update iii : emergency pet food recall
There is more news on the emergency pet food recall.
This time, it is plastic. According to USA TODAY’S ON DEADLINE the FDA has discovered melamine — a white crystalline solid used in the formation of thermoset plastic — in recalled dog and cat food produced by Menu Foods and New York officials and labs have confirmed the finding. Melamine is also used, according to the the article, as a fertilizer in Asia. [Go figure, we eat off it, other people put it on the plants we eat off it.]
The melamine finding is in addition to earlier findings of aminopterin, a rat poison/cancer treatment drug discovered by New York State officials and independent labs in the Menu Foods recalled dog and cat foods.
[If at this point you are wondering what they will not find in the contaminated dog and cat food, so am I.]
The article contains quite a few important links including several Reuters findings I am not going to re-link here. Read the article at : USA TODAY : PLASTICS CHEMICAL FOUND IN RECALLED PET FOOD
Also, please read previous posts on the pet food recall, which also contain important links and info on renal failure in dogs and cats and the pet food recall of dog and cat foods manufactured by Menu Foods as well as lists of brand names and lot numbers and dates of the recalled contaminated dog and cat foods.
PREVIOUS POSTS ON THE EMERGENCY PET FOOD RECALL :
UPDATE II : EMERGENCY PET FOOD RECALL 03.24.07 [this includes information about aminopterin, the rat poison/cancer treatment drug found already in recalled food, announcements about the findings, symptoms of renal failure in dogs and cats and important links to sources of information on animal illness, death, and how to report information to the fda and other agencies if your animal becomes ill or dies]
UPDATE : EMERGENCY PET FOOD RECALL 03.21.07 [this includes a list of recalled foods as well as links to sources for information on feline and canine renal failure and the fda’s posting on the pet food recall]
EMERGENCY PET FOOD RECALL 03.17.07 [this includes the original posting and discussion on the pet food recall]
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EDIT 04.02.07 : If you are looking for a list of foods that is safe for dogs and cats, and that list is shrinking daily, I do not have that list but NATURA FOODS FOR DOGS AND CATS APPEAR SAFE
45 Responses to update iii : emergency pet food recall
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So far I’ve been lucky with my cats – but I’ve noticed something odd – since I’ve cut canned food out of their diet they all seem to be more energetic and alert.
I’m not saying they were getting bad food- but I’m thinking what they were getting wasn’t good for them.
I feel like crud- I mean, with the best of intentions I was feeding my cats food that sucked.
Geeze.
On a this is cool note, I got email from someone I notified about the recall, their dog had the bad food and they got the dog to the vet on time and the dog is going to make it.
Yes! I knew it Max..You ARE a Super Hero!
She’s a Goddess.
Um. I left my goddess dress at the cleaners. I did not know I would need it today. Damn. It.
A goddess with a green thumb. hehe
That would make you a green goddess.
(How’s the finger doing these days?)
It was the thumb, right?
It is wavering it cannot decide whether to just give up and grow out or turn on me and re-detach. I know which I would choose but it is unruly and used to having its way.
Here it comes, it’s expanded to dry cat food. You know my son can’t have wheat or wheat gluten and now my cat can’t have it either. I am glad you helped save a dog! SUPER! Goddess status hell yeah!
Got a link Jennifer?
I thought it had to. Uma should not have gone down she was only eating dry cat food.
ABC NEWS
Update on Dry Cat food but this is the inital report online and I heard more on the news already……sorry it’s not more helpful.
Every piece of info is helpful. You did good.
Anita Marie, I don’t feed my cat canned food. Because I’m too damn lazy to clean it up. Relieved to know it’s paid off.
Signed,
Your Slackness.
You’ll love this ” Your Slackness ”
When I was in high- school our teacher gave us this pop quiz with 200 questions.
Across the top of the test was written:
-read everthing before you take the test
What followed were things like what’s 6×4
Stand up and say your name
stuff like that.
The minute I saw “read everything before you take the test”- well, I did and when you got to the bottom on line 200 was
” Don’t write anything down- turn the paper over and read a book ”
So the only people who got the test right were me and three guys who had red eyes and slept through most of the classes on a regular basis.
