Deadly Pet Food - Diamond Pet Foods

(Rochester, NY) 12/22/05 -- Some pet food contaminated with a toxic fungus is having deadly consequences.

Several dogs in the Rochester area have died from the toxin and others could be sick without their owners knowing.

Stores in 23 states have been notified to pull Diamond Pet Food products off their shelves. The contaminant, aflatoxin, grows on corn put in the products.

The food is sold under the brand names Diamond, Country Value, and Professional. The recalled batches have date codes of March-07 through June-07 and were made at the company's plant in Gaston, South Carolina.

Dog and cat owners should have their pets examined right away if they’ve been using Diamond pet food products.

Signs of poisoning include lethargy, loss of appetite, increased water consumption and urination, bloody vomiting or diarrhea, and jaundice (yellowing) of the whites of the eyes or gums.

In severe cases, the toxin can cause death. Treatment includes a chicken and rice diet and pills to protect the liver.

Lori Hewett feeds her dog Sparta the Diamond products. However, Lori also happens to be the receptionist at Mendon Village Animal Hospital. She got Sparta tested immediately once she learned about the contamination.

"Since she happened to be with me at work that day, they did her blood work and her levels were very high," Lori said. "[However] she's been acting normally, still wanting to eat, playing, alert."

While some dogs get sick, others do not. Veterinarian Dr. Sara Sanders of Mendon saw this in three golden retrievers that ate the same food.

"Maybe some are resistant or the contamination was located in one part of the food…Some got the 'bad bite,' others didn't," she said.

Veterinarian Dr. Kent Burgesser of Rochester said his clinic has had a couple of cases where the symptoms were consistent with aflatoxin poisoning. He had not heard of any cats becoming ill from the poison.

Pet food companies test for aflatoxin, but it appears it can go unnoticed sometimes.

Seven of the sick dogs brought to Mendon Village Animal Hospital have been taken to Cornell and are under the care of more specially trained vets.

Concerned pet owners can call Diamond Pet Food at (537) 229-4203 for more information. For details and a list of product names, click here to go to the Diamond Pet Food Web Site.

I honestly have never had trouble with any of them affecting the health of the dog. The digestive tract of the dog is the digestive tract of a scavenger. I think they're probably just fine getting just about anything, expecially if it's varied. My own uneducated hunch is that perhaps, if anything, the restriction of the diet to just one uniform food for their life is probably not what they're best suited to have, any more than we are. And food sensitivities that develop may in fact develop because they are given only the same processed food for too long.

So, though I feed premium foods (I loved Iams Eukanuba and only stopped feeding it because our easy feed store stopped carrying it), that's mostly to avoid what I think is horsemeat, or just plain corn filler crap that just leads to too much crap in the yard ;~D. I think most of these decisions are based on our preferences and politics and desires... Dogs would be just as healthy scrounging the garbage and drinking out of mud puddles.

http://www.mountvernonnews.com/local/122305/dog.food.html

Diamond Pet Food thought to be cause of Sparta kennel deaths

MOUNT VERNON - Jobe Porter of Sparta is ticked. He has a kennel, USA Bulldogs, and, recently lost three dogs, after they mysteriously fell ill. Yesterday, he learned that Diamond Pet Food has a contacted distributors and recommended to hold the sale of products manufactured at its facility in Gaston, South Carolina.

Ohio is one of the 22 states serviced by the facility. Porter said his dogs got really lethargic and did not want to eat. It happened a few weeks ago, and, at the time, he had no idea why they got sick. He said he has fed his dogs Diamond Pet Food for years. Also, he said he knows of several other people whose dogs are dying.

“I think they need to be replacing peoples’ dogs,” Porter said. “I know mistakes happen but when it starts killing animals, someone needs to be held liable.”

He said he has tried to call everyone he knows who feeds their dog food from Diamond Pet Food.

According to a press release from Diamond Pet Food, the culprit is aflatoxin, a naturally occuring toxic chemical by-product from the growth of the fungus, Aspergillus flavus, on corn and other crops.

“Out of an abundance of caution, we have notified our distributors and recommended they hold the sale of all Diamond Pet Food products formulated with corn that were produced out of our Gaston facility,” the release reads.

