Posted on 04/09/2007 8:36:12 PM PDT by kellynla
Pet food contaminated with an industrial chemical may have sickened or killed 39,000 cats and dogs nationwide, based on an extrapolation from data released Monday by one of the nation's largest chains of veterinary hospitals.
Banfield, The Pet Hospital, said an analysis of its database, compiled from records collected by its more than 615 veterinary hospitals, suggests that three out of every 10,000 cats and dogs that ate the pet food contaminated with melamine developed kidney failure. There are an estimated 60 million dogs and 70 million cats in the United States, according to the American Veterinary Medical Association.
The hospital chain saw 1 million dogs and cats during the three months when the more than 100 brands of now-recalled contaminated pet food were sold. It saw 284 extra cases of kidney failure among cats during that period, or a roughly 30 percent increase, when compared with background rates.
"It has meaning, when you see a peak like that. We see so many pets here, and it coincided with the recall period," said veterinarian Hugh Lewis, who oversees the mining of Banfield's database to do clinical studies. The chain continues to share its data with the Food and Drug Administration.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
If this many humans had died I think it would be raging headline news....
Our first cocker lived 15 years..... I love cockers, we currently have three.
I only feed raw... no grains...
Oh, my. You don’t know what you are missing...... though Golden’s are wonderful dogs, too... just easier to have a lot of cockers at one time because of size... just look for a reputable breeder, it’s poor breeders that gave cockers a bad reputation... a well bred cocker is to love forever.
The Natural Balance is a little high in Copper and Cockers are a breed that is currently affected by copper toxosis, people don’t know if their dog is one until they have liver failure, so better safe than sorry and feed a diet from one of the high quality, lower copper foods available... I know not everyone is going to feed raw as I do, but there is some excellent grain-free kibbles available now.. (Raw instinct, Natures Logic is two that are good)
Believe it or not there was an article over the weekend that said they added melamine to increase the protein in the wheat.... shocked me...
class action lawsuit because a lot of animals died when they had afofloxin in their corn and dogs died... wasn’t until Cornel put two and two together that they pulled their food off the shelf, again a lot of dogs died as a result.
That looks just like my Lady.....
I didn't know that. But I can tell you that my 18 year old Cocker ate the NB for well over a year with no ill effects at all.
Our Pug and Papillon love the stuff and switching to that food seems to have cleared up a number of problems our Pug was having.
Thanks,
L
Remember an 18 year old cocker probably didn’t have the same predilictions our younger cockers may have. A lot of breeds are suffering inherited miasms from poor breeding practices, over vaccination and poor diets... I think getting your dog to 18 was a huge accomplishment.
Sorry, but when 615 vet hospitals see 284 more cats with kidney failure than usual during a period in which pet owners are being bombarded with warnings to rush Fluffy to the vet immediately at the slightest sign of symptoms (many of which symptoms these pet owners never previously realized were symptoms of kidney failure), this proves precisely NOTHING about the incidence of food-related kidney failure.
Frankly I’m surprised the number isn’t a lot higher. The background rate of kidney failure in cats is huge, and you’d expect that even without a single case of actual kidney failure, with this avalanche of warnings, at LEAST one cat owner out of every vet hospital’s usual clientele would rush Fluffy in based on having recognizing symptoms that had never been looked for previously (like increased water drinking and urination). But the vet hospitals in this chain have averaged less than half a cat extra. And they haven’t even mentioned how much increase there was in their total volume of visits, i.e. how many more people than usual brought their cats in to be checked, either just as a precaution or because of other minor symptoms of illness that wouldn’t normally have prompted an immediate trip to the vet, and were found not to have kidney failure.
The much lower estimate from Veterinary Information Services is probably a lot closer to the mark.
Timeline:
Feb 20th - Menu Foods receives first reports of problems with pet food.
Feb 26th - Menu foods commence tests on 50 animals.
Feb 26th & 27th - Menu Foods CFO sells half his shares for $102,900.
March 16th - Recall announced. Share price plunges
April 10th - CFO calls his stock selloff a horrible coincidence.
Hope your pup is okay, let us know what comes out :^)
So? The CFO isn’t likely to even be hearing about a handful of very preliminary reports of a possible problem with food contamination. And if the first tests were STARTED on the 26th, obviously there wouldn’t have been any results the same day. Even if he could have known, do you really think the CFO of a publicly traded company would be stupid enough to do something this transparent? To make himself permanently unemployable in his field (not to mention risk jail time AND disgorgement of profits), if he had reason to believe his current employer might be headed for bankruptcy, all for a maximum possible profit of US$90,000 (and as of now a profit of about $35,000)? The chances of not getting caught if this really were a case of trading on inside knowledge are precisely zero, and the CFO of a publicly traded company certainly knows that.
Sorry, but I work in the banking and securities industry, and am quite familiar with how insider trading schemes are pulled off, and this is not it. If he wanted to make money off insider info, he’d tip off some of his friends who don’t work for the company, advising them to sell the stock short (and/or to sell what they hold, if they’re already long) and making clear he expects a cut of the winnings.
You really need to get off this conspiracy theory stuff.
And which groups would those be? I haven't seen a single "group" claiming that number was the total even back to the beginning of all this -- much less now. Rather, there seem to be a lot of reading-impaired people claiming that various evil parties are claiming this is the total.
The very low numbers have always been cited as the absolutely confirmed cases, most of them the ones who died in Menu Foods' lab tests. These citations have ALWAYS been accompanied by further mention that it is believed many more pets have been affected, but that it's impossible to know how many. Since lots of things can cause kidney failure in dogs and cats, none of the cases reported prior to the identification of melamine (which is STILL not confirmed to be the main cause) could have been definitely blamed on the food. Also many people don't save old pet food containers and don't know for sure if their pet even ate any of the recalled batches. And few pets have been subjected to autopsies, much less autopsies including extensive toxicology tests that could confirm the presence of melamine.
It's odd how most FReepers are quick to dismiss poorly supported claims of huge numbers of Iraqis killed "due to" the US-led war there, but are quick to scream "cover up" if any media outlet or government agency declines to blame every kidney-related pet death in the US over the past 2 months on contaminated pet food, and mentions the number of deaths that are actually CONFIRMED to be from that cause.
I knew you would defend them. So I’m not suprised at your response at all. My concern, above all, is our food supply has been compromised and this should be a lesson to us all and damn the buying everything cheap crap before it’s too late.
What was in the cargo hold of the transport vessels before the ingredient?
This is a mess....
Anytime you want to say “It looks like you were right”... I’ll be right here.
If we’re going to learn important lessons that will help ensure the future safety of both human and pet food supplies, we’ll do so by focusing on reality, not on loony conspiracy theories.
I’m sorry to chastise you in a public forum like this, but your post illustrates several reasons all at once that you should have spayed your dog.
Frankly, you’ll be very lucky if your dog survives at this point, if she is 4-5 days past her due date.
I better stop before I go off on a tirade here.
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