Slacking does pay off- no kidding
amm
I never thought this would be limited to wet foods. You can’t tell me one little wheat field in China was shipped on one single container to one solitary manufacturer. It was bound to extend into dry foods.
Plus, I was at my clinic on Day One of the recall and there was a woman whose cat was in sudden kidney failure (which is almost always brought on by poisons). She brought in a BAG of dry food to check it with the vet.
There’s a pretty scathing report by Scientific American on what Menu Foods knew and when. It’s so scathing, I say, boycott. It’s on my Safe Pet Food blog at: http://IsYourPetFoodSafe.com
Teresa
Everyone keeps saying wheat “from China,” implying a foreign contamination source with no U.S. company’s involvement. But no one is actually naming the source. U.S. companies farm out a lot of industry to other countries. Countries like China. And I keep wondering about that, thinking it would be real ironic if U.S. companies farming work out to China actually supplied their own counterpart companies in the U.S. with that wheat. But no one is talking about that.
Well..if “we” keep saying ” From China ” then “WE” can start to distance ourselves from responsibility AND liability right?
The bottom line is I don’t care if this stuff was shipped in from Mars…the companies here in the States put THEIR name on it- so as far as I’m concerned they can stick to it and call this nightmare their own.
Hey, Max, I saw on the news briefly that more pet food is contaminated. I tried searching for a related article on the net but couldn’t find it. Not sure if you have heard anything about it. Unfortunately, I didn’t catch the name of the brand.
Oh, let me clarify – I saw this last night, not today.
Hills Prescription Diet is supposed to be down [and that is the dry stuff], it sounds like Purina is having some issues, I heard something about Alpo being down down, someone feeding their dogs Pedigree had one dog dead and the other one in serious medical distress — the list is getting bigger and bigger and if I had a pet I would not be feeding it any food made for pets I’d be too worried about how far this goes. There are some brands that look like they are probably for sure safe. I should hunt that up. I think pretty much everything on the PETA list should be okay. Avoid anything with wheat additives or anything labeled “by-products” though.
PURINA? Oh no. Well, you know what? Pumpkin threw up twice last night. I am totally going for the organic food now. I found the link from the Pundits site (forget what it is called, it’s your friend) and I’m going to find a location nearby where I can pick it up.
I am going to feed her some tuna and rice tonight. She likes that.
Lulu’s site? Lulu is totally up on organic pet food if she posted it, it is good.
Tuna and rice for Pumkin is good. Yay!
I’ve been feeding my cats chicken- I just parboil it and shred it up.
They won’t eat the rice- not even if I mix it with good stuff.
They eat around it and then they go and tease the neighbors dogs until it sounds like the end of the world in my backyard.
BRATTTSSSSS
PS: Innova is supposed to be good. There is more info about that at http://www.naturapet.com/brands/innova.asp
I do not know that much about Innova, by the way, I have just heard it is supposed to be safe.
Anita, what sort of cats do you have again?
Max, I’ll take anything organic at this point as long as it’s safe. Now I am wondering how much this is going to cost. Should be nominal compared to the stuff I buy for myself lol (Ok, I’m trying to justify possibly paying twenty bucks for a bag of cat food).
And yes, it was Lulu.
You know the Evo looks good. It is grain free and based on the raw food diet:
http://www.evopet.com/products/default.asp?id=1500
What kind of cats do I have?
Well….my sons offered to give three of them exorcisms for their birthdays.
Hey! This is the exact one I was looking at last night! Thanks. It is a sign and I do believe strongly in them.
Cool. I bet Pumpkin stops throwing up her kibble when she gets this.
Anita, LOL. “Really, kitties, the exorcist is your friend, this is a birthday present.”
She better, or I’m sending her over to Anita’s for an exorcism!
Jeez, brothers and cats and sons are flying all over here, how will we sort them all out?
I use darts dipped in liquid doggie downers-
the rest of you are on your own ;-)
okay- I love my cats- even though the three kitties decided to go on a killing spree four years ago and my front lawn looked like a stockyard- wings here and mouse tails there, bird heads on the porch- this went on everyday for about two weeks ( no I’m not kidding )oh
and my oldest cat use to lay in the driveway and force anyone driving up to carry him into the house and shut the door before he could go out and do it all over again
So the joke about the exorcist? SURE it’s a joke surrreeee it is.
