Free Republic

(COLUMBIA, S.C.) — A company that made contaminated pet food that killed dozens of dogs nationwide will pay $3.1 million in a settlement with pet owners, an attorney said Friday. The pet food, which contained a mold called aflatoxin, was produced at Diamond Pet Foods' plant in South Carolina. The company will set up a fund to reimburse pet owners for the loss of their dog, veterinarian bills and the cost of any unreturned contaminated food, said attorney Jim Andrews, who represented a Knoxville, Tenn., family that sued the company. Diamond Pet Foods, based in Meta, Mo., acknowledged that workers...

The FDA Enforcement Report is published weekly by the Food and Drug Administration, Department of Health and Human Services. It contains information on actions taken in connection with agency Regulatory activities. REASON The rice protein powder was found to be contaminated with melamine and its analogs.

(TORONTO)--Canadian pet food maker Menu Foods is cutting its workforce by as much as 15 percent and raised the estimated costs of its tainted-pet-food recall by 22 percent. The largest maker of wet cat and dog food in North America said Wednesday the volume of customer returns and associated costs are greater than originally anticipated. It now estimates the costs at 55 million Canadian dollars (US$56 million; €39.59 million), up 10 million Canadian dollars (US$10.2 million; €7.21 million) from earlier estimates. Menu Foods Income Fund had 924 employees at the end of last year. Company spokesman Robert Merrick said the...

The pictures on pet food labels show dishes fit for a buffet table: A platter heaped with sliced tender beef covered in gravy, a brimming bowl of chunky stew. But do consumers really know what's in the can when they buy food for their cats and dogs? Some pet owners and animal advocate groups say no. Obscure labeling requirements keep shoppers in the dark, they say. And glossy packaging or advertising, showing meals styled to look like human cuisine, lead people to believe they are treating their beloved animals to qualityfoodalmost good enough for themselves. Ingredient lists must state if...

(FORT LAUDERDALE) -- The nation's leading veterinarian association has posted a warning to pet owners that Chinese-made jerky treats might be making animals sick. The American Veterinary Medical Association, which represents 75,000 vets,issued the statement last week after a member reported numerous unusual cases of dogs suffering from a rare kidney ailment, after consuming the treats. Most of the products were chicken-flavored....... ......Dr. Richard Goldstein, associate professor of veterinary medicine at Cornell University and part of the team assisting the FDA in its investigation, said most of the affected dogs are small breeds that had developed renal problems. Symptoms include...

(McLean, VA) - In the six months since Menu Foods Income Fund announced its recall of melamine-tainted pet food, the company's fortunes have changed drastically. The company has lost clients and now faces huge financial losses due to the cost of the recall, a drop in sales, and contract cancellations. Consumers whose pets became ill or died after eating tainted pet food are filing lawsuits against Menu Foods alleging the company did not do enough to protect their pets. Menu Foods' biggest client, Procter & Gamble, which sells food under the Iams and Eukanuba labels, has said it would no...

FDA Blocks Nutro Pet Food Shipment from Entering U.S. Products "appeared to contain poisonous substances and unsafe additives" By Lisa Wade McCormick ConsumerAffairs.Com August 28, 2007 The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in July blocked more than 100 Nutro Products -- various styles and flavors of its dog and cat food -- from entering the United States. ConsumerAffairs.com learned the FDA took that action at the Port of Los Angeles -- and listed Nutro’s pet food on its Import Refusal Report -- because the products appeared to contain poisonous substances and unsafe additives. The FDA has authority to block and...

Menu Foods has re-supplied Wal-Mart with previously recalled pet food after placing a new UPC code over the previous UPC codes. They claim that the re-shelved foods are completely safe and that the packaging is the issue, not the food inside. The decision to place new stickers over the old UPC code was reportedly made together with Wal-Mart. Menu Foods said all of the contaminated food was returned back to them after the pet food recalls in March. In order to put a “safe” product back on the shelves, Menu Foods and Wal-Mart put a laminated sticker with a new...

(LITTLE ROCK, ARK.) - Tests of two Chinese brands of dog treats sold at Wal-Mart stores found traces of melamine, a chemical agent that led to another massive pet food recall in March, a spokeswoman said Tuesday. Wal-Mart quietly stopped selling Chicken Jerky Strips from Import-Pingyang Pet Product Co. and Chicken Jerky from Shanghai Bestro Trading in July, after customers said the products sickened their pets. Company spokeswoman Deisha Galberth said 17 sets of tests done on the products found melamine, a contaminant that's a byproduct of several pesticides. "There were very small amounts of melamine found," Galberth told The...

AVMA, ACVIM offer opportunities to review the situation. Successes and failures in responding to the recalls of pet food were the subject of a panel at the AVMA Annual Convention in July. The recalls also were the topic of a panel during the June forum of the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine. Earlier in the year, ingredients from China that contained adulterants went into pet food in the United States. The manufacturers of the pet food, starting with Menu Foods, issued recalls after finding an association with renal disease. The situation has contributed to calls for more resources to...

