Bigger than you think: The story behind the pet food recall

SF Gate ^ | April 3, 2007 | Christie Keith

[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

[Arizona Carolyn]

I think the author was showing the frustration she is getting on Pet Connection from pet owners who are not able to get any help reporting their pets deaths to the FDA.

I'm disappointed that some wanted to take it as a left/right thing. Most people at FDA (State, Defense, etc.) are career employees and cross over both sides of the aisle. If we cannot get beyond political boundaries for the sake of looking at the real issue -- safety of our food supply, this country is in great peril.

[cripplecreek]

Between the USA and Canada we produce all the wheat the world could ever need.

[Shyla]

Please Freepmail their address please. I am in OH so that may work well.

The big guys are wolves.

The little ones are Dwarf Yorkies x’ed with mini-rat terriers.

[Shyla]

Please Freepmail their address please. I am in OH so that may work well.

The big guys are wolves.

The little ones are Dwarf Yorkies x’ed with mini-rat terriers.

[Arizona Carolyn]

A lot of pet owners listen to their vets and have no idea that wheat gluten isn't a healthy ingredient for their pet food. I suspect that there is a lot of poor people who have dogs that just plain got sick and died and have not and will not be reported. We will hear from the people who are more tuned in to the Internet to know what is going on.

It is very difficult to report anything re: pets to the FDA. This isn't new. A lot of dogs and cats have suffered due to Rymadyl, Lyme vaccination, etc., and in the end these things end up on a site someone sets up to report adverse reactions.

Thing is, if the FDA is going to approve food and drugs for our pets, we need to be able to efficiently report adverse affects, whether we have two feet or four. Again it's a bureaucratic thing, not a Republican thing.

[ArtyFO]

I wouldn’t be surprised if ADM is behind this scandal. A couple of years ago, ADM was the problem with the contaminated feed to Canadian beef feed lots that caused the mad cow disease breakout. ADM has muscle, enough muscle to keep their name out of the news and from being named by the FDA. I think they were the distributor in this mess. They sold the grain to the chinese processor, I believe, and had it transported back to Canada for resale to Menu. I gotta think that the truth will soon come out.

[Arizona Carolyn]

You may be right. Did you notice how it was a person with a sick dog that found the notice on the FDA website about a recall that had never been announced? These were the things I wanted people to take note of instead of making a political football out of it. When that happens we are way too sensitive and everyone suffers... Isn’t ADM the one growing food “a little fast.”

[Arizona Carolyn]

Why was this moved to chat? This wasn’t posted to be a political article, it was posted to give more information about the pet food recall situation. The other articles are still in News Activism.

[Caramelgal]

“I think the author was showing the frustration she is getting on Pet Connection from pet owners who are not able to get any help reporting their pets deaths to the FDA….If we cannot get beyond political boundaries for the sake of looking at the real issue -- safety of our food supply, this country is in great peril.”

Well put.

If one of my cats fell sick because of contaminated food I’d be very frustrated too and complaining very loudly.

If someone in my family became ill, I’d be knocking on doors demanding answers

[girlangler]

I saw the other day the pet food industry is a $15 billion industry annually, so there are a lot of pet owners out there. I personally think this is very important news.

In my case, as is with millions of other Americans, our pets are like family.

I missed the report on CNN tonight. I predict there will be a class action lawsuit, and the lawyers will make a fortune, while the people who lost their pets will get nothing. But this is not about that at this point, I just want to make sure my pets are okay (I was feeding them food on the recall list before I found out about it) and to keep my many other friends with pets informed. I get most of my news from FR, and most of my friends don’t. And there are new companies added to the list almost daily since this story broke.

This has opened up my eyes, and I am seriously concerned about the imported human food now. One reason I value FR is because freepers have the ability to share info, research, and provide info we can’t get on the news. I trust FR more than the MSM.

The conversation with my vet yesterday raised my alarm, as does my friend’s sister’s dog.There were several freepers who posted on other threads who have sick dogs, this is no joke, it’s not funny.

I pinged freeper Fawn on this story the other day. We have had many disagreements on various threads, but I know he/she loves animals, so I thought should know. This is not a political subject.

Again, I thank you for the pings and the posts. Please keep me posted and I’ll do the same.

[girlangler]

My vet told me yesterday they cancelled all routine and vaccination appts., because they have a high number of sick animals with kidney failure, and were fed food on the recall lists.

I was also told they expect this to get much worse.