I changed my mind, Anita. Pumpkin is a virgin and doesn’t do catnip and she sure doesn’t kill other animals. She can’t hang out with your brood lol
That’s okay Stiletto- I don’t even like to leave my DOGS alone with my brood- I’m afraid I’ll come home one day and find them bound and gagged and dressed up like birds or something.
amm
Now that’s twisted, Anita.
Meow.
Here comes the class action law suit against Menu Foods. In past Pets were treated as property so the history of these law suits haven’t gotten anywhere, maybe a few hundred dollars for the pet. If they can prove fraud they can get punitive damages. They should pay out millions. I don’t agree with frivolous law suits but this is criminal keeping this under raps. If they lied about this for as long as they could get away with it.. How can we trust them when they say it did not get into anything meant for human consuption? Maybe they just want to wait and see if any people start getting sick before they confess.
If you know how to prepare home made dog food, then that would be much better.
Saw this post and remembered the article i wrote on 8 substances that could kill your dog here:
http://www.dogperfection.com/dogs/dog-health/poisonous-household-items-that-could-kill-your-dog/
hope it helps someone out there
Even with standards established by the Association Of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO), you can not rely on them or other goverenment bodies to assure your pet food is safe.
Competition for shelf space in grocery and super stores and the consumer’s wallet may cause pet food manufacturers to cut corners in order to beat out their competitors.
The only real solution for consumers is to become educated about how pet foods are manufactured and then decide what risks their willing to take with their beloved pets.
Here it is almost one year later and what the manufacturers have done is to add some vitamins to the tainted chemicals in the food, thinking this will improve the dead by products in the ingredients. Do not be fooled by the ” fancy labels” and misleading items listed like ” protein”. They are still making it from the four D’s. That is diseased, dead, disabled and dying livestock. Still makes dogs very sick and threatens their immune systems.
Okay – time for me to jump in here with a “commercial” for the only two ways I know of to feel completely safe when feeding our animals.
1. Make it yourself, and keep it RAW. For guidance, see DVM Dr. Ian Billinghurst’s books, “The BARF Diet” (Biologically Available Raw Foods) and “Give Your Dog A Bone.” If you have a bookstore nearby, they will likely have them. If not, an Amazon link to a bunch of dog health books is:
http://astore.amazon.com/aliwel?_encoding=UTF8&node=4
2. The owner of Dynamite, Jim Zamzow, is a personal friend of mine, and I know that he is working his butt off to produce the absolute finest dog and cat food available. (Please note that Dynamite was NOT on the list of companies that were all brand-naming the same crap as everyone else, and got in trouble for it!) He produces Dynamite Super Premium Diet for Dogs, and is just now coming out with a raw, extruded meat product for dogs that is out of this world! His products are the ONLY commercial dog food I will feed our beloved dog friends!! We feed a combination of raw foods and the Dynamite foods.
Just to show you how picky Jim is, “organic” isn’t even good enough for him. He feels that the organic standards are way too low. In order to produce a superior line of “natural” products, he has even invented his own natural fertilizer to grow natural plants with which to feed natural animals.
Dynamite also produces a very nutritious cat and dog food. Only problem is, most cats don’t like it unless they were raised on it. (Fancy Feast has them all spoiled with flavors, like us with McDonalds hamburgers and french fries.) BUT, if you cats turn their noses up at it, your dogs will do back flips for it.
If you are interested, you can get more info at
http://dynamitenutrition.com
If you are interested in natural health for yourself and your family, check out our free offering at http://ph-n.com ( or, http://perfecthealthnaturally.com ). It is a repositlry for the very best natural health information, products, tools and resources that our research has been able to find.
Best regards,
Bruce Chenoweth
researcher, writer, animal lover.
http://abcompany.com
I thought that it was okay to let my dog eat dog foods sold in supermarkets. They labeled it as healthy and safe. And with the craze for healthier and organic dog foods, we can see the word “natural” in the label. The pet food industry must be given more responsibility and dog foods sold in Supermarkets should be checked rigorously. Now I don’t know if I should be buying commercial dog foods. I think I’ll make
homemade dog foods homemade dog foods
myself.