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WASHINGTON — The tainted-pet-food scare has spread to humans.

California officials have revealed that about 45 state residents ate pork from hogs that consumed animal feed laced with melamine from China. Melamine is used to make plastics, but it also artificially boosts the protein level — and thus the price — of the glutens that go into food.

It was fatal for some pets: 17 cats and dogs were confirmed dead, more may have died without being reported, thousands suffered kidney problems, and 57 brands of cat food and 83 of dog food have been recalled. On top of that, roughly 6,000 hogs will be destroyed because they ate tainted feed.

The effects of melamine on people are thought to be minimal, but no one really knows. Its consumption by humans is considered so improbable that no one has even studied it.

But they are studying now. What last month was a limited recall of canned pet food is on the verge of becoming a full-fledged public-health scare, potentially overwhelming government agencies and raising troubling questions about U.S. food safety in the global economy and in the post-Sept. 11 era.

The Food and Drug Administration, criticized by some in Congress for responding too slowly, is struggling to catch up with the implications of the spread of melamine-contaminated glutens from China to hogs, and into the human food chain. The FDA is still trying to get into China, where the government only last week agreed to investigators' visa requests.

Few food imports inspected

At a time when food imports are growing, and only 1 percent to 2 percent of food imports receive any government scrutiny, critics say the outbreak reveals the shortcomings of a weakened food-safety bureaucracy, the inadequacy of existing regulations and the inability of the FDA, which has suffered major cutbacks, to protect the food supply.

The FDA's real detective work may be just beginning. Having found many sources of contamination, investigators must now determine exactly how widespread the problem is and how it began.

The FDA is also examining imported vegetable proteins earmarked for human products like pizza, protein bars and baby formula. That investigation, still in its early stages, hasn't uncovered any contaminated ingredients, but the agency, an FDA doctor said, wanted to "get ahead of the curve."