I talked to a friend tonight from another county, and her sister’s dog, which was being fed food from the recall lists, is in the vet hospital with the same symptoms.

I’m not crying wolf. I fed my dogs and one cat some recalled food before I found out. I want to read, and know, everything I can about this. Those who don’t might want to go to another thread.

BTW, I also have been reading, from other “reputable” sources, not bloggers, that the number of pets sick and dying is much higher than has been reported.

[mplsconservative]

Thanks for the ping Carolyn!

Good find with good info.

Please ping me again if you find anything else on this subject. TIA

[Ditto]

It may turn out that our dogs and cats were the canaries in the coal mine of an enormous system failure -- one that could have profound impacts on American food manufacturing and safety in the years to come.

Bottom line of the article, and something to ponder.

With mass-produced, mass-consumed, just-in-time delivery of food stuffs, how long would it take for the FDA/CDC to detect something similar in the human food supply and how many people could be damaged in the interval?

I don't know the answer, but I sure as hell hope people knowledgeable in the industry are looking at it.

Perhaps, like most other topics, there are some Freepers who know the ins and outs of the business who can comment.

[Ditto]

I thought the whole point of conservatism is government doesn't work.

That is never how I have thought about it. My view is that there are some things government should do -- and some things it shouldn't do. And the more time and money it spends on things it should not do, the poorer job it will do on things it should be doing.

BTW. I'm surprised that the FDA has jurisdiction over pet food. I would have figured that would have been under the Dept. of Agriculture.

[pollyg107]

I read on Pet Connection that Anderson Cooper will have a segment on this tonight at 10 pm eastern, 7 pm pacific — in about 2 minutes. Christie (from PetConnection) will be a guest. I haven’t watched CNN in years, but will tune in for this.

[pollyg107]

Thank you for pinging me to this. I can’t believe this thread has been moved to “chat”. This is a huge story, and I don’t understand why it is getting so little attention. This is not a political story to pet owners. Our pets are like our children.

[conservativegranny]

I didn’t say that you were crying wolf. I said that the reason why there may have been a lag in people taking this seriously is because there have been so many false reports like this in the past. I have run a dog list for 10 years now and I have had dozens of junk emails come through making false claims very much like these. You see, in the past some people have cried wolf, or out and out lied, and therefore it causes problems when there is really something to worry about.

This is the reason why I never post them until I have checked them out. I recently called Purina because we had one come through about their Beneful product that didn’t pan out.

In the 10 years I have been running a dog list only twice have these types of claims about food turned out to be genuine. One was the Diamond Food recall earlier this year and then this one.

When you run an animal related list you get dozens of these types of emails come through. I’ve had the killer Swiffer emails, the killer Febreeze emails, the clorox bleach false reports etc. Food is a very common one. Sometimes it is done maliciously by animal rights activists that want to hurt a company financially, sometimes by whole foods and BARF feeders that hate all kibble and don’t want any dogs eating it and sometimes people are looking for a company to blame with deep pockets to sue when their dogs die. Usually the cause of death in almost all of these claims is either liver or kidney failure.

When a company has to recall a product it costs quite a bit financially. While they have a responsibility to the public they also have a responsibility to their employees and shareholders not to over-respond to every hysterical and unsubstantiated claim that goes through a blog or email list.

What I was trying to say before you became personally offended, was that it is these types of false claims that may be partly to blame for the lag time. Should a company pull their products everytime some nutjob decides to have a bit of fun with a chain email that claims a dog or cat died?

These claims take time to prove out. I’ve called and emailed many a company in my time trying to get the scoop on these types of email forwards. Very few of them have ever panned out. So when I first heard about this latest one I had my doubts and took a wait and see approach.

As soon as some official word came that there was a problem and a recall it was at that time that I shared this information with the rest of my list members.

I’ve been a reader of FR for many years and the past couple of years there are a few threads where I swear I’ve stumbled onto the DU. Gheez!

[Eva]

That’s what I’ve been saying, that the grain product was probably contaminated by an improperly cleaned cargo hold. They can use the same tanks that carry oil or chemicals to carry grain and the do.

[Recovering Ex-hippie]

I hope this blows wide open....its one thing to do a lot of PR about how the company CARES about animals. Its another to use products that are “just” cheaper or from companies that are less than ethical with animals.

[Recovering Ex-hippie]

Only Moonbats would blame Bush on this one.

Actually it will put the FDA on “trial” and they need to be observed. Perhaps this will increase monitoring of effectiveness and efficiency of government programs, which is a conservative focus.