Posted on 03/30/2007 6:23:02 AM PDT by Milwaukee_Guy
"Testing by the FDA and at least one lab independent of the agency found melamine, a chemical used in plastics and household textiles, in samples of the recalled pet food and in one of its ingredients -- wheat gluten -- said an FDA official and another source close to the investigation. Neither wanted to be identified prior to the FDA's formal announcement this morning."
"The FDA has not determined how melamine got into the pet food. Melamine is used as a fertilizer in Asia and has several commercial and industrial uses."
(Excerpt) Read more at pittsburghlive.com ...
If this were affecting humans, it would be lead story every night, front page news, etc.
The only reason it's picking up momentum again is NOT because of the number of animals dying (apparently that's not a story)... it's because of OTHER aspects of the story: the contaminant not being a certainty, the number of companies doing recalls, the addition of Dry food, etc.... anything BUT the actual sickness/dying of pets is the story at this point.
And did you see that in addition to Hills and Purina, now Del Monte has made some recalls too.
Saturday night recalls - when the corporate offices of all the pet food distributors and retailers in the country are NOT IN, so the foods will go another 2 days (at least) before being pulled from shelves. Sigh.
I just bought some Natures Logic dog food through Amazon..
Oh, good. A Natural Great Dane breeder was just saying this afternoon on one of the dog lists she is recommending it for her puppies. I'm so glad to see more and more natural foods available without grains and preservatives.
I hear you. We have friends who are grossed out by what we feed. He called last week to actually gloat that Science Diet hadn't been recalled and their dogs were still happily eating SD. oh and the dogs just had to get back in that week for updates on all their vaccinations. I pray nothing happens to their dogs, but sometimes I get so frustrated that people believe absolutely everything a vet says... I trust a vet for disease, surgery, etc... but they are being brainwashed and passing it on to their patients.
NOTICE:
Natural Balance® products are
NOT involved in the Pet Food Recall.
NO Natural Balance® products are associated with
Menu Foods, or any other company involved.
For more information, go to www.fda.gov.
>>>Aminopterin is used as a rat poison in China and is sprayed over their wheat crops.
Does this still meet the US FDA requirements for "organic"?
Country of Origin labeling must become MANDATORY!
Don't even get me started on vaccinations. I can't prove it, of course, but I believe my Shepherd's allergies were caused by a bad batch of vaccines.
And yes, I completely agree that Vets don't know nearly enough about nutrition. It's not what they are taught, so how could they know. I don't blame them, per se. But it is very sad that the general public presumes Vets know something about nutrition. If you think about it, that's like asking your Orthopedic Surgeon for nutritional advice. But consumers don't know any different, and Vets certainly don't say "Don't ask me, that's not my specialty."
Very sad how many pets suffer because of it. Yes, there are millions of pets who "survive" just fine on commercial foods. But there are also millions who suffer from commercial foods.
My local TV news has the recall story as their #2 story, and they included the Hills and Purina recalls, but they didn't mention the Del Monte.
Cripes, then they showed an adorable 5-month old Brittany Spaniel that they had shown last week when they first reported the story... the pup had ARF... she was euthanized last night. :-(
I only give parvo and distemper at 16 weeks and then nothing else.
I actually read a few months ago where a vet researcher stated about vaccinations that they vaccinate at X, Y, Z ages and then at 16 weeks for good measure since they cannot seem to be able to break the immunity barrier while the puppies are nursing and getting natural immunity from their mother.
Talk about an oxymoron, that statement was if I've ever heard one.
Geez, no kidding!
I haven't given my Ridgebacks any vaccines other than the puppy shots. I haven't even given rabies after the initial shot, which makes me out of compliance for licensing. I don't care. I'm not going to put my dogs at risk of a bad batch, especially when our rabies cases are limited to a few bats and a skunk or a raccoon or two every year.
