While some of what you say is true, I sincerely hope you aren’t trying to minimize the true scope and magnitude, not to mention the overall significance of the root issues here. And there is a clear difference between early detection of chronic kidney failure vs. early detection of acute kidney failure.
It’s a serious problem, to be sure. But the scale of panic, and some of the specific reactions, have gone overboard. There is every reason to scrutinize the recall list closely for matches between that and what you’ve been feeding your pets, and to head of to the vet quickly if there’s a match, even in the absence of symptoms. And it’s ALWAYSa good idea to head to the vet quickly if you notice any symptoms of illness in your pets, because there are all sorts of things that can cause fast-worsening kidney failure and other life-threatening conditions. But extrapolating from the recall information to deciding that anything sold as pet food is suddenly unsafe just doesn’t make sense.
As you pointed out, the FDA doesn’t really know where the all contaminated wheat gluten went, and it also hasn’t been firmly established that the contaminant has been identified. The experts are saying that there have been studies on the effects of melamine in dogs and rats, and that it wouldn’t produce the severe kidney failure seen in a lot of these pet food-related cases (thought that it might produce it in cats, who are generally more sensitive to toxins, and for whom there is no study data re melamine toxicity). Until they’re sure what the responsible contaminant(s) is/are, there’s no reason to assume that it’s limited to things containing wheat gluten, much less limited to pet foods containing wheat gluten. What doesn’t make sense is the major panic over pet food dangers, with many people suddenly deciding to spend lots of extra time and money preparing home-cooked pet food of dubious nutritional value, while almost no one seems to be having a similar reaction re human foods. The FDA and vets have said that they haven’t seen these kidney failure reactions in any pets that weren’t fed foods on the original recall list. So why extrapolate from that, that all pet foods are dangerous, while not extrapolating that all human foods are dangerous?
What I’m afraid is not getting sufficient attention in all this, due largely to the overblown panic about anything and everything labelled “pet food”, is that this whole process — especially the FDA’s inability to quickly and clearly identify the contaminant and its source — is turning out to be a loud notice to terrorists that sneaking an unlikely contaminant into our human food supply would be a surefire way to create a huge national panic of long duration and with devastating financial effects.