Well, I had written out a reply, but my computer decided to reboot while I wasn’t looking.
I think what I had said was that, without actually reviewing all of the self-reported reports, I don’t think it’s valid to say “it’s pretty clear to me” that the self-reported numbers “include a lot of deaths unrelated to the food.” The self-reporting form asks for Veterinary info, food that was being fed, lot numbers, etc.
Regarding FDA: Yes, I’m well aware of their regulatory limitations, as I work in regulated community myself. However, with over 10,000 complaints, one would think that in the 3 weeks since the recall, they would be able to “confirm” a few more than the original 16 reported deaths. I was personally called by FDA last Sunday - SUNDAY - and they had many many people on the phones returning phone calls to people who have made complaints/reports. Even I could have confirmed a few dozen cases by now.
If they confirm some specific deaths, they have to confirm all of them, or pet-owners will be suing because the FDA confirmed some other specific pet’s death, but not their pet’s, leaving the other pet owner with an advantage in court when suing the manufacturer. This just isn’t the FDA’s job, and it’s having a hard enough time doing the things that ARE its job.
They are gathering data and analyzing it with the knowledge that the data is very imperfect. In many cases, it is simply impossible to determine whether or not a contaminated food was to blame, or some other factor, or a combination of the two. Few vets have been willing to confirm contaminated food as a cause of illness or death in specific animals they’ve treated themselves, because such certainty simply doesn’t exist — especially when there has not been a definitive identification of the contaminant or contaminants responsible for the overall problem. The FDA is confirming the deaths which can be confirmed by virtue of the fact that they occurred under controlled lab conditions. They are clearly acknowledging and investigating a much wider problem, but there’s no benefit to their changing their public statements from “We have confirmed food-related deaths in 16 lab animals and believe that there have been many more food related illnesses and deaths among pets” to “We have confirmed food-related deaths in 16 lab animals and 27 pets and believe that there have been many more food related illnesses and deaths among pets”. Who cares what tiny subset of pet illnesses and deaths they might have specifically confirmed? It doesn’t help solve the larger problem, and whatever number they could give would be much smaller than the actual number, and much smaller still than the owner-claimed number, and just set off another round of people howling that the FDA is greatly under-reporting the numbers.
The counts on that Pet Connection self-reporting site do not purport to be even remotely confirmed, and include everyone who has made a report, even those who answered “No” to the question “Has your pet been seen by a veterinarian?”, and who answered “No” to the question “Did you check the code number to confirm that it was from a recalled batch?” , and who left blank the answer box for the question “Which of the recalled products did your pet eat?” It’s unlikely the data being collected there would even be helpful to FDA investigators, since it does not even ask for specific batch numbers. I assume the FDA is attempting to collect that information when it takes reports, but frankly, most people throw out empty pet food cans and pouches pretty quickly, so I’d be surprised if more that half of the people making reports can cite a specific batch number that the pet definitely ate.