And yes, reading what everyone is feeding is scary and sad... I KNEW I was feeding crap when I was feeding Iams. But I feel bad for everyone who doesn't know any better and thinks they are feeding a good food. I'm not kidding when I say that every time I bought another bag I got a sick feeling in my stomach and said to myself "Hurry up and order that Abady so you can stop feeding the dogs this crap." So in a way, this recall was good for my dogs because it was the catalyst that finally got me to get back to Abady.
Something I read on the Abady site about Whole Dog Journal bothered me a little.... I'm going to take a better look at it tomorrow when I'm fresher.. nite...
PS I realize when you are feeding large dogs things get a lot more difficult than when you have three small cockers like I have.
And I live alone and don't even cook or feed myself properly, so there's no way I would have successfully (consistently, reliably, faithfully) cooked properly for my dogs. I knew that about myself, so I didn't even bother trying it because I knew I would fall short, either in consistency, in complete nutrition, or simply in being too lazy to shop or cook today or this week.
When you get a chance, let me know what you found on the Abady website that bothered you.
It's a poor site-- I can't see where you can order the food
your dream gave me a revelation--- remember the video of the rats at Mcdonalds a few weeks ago? Now imagine these dog food places, I bet they are regular abbatoirs
they are overrun with rats, they are poisoning them by the thousands. To dispose of them, they just toss them in the pet food vats
There's the real reason, not "wheat from china", I'll bet
Now, when our manufacturing laws, when it comes to pets, is pretty pathetic, and Canada's is worse..... how could anyone buy any food made outside the USA with that piece of knowledge????
Yes, it's a poor site. That's why I said in most of my posts that you'll have to call the company and ask them for the name of a distributor near you.
As you can tell, they don't spend much money on advertising or websites. Those costs would have to be passed on to consumers, which they choose not to do. Their advertising is word of mouth.
Just call them or private message me and I'll give you the name and number of my distributor who is in Oregon, but she can ship by UPS anywhere. However, due to the cost of fuel these days, you might save a buck or two on shipping if you find a distributor closer to you if you're on the east coast.
That's one definite possibility. That's one of the reasons I hate poison for rodents... because animals can and do eat those dying rodents, and then they die.
I'm sure there are lots of pets who die every day from their "diet", but it's nothing that would be officially classified as a "poison"... But imagine if we tried to live on nothing but rice. We wouldn't keel over and die tomorrow, but we would eventually die from lack of a balanced and appropriate diet. Not poisoned, but definitely killed by our diet. I'm sure thousands, if not millions, of pets die from the same basic reason every year - inappropriate/incomplete/undigestible diet.
no,I'm in oregon too. I'll run it down, thanks buddy!
One of the disagreements is the use of 3-D meat -- I re-read their (for want of any other word) rant against WDJ very carefully and in this they say that yes, they do use 3-D meat that no pet food company can afford to use human grade meat.
BCA, that is just not true. Raw Instinct is organic, human grade meat and from what I can find out Natures Advantage is using high quality meats as well... but that aside, there is a lot of grain in the Abady. That would make it a non-starter for me, I feed zero grains to my dogs.
I wanted to look farther and there is a site that has very trustworty information, I know the list owner from other dog lists and she is very knowledgeable in what she talks about... here is the three foods she lists as not appropriate on her site:
Not recommended:
Animal Food Services (does not use human grade ingredients, includes cereal waste products)
Abady Frozen Diets (includes meat meal, corn and other grains, soy, and does not use human grade ingredients)
Bil-Jac Fresh Frozen (contains meat by-products and other foods from unnamed sources, cereal waste products, and other low quality ingredients)
If nothing more comes out of this sad situation (I understand Fox is still reporting 16 deaths when the number is in the thousands now) I hope it helps a lot of dog and cat owners to read more carefully and understand what ingredients mean, it is very important because anyone can made a really great looking website these days and say what they want, ingredients do not lie.
If a site like onlynaturalpet.com isn't offering the food, it's a good idea to take a second or third look. I listed earlier in this thread three links that help in learning how to read and understand ingredients.
This is the website I was referring to that is a gold mine for any and everything related to feeding our pets:
No, but Natural Balance Duck is too high in copper and if you have a breed prone to copper toxosis this would not be a good choice of foods.
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