I'm glad you were able to determine that the food wouldn't be safe to give to the rescued animals. I just hope the whole contamination and recall issue doesn't get so overblown that it soon becomes much more expensive for financially strapped shelters and rescue groups (and pet owners) to obtain pet food.
I don't think it's fair to keep on accusing the FDA of saying only 16 animals have died. As of March 31, media outlets were carrying the info that the FDA was reporting 8800 complaints on the matter. http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_500465.html The FDA's current FAQ page on the pet food recall ( http://www.fda.gov/cvm/MenuFoodRecallFAQ.htm updated 4/3) says:
Q: How many sick or dead cats and dogs have been reported to FDA?
To date, the agency has received over 10,000 complaints. Confirmation that these may be related to the pet food recall takes time and requires follow up by our field staff. Veterinary reports and other evidence need to be collected for each case before any of these reports can be confirmed. In many instances there is insufficient information available to draw a conclusion about a possible association with pet food consumed and pet illness or death. The FDA’s primary concern is in identifying the source of the contaminant, assuring that the recall is effective and providing information to the public.
I have read the FDA FAQ, so I know what it says. But what percentage of pet owners have read the FAQ? You are using that FAQ to support your argument that FDA “has done enough” to report this info. My counterpoint is that having only 0.00000001% of pet owners take the time to sleuth out that FAQ is not acceptable.
You are saying the FDA and others should do more to get the word out about peanut butter — that didn’t kill ANYONE.
How can you argue two different points which have the same action by FDA? If the FDA published something on their website about the peanut butter, why isn’t that good enough? You think it’s good enough if they post something on their website regarding thousands of pet deaths and many thousands more pet illnesses.
I’m sorry, but you are essentially saying the FDA has done enough because these are pets. I couldn’t disagree more. But as you pointed out, it doesn’t even matter whether anyone agrees whether pets are “just animals” vs. members of a family... Everyone should be able to agree that the circumstances of this event are not acceptable because it could have just as easily happened in the human food supply... and everyone, even the people who say they are “just animals”, should be able to agree it would not be acceptable for the FDA to handle public notification this way if this were in the human food supply.
Incidently, you have proven one of my points with your peanut butter story: that people are sheep, and if the information isn’t spoon-fed to them, they won’t know anything about it. EVEN FR, as you said, doesn’t seem to notice or care about the peanut butter story because no one in an official capacity has told them they need to worry about it. It’s the same with the pet food - until someone in an official capacity makes a public announcement that the pet food recall is killing thousands, then people will continue to blindly trust and continue feeding potentially contaminated food.