Posted on 04/03/2007 4:34:03 PM PDT by Arizona Carolyn
The March 16 recall of 91 pet food products manufactured by Menu Foods wasn't big news at first. Early coverage reported only 10-15 cats and dogs dying after eating canned and pouched foods manufactured by Menu. The foods were recalled -- among them some of the country's best-known and biggest-selling brands -- and while it was certainly a sad story, and maybe even a bit of a wake-up call about some aspects of pet food manufacturing, that was about it.
At first, that was it for me, too. But I'm a contributing editor for a nationally syndicated pet feature, Universal Press Syndicate's Pet Connection, and all of us there have close ties to the veterinary profession
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
There are hundreds of cases of kidney failure in cats and dogs EVERY week, all the time. And a good portion of the increase during the pet food scare is attributable to nervous owners taking their pets to the vet, even when they had no symptoms or had symptoms so mild that the owners wouldn't normally have taken the pet to the vet. A lot of these animals just got an early diagnosis of pre-existing kidney failure, that they would have gotten later if it hadn't been for the pet food scare.
Certainly there have been a number of deaths and permanent kidney injuries caused by the tainted pet food, but there have also been a lot of pets diagnosed much earlier than they would have been, whose lives are going to be much longer and healthier than they otherwise would have been, because of starting treatment very early in the course of progressive kidney failure. And much of the normal background rate of acute kidney failure from common household products (antifreeze, organophosphate insecticides, etc.) and house and garden plants, is no doubt being attributed by owners to tainted food when that wasn't really the cause.
I suspect that just given normal product distribution patterns, the contaminated food did end up clustered in a few areas. This would explain why most vets are reporting no increase at all in kidney failure cases, while a few are reporting a major increase.
NYC’s Animal Medical Center, a big teaching/research hospital that gets referral cases from all over the region, scrutinized the test results of 143 pets they treated for renal failure between March 17-20, and found only 5% to be related to contaminated food.
http://www.amcny.org/foodrecall/renalfailure.pdf
Sadly, the government is probably as effective at protecting the food supply as they are at protecting the boarders.
The management of Menu Foods (it is a publicly traded company, so there is no one “owner”) is not in a position to guarantee that owners of affected pets will be fully reimbursed for veterinary expenses. They can’t manufacture money out of thin air, and if this incident pushes the company into bankruptcy (which it certainly could), a bankruptcy court — not executives or owners of the company — will determine who gets compensation and how much.
Menu Foods had 2006 net income of CAD 6.4 million, and 2005 net LOSS of CAD 55 million. The matter of determining which pets were sickened or died due to this food vs. other costs is very expensive and uncertain, and could result in expensive litigation. And there will no doubt be many pet owners trying to get compensation for vet visits and tests done as a precaution, even though no illness was found. It would be totally irresponsible of the company’s management to make blanket promises of reimbursement which they may not be able to deliver on, and which might induce pet owners to incur huge veterinary bills that they are unable to afford themselves, believing that it will be paid for by the company.
My wife suffers from a condition called Celiac, which is an allergy to wheat gluten. In any form.
Whether it be in bread, flour or in a wide range of products including cheap soy sauce.
The gluten causes an acute GI reaction and can present as a host of other problems over the long run.
you may never eat cereal again.
Isn’t Dick Durbin the senator that wants to deny us access to vitamins, herbs and homeopathy (even though people almost never die from their use and people die all the time from drugs (ANS is an example).
Added... BTW, someone on one of the lists said she hangs out at her local petsmart/petco and hands notes to people in line about crappy food and over vaccination.... now THAT is a dedicated person.
I learned from one of the dogs lists a long time ago it is best to use stainless steel dishes for our dogs and cats.
Like BagcamAddict pointed out, this was not to glorify Rosie, rather show that she was trying to say 19 American’s was more important than 19 pets — sort of a so-what when if the true number was told (in the thousands) maybe people would sit up and take notice of the importance — in other words, it was a slam at Rosie, not glorifying Rosie. I think the take on this is probably very accurate.
Links everyone might want to read. Helps to know before you buy:
You are right, but not in very young dogs and cats... also, the crappy food is one reason dogs and cats are suffering renal failure at younger and younger ages.. and what do vets do — limit the protein when that is exactly the wrong thing to do (as evidenced by a researcher at of all companies Purina a few years ago and presented at a seminar on pet health).
That would be 7.5 our of 143 pets and how many dogs and cats in this county? If 5% of the human population was sick and dying fromt he food supply perhaps this would get more serious attention.
State of Oregon now saying at least 38 dead and another 60+ suspected.
There was an elderly man ahead of me in line at the market with a large bag of Purina dog food. I so wanted to write down a name of one of the companies we discussed for him but I decided to mind my own business, it was hard.
Speaking of vaccination, the town where I live requires rabies vaccine and so does the community where I live. I had an elderly dog who never went outside and was not exactly well. My vet just gave me a certificate and a tag when I asked. He agreed the dog did not require any vaccinations at his age and home circumstances.
ChemNutra Inc., the Las Vegas-based company that imported the wheat gluten and shipped it to companies that make pet food, said Tuesday that Xuzhou Anying never reported the presence of melamine in the content analysis it provided.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/business/20070404-0836-china-petfoodrecall.html
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I would have hoped the importer would check their own product.
The solution to all of this is: Do not import foods of any kind. Lamb from New Zealand - okay. Scotch whiskey - okay. But no foods grown in enemy countries. And China is certainly NOT our friend.
Although the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) continues to blame tainted wheat gluten for recent cat and dog illnesses and deaths, a mounting number of complaints about sick and dying animals who ate only dry food that did not contain wheat gluten strongly suggests another source of contamination.
Evidence from reputable laboratories indicates that an excessive amount of vitamin D in pet food may be to blame. Vitamin D overdoses produce symptoms similar to those seen in animals who recently have become sick or died after consuming only dry foods.
This morning, PETA Vice President Bruce Friedrich made an urgent appeal to Stephen Sundlof, director of the FDA’s Center for Veterinary Medicine, asking the agency to refocus its investigation beyond wheat gluten — which is used almost exclusively in wet foods — and consider other possible contaminants.
In his letter, Friedrich points out that last year, a manufacturing error in the production of Royal Canin pet food resulted in excessive amounts of vitamin D-3 in the food, causing hypercalcemia, an abnormally high level of calcium in the blood that caused animals’ kidneys to malfunction.
Symptoms associated with excessive vitamin D-3 intake appear identical to the symptoms that are being reported in dogs and cats now, leading PETA to believe that vitamin D-3 may be implicated in the current spate of pet food contamination.
On Monday, PETA called on FDA Commissioner Andrew von Eschenbach to resign over the agency’s mishandling of the pet food crisis.
http://www.torontodailynews.com/index.php/BusinessNews/2007040404pet-food-poisoning
Good for your vet. A lot of people do not realize the insert on all vaccines say to be administered to a healthy subject only. If a dog (or human) is suffering from allergies, arthritis, rash, itching, etc., they are not healthy and there is no reason to vaccinate an elderly dog.
Our dog barfs when he sees Rosie on T.V. We try to keep it from happening, but accidents happen.
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