That's the sort of side of effect of this hysteria that makes me think it's worthwhile spending some time trying to inject reason and perspective. If al-Qaeda decided to take advantage of the hyperfocused hysteria to slip something really awful into the human food supply, the time frame for detection and effective response would be tremendously slower than usual (and it's not clear the usual speed is anywhere near good enough).
FWIW, a veterinary researcher/professor who specializes in kidney issues is a consultant to an online group for feline renal failure that I participate in, and she put in her two cents worth yesterday. Her recommendation is to avoid all foods containing wheat gluten for now. She believes Menu Foods has been forthright and timely throughout this crisis. And she feels the most important thing to focus on is the safety of the food supply as a whole (i.e. humans are at risk too), and the risks associated with products and ingredients being imported form poorly regulated places like China.
Agreed. I just want to be sure that reason and perspective don’t cause it to be minimized because of the over-use of certain “down-playing” phrases/numbers, like repeating the “16” number over and over again.
And of course the “most important thing” to an individual pet owner who’s animal(s) are sick/dying/dead from this is different than the big picture “most important thing.” But yes, obviously this is a canary in a coal mine and should be a wakeup call regarding our entire food supply, pets and humans.
And I’m still not clear whether it was just chance that put this contaminated wheat gluten into the pet food supply rather than the human food supply, or whether it was intentionally diverted from the human food supply because SOMEONE knew there was a problem, and pets are “just animals” so it wouldn’t matter if some of them died. We need to know the answer to that. Did pets draw the short stick and it was just chance, or did pets get killed on purpose because someone knew this stuff would be deadly to humans?