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Ok, I agree with much of what you said. I definitely agree there have been some wacko and completely irrelevant and illogical leaps and over-the-top panic going on here by some very emotional people. However, you and I are rational-thinking, intelligent people who are capable of recognizing there is a reasonable cause for alarm based on the truly disturbing facts of this case... Unfortunately, MOST people are Lemmings (or Sheep) and they follow whatever their "leaders" are telling them. Which leads to this statement you made:

"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."

The FDA has said there are 16 deaths. And you want to believe what they're saying about kidney failure reactions related to the recall? Um, if they are so drastically and INTENTIONALLY wrong about the number 16, why would you believe a word they say regarding the medical ramifications of this? And I don't think the "Vets" are saying anything. There is no national clearing house for recording statistics on pet illness, so there is no "Vets" making any statements of any kind about the overall picture in this fiasco.

"So why extrapolate from that, that all pet foods are dangerous, while not extrapolating that all human foods are dangerous?"

While I agree that it's not a logical leap to say that ALL pet foods are dangerous, the fact that people are seeing illness and death in their pets who are on other foods that aren't on the recall list IS a logical leap to say that at least SOME pet foods are dangerous. My own dog (and several others that I have now read about) had blood in her urine and she was eating a non-recalled DRY product (Iams Mini Chunks). Vets couldn't find a reason/cause for the blood, and after a few months, it went away on its own.

Regarding not making the leap to assume (extrapolate) that human food is also a problem: Again, people are Lemmings/Sheep. They aren't free-thinkers. Their "government" has told them that the human food supply is safe, so they believe it is safe. But those of us who have looked into this know that there is un-found contaminated wheat gluten out there that was, in fact, shipped to human-food manufacturers... My question for the Lemmings is this: If it took them weeks to find all the pet-food-related wheat gluten, and they still haven't found it all in the pet food chain, then how is it possible that they were able to say, with supposed certainty, within just 24 hours, that none of it made it into the human food chain?

The truth is, both people and pets would be better off if they ate home-cooked meals made from home-grown real foods, rather than commercialized, chemical-ized, adulterated, pre-packaged non-foods on the market today. "Back in the day", all adults, babies, and pets ate whatever they could grow or buy from local farmers and ranchers... real food, and well-balanced diets. But today's society ain't cut out that way so it ain't gonna happen in today's world on a massive scale. The way things are going, eventually the massive scale Lemmings and their pets are going to be eating Soylent Green.

The FDA gave the 16 figure quite a long time ago. It never claimed that there hadn’t been any food-related deaths in addition to these absolutely confirmed cases. As of a few days ago, the Veterinary Information Network reported a few hundred cases of probably food-related kidney failure and fewer than 200 deaths. This contrasts with the several thousand deaths claimed by pet owners on a self-reporting website, which it’s pretty clear to me includes a lot of deaths unrelated to the food. When the first dry food recall was announced, many vets were quoted in the media as saying they hadn’t seen or heard of any cases related to foods beyond those originally recalled. I’m not trying to claim there’s no big deal here, but I think it’s worth trying to inject some reason and perspective into the discussion.

Try to understand the position of the FDA. They are not equipped or authorized to make definitive determinations about the cause of death of any animal. They can cite numbers only for specific cases that have been solidly confirmed by a well-qualified veterinarian. If they cite larger numbers than that, they need and will be asked for a specific basis for them — like where are these animals you’re referring to, which brand(s) of food did they eat, etc. Then if they cite specific cases as “presumed” to be food related, their statements will be used in lawsuits by the owners of those pets, even if it’s not really certain that food was the cause. The deaths the FDA cited were those conducted in controlled lab situations by the manufacturer, which were clearly not caused by an animal gnawing on a poisonous houseplant or lapping up some antifreeze that leaked from a parked car. Early on, before any specific contaminant had been identified, these were the only cases that could be definitively linked to the food.