As dogs die, tainted pet food worries veterinarians

They fear many owners haven't heard about recall of Diamond

Donna Jackel
Staff writer

(December 31, 2005) — A week before Christmas, breeder Ann Bliss noticed that her cocker spaniels weren't eating. By Christmas Day, five were dead and two were struggling for their lives at Cornell University's Hospital for Animals in Ithaca.

Bliss, who lives in Marion, Wayne County, had fed her animals Diamond Pet Food's premium dog food with good results for many years, but the trusted brand turned deadly this month.

"Every morning, I wake up crying," said Bliss, 66, who refers to her dogs as her "grandpups." "I've never experienced anything like this. I can't find words to describe it."

On Dec. 20, Missouri-based Diamond Pet Food recalled batches of dog and cat food made at its Gaston, S.C., plant. Lab tests confirmed that some contained high quantities of aflatoxin, a chemical naturally produced by growth of the fungus, Aspergillus flavus, on corn or other crops. As yet, no cases have been confirmed in cats, but some cat food samples tested positive for the fast-acting toxin, which destroys liver function.

Two local veterinarians, Stuart Gluckman and Sara Sanders of Mendon Village Animal Hospital, first realized that several dogs being treated for liver problems were all eating Diamond food. Their quick actions — they sent food samples for testing by both Cornell University and Diamond — sparked a recall in 22 states on the Eastern Seaboard. The food was also exported to several European Union countries, which have been notified.

But Sanders fears that news of the recall has not reached the larger public. So does Dr. Sharon Center of Cornell, which admitted three more dogs with aflatoxin Friday. Center has been contacted by pet owners from across the country.

"We are still talking to people who didn't seem to know the food is toxic," she said.

One was an Alabama basset hound breeder who lost more than 12 dogs.

Symptoms of aflatoxin poisoning include bloody vomiting or diarrhea, lethargy, loss of appetite, increased water consumption and urination, jaundice or yellowing of the whites of the eyes or gums. But Center and Sanders say owners who have been feeding pets Diamond food from the Gaston facility should not wait for symptoms to take their pet to the vet — by then, it might be too late.

"Even apparently healthy dogs can have liver damage," Sanders said. But aflatoxin exposure is not necessarily a death sentence, she said, noting that some of the dogs treated at Cornell have recovered sufficiently to go home.

In the last stages of the disease, the dogs develop a clotting problem and bleed into their gastrointestinal tracts.

The Food and Drug Administration said so far, 23 animal deaths have been linked to the pet food. At least 11 local dogs have died, according to veterinary offices. Mark Brinkmann, Diamond's general manager, said he did not know yet how many dogs have been affected. The first day that Diamond established a consumer hotline, it received about 1,500 calls. About half were from people concerned that their dogs had been sickened by dog food, he said.

Diamond has been posting information at www.diamondpetfood.com. Company officials have also notified store owners about the recall by fax or registered mail.

Diamond officials pledged that the company will help pay veterinary bills for customers who can prove aflatoxin contamination.

Since Dec. 20, state Department of Agriculture and Markets inspectors have checked New York retailers who carry Diamond to ensure the food was off the shelves. The state also notified veterinarians via a mass e-mailing, said spokeswoman Jessica Chittenden.

Diamond officials were aware that this year's corn crop had a particularly heavy presence of aflatoxin because of a drought in June and July, followed by wet weather in August, Brinkmann said. Each truckload of corn is tested for aflatoxin before it's made into pet food, he said.

"We have stringent procedures in place," he said. "We will investigate what happened. Right now, we are trying to save as many animals as we can."

In 1995, a company called Nature's Recipe pulled thousands of tons of dog food off the shelf after consumers complained that their dogs were vomiting and losing their appetite. Nature's Recipe's loss amounted to $20 million. In this case, mold from aflatoxin-contaminated wheat.

Lori Hewett, 26, of Honeoye Falls, a receptionist at Mendon Village Animal Hospital, began feeding her dogs Diamond several years ago because it was the chosen food of many breeders and had a good reputation. Now, Sparta, a border collie mix, is ill at Cornell and a second dog has signs of liver damage.

"I'm prepared that Sparta probably won't make it out of this, but we're not giving up on her. Everyone says not to feel guilty, but I can't help but think that I was putting food down that had poison in it. These were young, healthy dogs."

DJACKEL@DemocratandChronicle.com

Includes reporting by The Associated Press.

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