Note that Menu Foods had a 50% mortality rate (i.e. dead test animals) from their own internal live pet food tasting, and -sat- on the info until Iams advised they were going public.
IMHO Iams and other food producers should now be convinced that Chinese imports are bad for their bottom line.
Over three thousand dead cats and dogs from this debacle and in a week or two we will be reading about contamination in the human food supply.
Stay tuned!
Transcript from the Senate Hearing,
STUPAK: “I was surprised by your answer this morning, Mr. Henderson. If you take a look at the record and the timeline, March 15th was your first recall for all wheat gluten manufactured between Dec 3rd, 2006 to March 6th. March 24th was your second recall; you expanded to include additional dates. On April 5th, you had your third recall. On April 10th you had your fourth recall. So an immediate recall authority by the FDA would not have taken a month for you to recall your products. Correct?”
HENDERSON: “I would have to say that’s incorrect. The information that you’re looking on, the recall that took place relative to the date of March 16th, Menu Foods at that point in time did not know what the problem was.”
STUPAK: “Well, I’m not asking about the problem. My question was a recall, should, should we give the FDA the right to an immediate authority, and would it have made any difference. You said you didn’t think it would make any difference in this case, and yet the recall went on for about a month. I think an immediate recall authority for the FDA would have made a difference here.”
HENDERSON: “The, the recall that was initiated by Menu Foods and the, essentially as a result of following conversations with the FDA, we identified, this was the scope we’re proposing to do. Whether or not they might have come up with a different scope, that’s a valid point. They might have come up and said, recall more, or recall less.”
STUPAK: “But even before you - I don’t mean to be argumentative, here - even before you, at Menu Foods, and the FDA decided to recall, Iams had already told you they would no longer accept your product, and they were going to recall all food manufactured by Menu Food in, at the KS plant, right? So, really, IAMS was the first one to really start it, the ball rolling here that something was wrong. And I guess maybe what we’re getting at here is there’s also a corporate responsibility, instead of waiting for the FDA. If Iams, the pet food manufacturer sees a problem, and they’re recalling it, I would have hoped that the corporations would have done it without FDA authority. But even WITH FDA authority, if we could grant that to them, I think we could have maybe limited the scope of the harm caused throughout
our country.”
HENDERSON: “Well, again, relative to the facts as they actually transpired, the conversation that took place with Iams, they, they essentially shared some information with us. We got together the next day, and essentially in a, in a rather lengthy meeting, both parties exchanged what they knew. Being that individually there wasn’t enough information to, to draw conclusions. But together, it looked as from a circumstantial evidence perspective, as if we had the basis for a recall. They opted to recall, we went along. We announced first.”
STUPAK: “Iams sees the need for a recall, but almost two weeks before that, your own taste testing lab out of 20 animals, three died and six were dead That’s almost 50 percent; I would that would cause Menu Foods to be concerned and talk about a recall, or what’s going on here quicker, than wait until Iams forces the issue, and then the FDA, and on and on.”
Iams has now confirmed that account with us: That they would have launched their own recall if Menu hadn’t.
Ping!
Thank you for posting this Milwaukee_Guy.
Good for Iams.
I was surprised that a single company made a producdts for 100s of brands.
I thought General Mills was bad......
“IMHO Iams and other food producers should now be convinced that Chinese imports are bad for their bottom line. “
We truck soybeans into Doane’s petfood plant. It is the cleanest strictest facility around. (Drivers have to wear proctective clothing, suits, booties, etc.)
(You should see Cargill’s facilities and they produce foods for people.!!)
I was incredulous at this incident.
FDA is useless, and we still haven’t properly addressed the problem of this cr*p in HUMAN food.
I’ve gone to entirely gluten-free pet food.. And I hope my human food is as well, but who knows these days.
I’ve been in manufacturing my entire life and realize that “stuff happens”.
What is important is, that a mistake or defect is quickly identified and corrected.
Anything else is spin, unethical and in this entire China Import Debacle, a criminal matter.
Thanks for posting.
More on the China/FDA/Pet Food Recall debacle.
Kudos to IAMs.
Thank you soooooo much for posting this information!! I’m passing it on to all my friends and family. BTTT!
THX
Can’t we have a sign that shows a no-communist supply system? Cicle with x across, and hammer and sickle in the middle.
I’d think that might be a good selling point on many products.
****the article continues......
If you want your say on food-safety reform, Sen. Durbin’s office wants to hear from you.
Aren’t there any republicans that are on this?
Class action suit.
Go after the importers, the middlemen who sat on the news, and Cina too.
Make them pay till their profits for 200 years are used up.
Make an example of them now, of else we’ll be dealing with this once a month for ever.
The girl cat and the big gray boy cat. The boy had to have subcutaneous Ringer's lactate IV injections for two weeks to clean out his kidneys. He's doing much better now. I've never seen a cat that would eat anything like this guy. Takes a shower with my daughter and drinks water from a tap. He'll stand straight up on his haunches and stretch his paws skywards when he has to yawn. Look at the girl cat wrong, and she'll cut ya! Sleeps by my side every night. Otherwise stay out of her way!That's criminal behavior.
More from, http://www.petconnection.com/blog/2007/04/26/pet-food-recall-timing-and-triggers/#comments
Iams has now confirmed that account with us: That they would have launched their own recall if Menu hadn’t.
Why does this matter?
Because while we certainly do think the recalls should have been made sooner – and should be being made now, based on what the FDA already now knows and will not reveal to us – we shudder to think how much worse this situation could have been had Iams not muscled Menu into pulling all affected “cuts and gravy” product.
Would we have ever known there was a problem if they hadn’t? Before the first recall, veterinarians across the country were comparing notes and scratching their heads over the mysterious increase in acute renal failure in their practices. We had veterinarians wondering if the problems were local – such as in a pesticide incident, or serial pet poisoner – and those who were suspecting that something must larger was going on. But what?
The Menu Foods recall was the “AHA!” moment when it all made sense.
But had Iams not threatened their own recall based on their own internal tracking systems, would the rise in acute renal cases just been just a blip on the radar screen, a misunderstood and tragic aberation? Without Iams own internal investigation and the power they could bring to bear on their contract manufacturer, would we now have a massive FDA investigation into Chinese imports and their possible contamination of the human food chain? Two Congressional hearings? And much, much more?
These are all good questions, and we’ll never know all the answers. But it’s very possible that without the decision of one of the big pet food companies to take the hit entirely on their own, we wouldn’t know anything at all now, and many thousands more of our pets might be sick or dead, without anyone ever really knowing why.
China Bans Melamine in Food Products:
Ohhhhhh wowwww..... does anyone here still believe the CEO just happened to sell a big block of his stock before calling for the recall? they never would have done it if Iams had not applied the brakes.