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BEIJING (Reuters) - China sentenced the former head of its food and drugs agency to death for corruption on Tuesday in a surprise judgment as the government sought to contain a wave of scandals over health safety. Zheng Xiaoyu, former head of the State Food and Drug Administration, was convicted on charges of taking bribes and dereliction of duty, Xinhua news agency reported, citing the Beijing Municipal No. 1 Intermediate People's Court. The sentence, which was unusually harsh, could still be reduced on appeal. But it reflects the weight China's top leaders are giving to the issues of corruption and...

ORIGINAL POST: Itchmo has learned that a toxicology test reported the presence of cyanuric acid in an opened bag of what is alleged to be Iams Large Breed dry dog food. According to the report obtained by Itchmo, the results have been certified by a forensic toxicologist. We have obtained a copy of the toxicology report. Iams Large Breed does not list rice protein concentrate or wheat gluten as ingredients. ... This information requires verification and we are asking for your help. Itchmo is asking you to find an unopened 20 lb. bag of Iams Large Breed dry dog food...

Last updated May 6, 2007 11:05 p.m. PT What's safe to put in your pet's bowl? Weeks after tainted food killed dogs and cats, trust shaken but few answers By CECELIA GOODNOW P-I REPORTER Ohio electrician James Spratt sailed to London in 1860 to sell lightning rods, but the sight of quayside dogs scrabbling for scraps set him on a more momentous course. We know him today as the inventor of commercial pet food. Now the industry Spratt inspired has itself become a lightning rod -- for distressed and angry animal lovers who wonder what to feed their pets as...

UPDATE: The expansion expands again. Menu Foods’ own press releases do NOT match up with their recall expansion list. Pet Food Tracker and PetSitUSA have worked the last several hours checking the lists and added several more brands to the recall expansion. Our recall list is now updated. Again. ORIGINAL POST: This recall expansion covers dozens of new brands and foods — wet foods only — citing cross-contamination (corrected). This announcement comes more than a month and a half after the initial recall. The recall also expanded to include 2 varieties in Europe.

30 broiler poultry farms and eight breeder poultry farms in Indiana contained

In Tuesday’s four-hour session of live-blogging the food-safety hearing in the U.S. House of Representatives – work from which her wrists have yet to recover – Christie found herself typing something we at the PetConnection first heard weeks ago, but couldn’t get confirmation on until it came up in the hearing: Without Iams, there might not have been a recall at all. In sworn testimony, Menu Foods CEO Paul Henderson admitted that his company called the recall because Iams told them they’d had enough, that their own quality internal systems had revealed a problem, and that they were pulling their...

Hogs at a western North Carolina farm have tested positive for melamine, the industrial chemical blamed for killing and sickening dogs and cats that ate it in their food. North Carolina Department of Agriculture officials said that none of the hogs that ate the tainted food have entered the food chain for human consumption. The department has quarantined the farm, which has about 1,400 hogs, until it the U.S. Food and Drug Administration can advise what to do next.

Imported ingredients used in recalled pet food may have been intentionally spiked with an industrial chemical to boost their apparent protein content, federal officials said Thursday. That's one theory being pursued by the Food and Drug Administration as it investigates how the chemical, melamine, contaminated at least two ingredients used to make more than 100 brands of dog and cat foods. In California, state agriculture officials placed a hog farm under quarantine after melamine was found in pig urine there. Additional testing was under way to determine whether the chemical was present in the meat produced by American Hog Farm...

The Food and Drug Administration has opened a criminal investigation in the widening pet food contamination scandal, officials said yesterday, as it was confirmed that tainted pork might have made its way onto human dinner plates in California. More than 100 hogs that ate contaminated food at a custom slaughterhouse in California's Central Valley more.....

hemNutra, the Las Vegas importer of the contaminated wheat gluten that led to the original 100-plus packaged pet food recallÑalso imports pet sickening rice protein concentrate from China, "though from another source". "The company has been testing those shipments," according to spokesman Steve Stern. (Andrew Bridges, AP, April 18, 2007). In other words, ChemNutra, whose Chinese headquarters are within 50 miles of wheat gluten-producing Xuhou Anying Biologic Technology Development Co. Ltd., is up to its bag brim in the rice gluten poison pet food scandal. Binzhou Futian Biology Technology Co. Ltd. is suspected as the company making the rice protein....

