[js1138]

The company is working with scientists from Cornell's College of Veterinary Medicine to pinpoint the cause. Cornell officials said yesterday they have so far been unable to locate anything in either the food or the tissues of dead animals that would explain causation in the illnesses and deaths.

They need to be looking for Castor beans (ricin) accidentally or deliberately dumped into the ingredients.

Or more innocently, there may be some generally harmless ingredient that just a few pets are allergic to. Consider peanuts and people.

[Zuben Elgenubi]

They need to be looking for Castor beans (ricin) accidentally or deliberately dumped into the ingredients. Or more innocently, there may be some generally harmless ingredient that just a few pets are allergic to. Consider peanuts and people.

Good points. Wheat gluten is mentioned as a possible problem area and chlorinated lipids cause pretty bad kidney disease. I suspect they'll focus initially right there.

[Vinnie]

They need to be looking for Castor beans (ricin) accidentally or deliberately dumped into the ingredients.

Possibly, although I think heat destroys ricin.

There are others, aflotoxin, ergot. Both common toxins associated with grains.

[marktwain]

"The company is working with scientists from Cornell's College of Veterinary Medicine to pinpoint the cause. Cornell officials said yesterday they have so far been unable to locate anything in either the food or the tissues of dead animals that would explain causation in the illnesses and deaths."

Sounds like media whipped up hysteria to me. No obvious causation and a minuscule number of cases. Every year, millions of cats and dogs die. Probably hundreds of thousands eat each major brand of pet food. Get a few hysterical pet owners who's pet died, that eat the same brand of food, and suddenly, in our hysteria "everything is a deadly poison" environmental wacko society, we get a recall.

I wonder if there is *anything* to it.