Posted on 03/30/2007 7:27:19 AM PDT by sweetiepiezer
FDA saying Melamine in pet food.
Another report coming today.
>This claim needs to be taken with a huge grain of salt. This is a pet-owner reported list of affected animals, and many pet owners are absolutely clueless about the fact that kidney failure is extremely common in both cats and dogs. <
Yes it is. I have run a dog related list for 10 years and kidney failure is a common cause of death in dogs as well. It is connected to heart failure as well as old age.
It is also very common for our list to receive alot of "scare" emails that have claims of pet poisoning from one thing or another. The food one is the most common that I see.
I never forward them to my list members until I have checked them out to make sure they are for real and official. Over the years I have had only a handful of these types of emails pan out. This food recall was one of them along with the diamond food recall, the grape/raisin warning and the cocoa mulch warning.
People have gripes against drug companies & food companies. Some are PETA types, some are raw food feeders who think that the dog food manufacturers are the devil incarnate. Some are anti-drug/chemical people and some are pet owners who have had a pet die and want either someone to blame or someone to sue. I am not surprised that many of these types will come out of the woodwork now. One of their methods of attack is to start these warning emails hoping to damage a company's bottom line. Alot of people see nothing wrong with this as they have the liberal viewpoint that companies have deep pockets and deserve it. They fail to see the connection between a company losing money and the little guy losing his or her job. Or the consumer paying the price in higher costs. Some people think these emails should be forwarded before they are checked out as they may "save just one pet's life".
I just had one of these email forwards about a flea product. I think every flea product and heartworm product has had one of these claims made. The dog was 11 years old and died of cancer. The owner claimed it was from a flea product that she put on the dog just days before. A very fast growing cancer. Of course the dog's body was cremated, no formal complaint filed with the EPA and no necropsy done at the vet but people were to forward to everyone they knew.
I believe I have a responsibility to the companies involved in these emails and to my list members. I often call or email the companies involved and just ask them about it. When I forward a warning or recall I want my list members to know that the information is valid and not just hysterical junk.
I still occasionally see the killer clorox bleach email, the swiffer one & the killer febreeze too. And the media loves to whip people up into a frenzy over this stuff. People get hysterical.
Someone dropped the ball here and I think as sad as it is that people lost their pets, the more scary scenario is that this could have easily made it into the human food supply. If our pet's food supply isn't safe neither is ours.
Wheat glutten goes into a lot of things, and a large amount of poison had to be in the source material to cause this many problems. So who put it in there?
That sounds familiar. It can't be all that poisonous if it is used in the kitchen. Must be something else in the wheat that is poisoning the poodles.
I cook common rice with a little garlic, some kind of meat and some frozen mixed vegetables or whatever kind of vegetables I got and if I feel particularly generous I put some cheese or Cheez Whiz in it. My girl eats that stuff with great enthusiasm. I put a little salt on it and eat it myself. No strange additives. AND NO SMART REMARKS ABOUT THE CHEEZ WHIZ FROM THE CHEAP SEATS!!!
Carolyn
Carolyn
Carolyn, I posted a private response to you.
Maybe it is mentioned on the Internet sites you so laboriously searched, but I can tell you that I have not heard the word CHINA mentioned once on any MSM news station. How's that? Jeez.
As for your scenario of every pet owner freaking out and blaming the tainted food because their dog or cat is sick is simply not true. An obvious overreaction on your part. Your posts did provide us with some good information, like you're the smartest woman in the world (sorry, Hillary) and your are probably not a pet owner.
The media got the name wrong. Melamine is a formaldahyde-urea plactic that is non-toxic. The rodenticide was another amine compound.
Yes to the Melmac.
Very popular years ago.
We had some, it was light green kind of rectangular w/ rounded corners.
Very light but strong.
Plastic ashtrays were commonly made out of it. IIRC Formica countertops were/are melamine.
Laborious? It took less than a minute. And I first heard the China connection mentioned on WINS radio, a 24 hour news station in NYC which is a CBS affiliate.
For the record, I am the owner of 4 cats, including one very old cat who has had chronic kidney failure for over 4 years.
Have you always fed your dog that way, or just since the recall?
Couldn't be any crunchier, more tasteless, nor less flakey, than my ex-wife's pie crust.
..-..
I think your referring to flake board.
Melamine is that material they use to cover cheap kitchen cabinets that for example looks like white plastic laminate say, Formica, but it's not really...much thinner. That stuff usually goes over a cheap flake board core.
Hill`s Pet nutrition has just recalled it`s Prescription Diet m/d Feline dry cat food.
http://cbs2.com/national/topstories_story_089101540.html
Thank you both for being the voices of reason.
When I saw your post about your cat living 4 yrs with kidney failure, I rejoiced. Can you give me some advice?
ATLANTA, Ga., March 30 — Scientists with the Food and Drug Administration have linked a chemical to the illness and deaths of cats eating tainted food and raised for the first time the possibility that dry pet food may have been affected as well as wet food.
F.D.A. officials said at a news conference today that they have linked the chemical melamine, which they said is used as a fertilizer in Asia, to the kidneys of the affected cats. Thousands of owners of both cats and dogs who feed their pets wet or dry food have complained that their pets have become ill, but the F.D.A. has not yet determined if those illnesses are linked to pet food.
The agency has recalled a batch of contaminated Chinese wheat gluten that was sent to many pet food manufacturers, including one that makes dry dog food.
But they said they do not know yet if the contaminated wheat gluten has been used to make pet food. And the F.D.A.’s finding was also immediately disputed by the New York State Food Laboratory, the testing facility that announced last Friday it had identified Aminopterin, a rat poison, in samples of tainted cat food.
Because the F.D.A. identified melamine crystals in the kidneys of affected cats, the agency is presuming the illnesses are related to the chemical, said Dr. Stephen F. Sundlof, director of the F.D.A.’s Center for Veterinary Medicine.
<<snip>>
Jessica A Chittenden, a spokeswoman for the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets, said “We don’t think this is the final conclusion. Melamine is not a known toxin. There’s not enough data to show that it is toxic to cats.”
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