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.
If I may, I think the disconnect here between you and various Freepers re the pet food deaths and how it has been reported is this:
You appear to be an educated, intelligent, well-informed, well-connected, voracious news hound. So you (rightly) say that published reports by FDA and Menu Foods have generally said "16" is the "confirmed" number of dead animals, and eventually they said "there may be more."
I, and others, are looking at this from the perspective of Joe-Schmoe pet owner who is NONE of the things I listed about you above. The average pet owner gets their news at 5:00pm on their television set while they're busy cooking dinner or otherwise multi-tasking and hearing the news in the background. The pet food recall story on the local TV news says "16 pets have died from the recalled food." It does NOT include all the details of what the number 16 is derived from, what it means, it does NOT state that these are only the confirmed numbers and the true number may be much higher, it does NOT express the severity or urgency of this recall, and it does NOT list every single recalled product, it simply says "brands like Iams and Nutro and others are affected, for a complete list, go to MenuFoods.com"
So the average pet owner says to themselves, "I don't feed Iams or Nutro, so I'm ok." They don't realize there are 100 brands on the list. As a result, MANY pet owners continued to feed contaminated product.
This, in my opinion, is the difference between what you are arguing and what I and others are arguing. Reality isn't reality, Perception is reality. And if the media keeps reporting the "16", that is what pet owners will hear, and they will be lulled into a false sense of security about feeding these recalled foods. They will say to themselves, "16 dead out of 60 million recalled cans? I don't need to worry about it because the odds are soooo low that I would get one of the tainted cans. Here Fido - dig in!"