Chinese deny blame for pet food

BEIJING – China has denied responsibility for several pet deaths in the United States which U.S. authorities blame on a batch of chemically contaminated wheat gluten from China, state media reported.

“China has nothing to do with the pet poisoning in the United States,” said a report in the official newspaper of China’s General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, which monitors the export of food, animals and farm products.

The China Inspection and Quarantine Times said in a report on its Web site dated Tuesday that as of March 29, 2007, China had “never exported wheat or wheat gluten to … the United States.”

This contradicted comments by two employees at the Xuzhou Anying Biologic Technology Development Co., who this week said the company had shipped wheat gluten to the United States.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has identified Xuzhou Anying as the supplier of the tainted gluten.

On Thursday, the Chinese company accused of selling chemical-tainted wheat gluten linked to the pet food deaths said that most of its sales were domestic, raising the possibility that people or animals in China might have been exposed to the chemical.