Yet another pet food brand, Natural Balance, has been found to contain melamine, an industrial chemical. Another yet again, the contaminated ingredient has been traced to China.With over 100 brands of cat and dog food being recalled, we're beginning to wonder if it's safe to feed our pets anything at all. Thousands of animals have been affected by the chemical and dozens have died. Terrifying as the tainted pet food scandal has been for those who love their animals, there's an even more frightening fact to consider: China also exports food consumed by human beings. This week it's your dog;...

With the news changing daily about the tainted pet food, Arizona Carolyn and I are starting a ping list to be published on her profile page. Please let us know if you would like to be included. I will not be able to respond until later today and over the weekend.

WASHINGTON // Federal investigators are probing whether Chinese producers laced a key ingredient in pet food with an industrial chemical in order to boost the price of their shipments snip Referring to the contamination that has prompted the recall of more than 100 brands of pet food, investigators are trying to determine whether Chinese producers purposely added melamine to their wheat gluten shipments to Menu Foods. more.....

Johannesburg - Tests have confirmed that Vets Choice and Royal Canin dog and cat dry pet-food products contained corn gluten contaminated with melamine, says the manufacturer. The contaminated corn gluten was delivered to Royal Canin by a South African third-party supplier and appears to have originated from China.

... The chemical, melamine, is believed to have contaminated rice protein concentrate used to make a variety of Natural Balance Pet Foods products for both dogs and cats, the Food and Drug Administration said Wednesday. Previously, the chemical was found to contaminate wheat gluten used by at least six other pet food and treat manufacturers. Both ingredients were imported from China, though by different companies and from different manufacturers. A lawmaker said Wednesday the Chinese have refused to grant visas to FDA inspectors seeking to visit the plants where the ingredients were made. An FDA spokesman later said the visas...

Itchmo has confirmed an email from Natural Balance that they are removing two products from sale: Venison and Brown Rice Dry Dog Formula Venison and Green Pea Dry Dog Cat Formula These products do not contain wheat gluten. No deaths or serious illnesses have been reported and no recall warning has been issued. The warning applies only to products sold in the last week, according to Natural Balance. "Please know that at this time we are removing this product from the shelves, as we have had some phone calls indicating gastric upset after eating this formula. At this time, we...

SHANGHAI, China — The list of Chinese food exports rejected at American ports reads like a chef's nightmare: pesticide-laden pea pods, drug-laced catfish, filthy plums and crawfish contaminated with salmonella. Yet, it took a much more obscure item, contaminated wheat gluten, to focus U.S. public attention on a very real and frightening fact: China's chronic food safety woes are now an international concern. In recent weeks, scores of cats and dogs in America have died of kidney failure blamed on eating pet food containing gluten from China that was tainted with melamine, a chemical used in plastics, fertilizers and flame...

"...sources tell CBS News that the FDA had tracked at least one suspect batch of wheat gluten into the human food supply, quietly quarantined some products and notified the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention to watch for new patients admitted to hospitals with renal or kidney failure."

The chief financial officer of Menu Foods Income Fund says it was a "horrible coincidence" that he sold nearly half his units in the pet food company less than three weeks before a massive product recall. Insider trading reports confirm that Mark Wiens sold 14,000 units, or 45 per cent of his stock, for $102,900 on Feb. 26 and Feb. 27, reports The Globe and Mail. The shares would be worth $62,440 at current prices. Wiens still owned 17,193 units and options to purchase 101,812 units after the sale. "It's a horrible coincidence, yes . . ." Wiens told The...

Dr. Richard Goldstein, associate professor of medicine at Cornell University's College of Veterinary Medicine and kidney specialist researching the outbreak's health impact on pets, and other researchers saw what they believe is a second contaminant in the gluten and the urine of infected animals, but have yet to identify it. Xuzhou Anying's Website said it also exports carrots, garlic, ginger, corn protein powder, vegetables and feed. Chinese officials have not responded to the U.S. government's question about whether any products other than wheat gluten were shipped here. Under the microscope and even to the naked eye, the contaminated gluten looks...