A grieving cat owner has filed action in federal court to force the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to “perform its duty” and investigate other toxins -- besides melamine -- as the culprit in this year’s massive pet food recall. Don Earl of Port Townsend, Washington, also wants the court to order the FDA to stop what he considers “all activities (by the agency) involving the destruction of critical pet food evidence.” Earl filed his petition for a Writ of Mandamus on August 9 in Washington’s Western District U.S. Court in Tacoma. Barron’s Law Dictionary defines this action as “an...

(TORONTO) - The fallout from a tainted pet food scandal hit Menu Foods Income Fund (MEW_u.TO: Quote) again on Tuesday, when its biggest customer said it would stop buying some of its products in the fourth quarter. The unnamed customer, whose total purchases made up nearly 10.8 percent of Menu Food's sales volume in 2006, said it would stop buying 'loaf' products from the company beginning October 1, Menu Foods said in a statement. Earlier this year, the same customer said it would stop purchases of other Menu Foods products. "Menu Foods is disappointed in the reaction of this customer...

Two of the pet food samples that tested positive for the painkiller acetaminophen are Menu Foods’ Pet Pride "Turkey and Giblets Dinner" and Pet Pride "Mixed Grill,” ConsumerAffairs.com has learned. As we reported last week, a Texas laboratory discovered acetaminophen in about a half dozen samples of pet food tested in May. The lab did not disclose the pet food brands because of a confidentiality agreement. After our story was published, however, we heard from a consumer who paid ExperTox Inc. of Deer Park, Texas to analyze samples of pet food. That consumer is Don Earl, who says his cat...

U.S. District Judge Noel Hillman has ordered Menu Foods and/or their agents to have no further contact with consumers of the pet food recall products without the involvement of the consumers' attorneys. Judge Hillman called the endless telephone calls to consumers " abusive and harassing." As if pet owners had not already been put through enough with this pet food recall nightmare. Most consumers' pets who ingested the contaminated pet food have become seriously and permanently ill and thousands have died. Now, it seems, representatives of the insurance company representing Menu foods, Crawford and Company, think nothing of calling and...

The tainted pet food scandal that rocked the industry proved to be a defining event for Secaucus-based Freshpet. Three months ago, sales of the manufacturer's line of frozen dog chow were increasing steadily. Then cats and dogs across the country began dying of kidney failure after eating chemically contaminated food from China, and Freshpet's business soared. While major pet food companies were recalling millions of containers of moist pet food, sales at Freshpet were more than doubling, said principal Scott Morris. The company's dog dishes are now sold in nearly 1,000 stores, compared with 350 before the scandal erupted. "We...

TORONTO (CP) - Units in Menu Foods Income Fund (TSX:MEW.UN) shed more than one quarter of their value Tuesday as investors and customers continued to desert a beleaguered pet-food giant still struggling to put a months-old poisoning scandal behind it. Less than a day after the Mississauga, Ont.-based company said one of its biggest customers had dropped a large order, Menu units had lost $1.04, ending an active-trading day on the Toronto Stock Exchange at $3.05 - a whopping 25.4 per cent loss. Robert Silgardo, an analyst at Dundee Securities Corp. in Toronto, said it's not surprising customers are fleeing...

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is investigating a Texas laboratory's finding of acetaminophen in dog and cat food, an agency spokesman said Monday. "We're very interested in being able to test these samples ourselves to determine the levels of those contaminants," said FDA spokesman Doug Arbesfeld. "What's significant is these things are there. They don't belong there." ...The contaminants were found in foods that are not among the more than 150 brands recalled since March 16

The same industrial chemical that led to a massive pet food recall was used in animal feed ingredients made by a U.S. company, health officials said Wednesday. The announcement by the Food and Drug Administration was the first indication that a U.S. company had used melamine as an animal feed ingredient. Agency officials said that melamine and related compounds were used to bind feed for cattle, sheep and goats, or fish and shrimp. Previously, the problem of melamine in animal feed was thought to be contained to China, where manufacturers had added it to wheat gluten. Melamine is not approved...

...The company was at near-peak capacity before the Menu Foods recall hit in mid-March. Now Evanger's is running longer shifts and looking for a larger facility as it struggles to keep up with demand, said Holly Sher, president and co-owner with her husband, Joel. It has put in a bid on a 70,000-square-foot food manufacturing plant that would triple its capacity, she said. Until then, the Shers are turning down new business. "I can't keep up. I'm freaking out about it," Holly Sher said, noting that some of the company's private label customers and its distributors are frustrated that they...

BEIJING -- China's former top drug regulator was sentenced to death today for taking bribes to approve untested medicines, as the country's main quality control agency announced its first recall system targeting unsafe food products. The developments are among the most dramatic steps Beijing has publicly taken to address domestic and international alarm over shoddy and unsafe Chinese goods -- from pet food ingredients and toothpaste mixed with industrial chemicals to tainted antibiotics. The Beijing No. 1 Intermediate People's Court convicted Zheng Xiaoyu for taking bribes in cash and gifts worth more than $832,000 when he was director of the...