated that the contaminated lots travelled on three different transport vessels in 15 different containers, which would seem to rule out environmental contamination in the hands of the transporters. Third, the contamination found by the Italian tests consists of spores, a method of defense used by bacteria to resist environmental stress such as high temperature. Mazzoleni believes that such environmental stresses could only have occured at the production site in China, not in storage or transport. Mazzoleni remains particularly displeased that Meihua refused to come to Italy to carry out joint investigations on the samples in question.
At least two rounds of testing carried out on two different unopened samples detected this bacterial contamination.
"We don’t have a contamination problem. We have sold our product in Europe for many years with no customer complaints."
- Spokesperson
Meihua Biological Sci-Tech Co.
Meanwhile, when consulted by Feedinfo News Service, Meihua provided test results from laboratory Intertek Shanghai dated April 17, 2015 that found that an in-house sample from the batch produced on 25/09/14 (one of the batches implicated in the pig deaths) contained less than 10 cfu/g of Bacillus cereus. Meihua also claims “we didn’t receive any feedback [regarding mass mortality cases] from other customers, and we also sold batch numbers near to the above numbers [250914 and 190914] to other Chinese customers.” Meihua adds “once we received feedback from the Italian customer, we instructed our QA department to investigate the production process and production record but there was no problem in production.” Meihua protests the assumption that the contamination problem originated with them and that they must take actions to ensure that it doesn’t happen again, stating “We don’t have a contamination problem. We have sold our product in Europe for many years with no customer complaints,” and going on to say that “the additive rate of our product is only 2% while other materials make up 98% of the feed, so how do we know the problem is from our products?”
When asked whether Meihua had found any traces of Bacillus cereus in any of their other products, including MSG food grade, threonine, or tryptophan, Meiha replied, “Bacillus cereus exists in nature, for example in water, food, and soil, and we doubt the product was contaminated before it reached the seaport. Because the transaction was under FOB terms, we only deliver the goods to the seaport in China, and we are not aware of or responsible for the circumstances during transportation to the final destination, or their storage or use in Italy. Our factory is compliant with FAMI-QS, ISO, and other standards, so we have a good operation to control contamination.”
Indeed, the identity of the pathogen complicates the picture. The bacteria that has been determined to have caused the deaths of the pigs is a particular strain of Bacillus cereus. It is worth noting that there are several different strains of Bacillus cereus with various levels of toxicity. Some are not known to produce toxins, and some are even used in probiotics for animal feed. Meihua has stated that the only regulations concerning Bacillus cereus are for human food, and it would appear that the presence of Bacillus cereus in feed additives or raw materials used to produce feed is not currently tested for nor is it regulated.
Therefore Italian veterinary authorities charged with investigating the incident spent several months establishing the cause of these unexpected deaths before being able to issue a decisive ruling. Two controlled bioassays were carried out to confirm that the suspect lots of Bactoplus were responsible for the deaths in question; laboratory tests discovered that the lots in question contained high levels of Bacillus cereus, and autopsies confirmed the high levels of Bacillus cereus in the intestinal contents of the pigs, alongside symptoms characteristic of the emetic toxin produced by Bacillus cereus. Until this report, there were no documented clinical cases of such infections in pigs in the scientific literature.
Some strains of Bacillus cereus are not known to produce toxins, and some are even used in probiotics for animal feed.
Beyond the relative little known about the pathogen, the classification of the contaminated material, MSG by-product bacterial protein, also serves to complicate the situation. Bacterial protein from Corynebacterium glutamicum is characterized as a feed material, not as a feed additive2. When the deaths of 10,000 pigs were brought to the attention of FAMI-QS, their response was “that the product/ingredient is not covered under the FAMI-QS scope” in spite of its connections with the production process of other products that clearly are under the FAMI-QS scope.
In conclusion, it would seem that the governmental authorities were required to build up their knowledge of this pathogen from scratch over several months and the industrial certifying body FAMI-QS was circumscribed by the rules defining their scope and unable to investigate even when notified. Regardless, it still remains to be determined how the contamination causing the deaths of several thousand pigs occurred.
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1 ISTITUTO ZOOPROFILATTICO SPERIMENTALE DELLA LOMBARDIA E DELL’EMILIA ROMAGNA. EPISODIO DI MORTALITA’ IN SUINI DI PROPRIETA’ DELL’ AZ. AGR. CORTE ETRUSCA: DETERMINAZIONE DI BACILLUS CEREUS IN MANGIME, FECI E ORGANI. G. Loris Alborali. 15 July 2015.
2 COMMISSION REGULATION (EU) No 68/2013 of 16 January 2013 on the Catalogue of Feed Materials. Official Journal of the European Union published 30 January 2013. Pg. L 29/57, Entry 12.1.4. Link to regulation.