This is unfucking believable:

By Julianna Goldman

April 12 (Bloomberg) -- Pet food with contaminated wheat gluten from China is still being sold in stores, U.S. Food and Drug Administration officials said.

``We know that there is not 100 percent of the product off the shelf,'' Stephen Sundlof, director of the FDA's Center for Veterinary Medicine, said today at a Senate panel holding a hearing on last month's recall of contaminated pet food.

The FDA is examining tainted pet food that has been linked to the deaths of at least 16 cats and dogs. Canada's Menu Foods Ltd. has recalled more than 60 million cans and pouches of food sold under brand names such Procter & Gamble Co.'s Iams and Nestle SA's Mighty Dog.

The FDA discovered pet food tainted with melamine, a substance used to make plastic kitchen utensils and fertilizer, that was traced to a supply of wheat gluten obtained from China by ChemNutra Inc. of Las Vegas.

PetConnection.com, a Web site that has been tracking the recall, said 3,973 pets deaths from tainted food have been reported as of this morning. About 12,419 cats and dogs have been reported sick. The site says the tally shouldn't be considered official because the numbers are ``self reported.''

Sundlof also told the panel that less than one-third of pet-food processing facilities have been inspected in the last three years.

``Over the past 3 1/2 years, we've inspected approximately 30 percent of all the pet food manufacturers in the United States,'' he said.

Adequate Inspection?

``Do you think that's an adequate inspection to protect the quality and wholesomeness and safety of pet food products?'' asked Senator Richard Durbin, an Illinois Democrat who called for the hearing. ``I think what's happened with pet food contamination is an indication that we are not dedicating the most basic resources to this endeavor, and we've seen the outcome.''

Durbin said he wanted to know why it took Menu Foods at least 22 days to recall the food after it first suspected potential problems.

Earlier this week, Menu Foods, which is based in the Toronto suburb of Streetsville, expanded its recall after finding additional tainted pet food at a plant in Canada.

Menu Foods Income Fund, which owns Menu Foods Ltd., rose 8 cents, or 1.9 percent, to C$4.20 on the Toronto Stock Exchange today. The stock has dropped 43 percent since the day before the recall.

To contact the reporter on this story: Julianna Goldman in Washington at Jgoldman6@bloomberg.net