I'm going to be on David Goldstein's radio show at 8:05 PM Pacific Time (11:05 PM ET), talking about developments in the pet food recall story ... it's streamed on the web at http://www.kiro710.com/. Listen in, call in if you have questions!
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I'm going to be on David Goldstein's radio show at 8:05 PM Pacific Time (11:05 PM ET), talking about developments in the pet food recall story ... it's streamed on the web at http://www.kiro710.com/. Listen in, call in if you have questions!
29 April 2007 in Creatures | Permalink | Comments (0)
This is a video of pets who don't count.
From Pets Need a Voice Too.
More info:
Pet Connection's main
recall page
pet food
tracker
the pet food
list
American Veterinary Medical
Assoc
FDA recall
page
29 April 2007 in Creatures, Reality | Permalink | Comments (1)
Tags: pet food recall
As reported on April 22 by FDA, the Agency determined that rice protein concentrate imported from China was contaminated with melamine and melamine-related compounds. The product was imported by Wilbur-Ellis, an importer and distributor of agricultural products. Although the company began importing product from China in August 2006, the company did not become aware of the contamination until April 2007. As part of the ongoing investigation, FDA has determined the rice protein was used in the production of pet food and a portion of the pet food was used to produce animal feed. The ongoing investigation is tracing products distributed since August 2006 by Wilbur-Ellis throughout the distribution chain.
The assessment that, if there were to be harm to human health, it would be very low, is based on a number of factors, including the dilution of the contaminating melamine and melamine-related compounds from the original rice protein concentrate as it moves through the food system. First it is a partial ingredient in the pet food; second, it is only part of the total feed given to the hogs; third, it is not known to accumulate in the hogs and the hogs excrete melamine in their urine; fourth, even if present in pork, pork is only a small part of the average American diet. Neither FDA nor USDA has uncovered any evidence of harm to the swine from the contaminated feed. In addition to the dilutional factor and the lack of evidence of illnesses in the swine fed the waste pet food, we are not aware of any human illness that has occurred from exposure to melamine or its by-products. While the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention systems would have limited ability to detect subtle problems due to melamine and melamine-related compounds, no problems have been detected to date. To further evaluate any potential harm to humans, the FDA is developing and implementing further tests and risk assessments based on the toxicity of the compounds and how much of the compounds consumers could be expected to actually consume.
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29 April 2007 in 2007 pet food recall, Pet Connection | Permalink | Comments (58)
Federal agents searched facilities of a dog and cat food manufacturer and one of its suppliers as part of an investigation into the widening recall of pet products, the companies disclosed Friday.
Food and Drug Administration officials searched an Emporia, Kan., pet food plant operated by Menu Foods and the Las Vegas offices of ChemNutra Inc., according to the companies.
[...]
Menu Foods also said the U.S. Attorney's offices in Kansas and the western district of Missouri have targeted the company as part of misdemeanor investigations into whether it violated the federal Food, Drug & Cosmetic Act. The sale of adulterated food is a misdemeanor.
Import records obtained by The Associated Press show that since May 2006 alone ChemNutra also imported 440,000 pounds of the second suspect pet food ingredient, rice protein concentrate, from the same Chinese trading agent that handled exports of the tainted wheat gluten.
[...]
Ten of the 11 containers of rice protein concentrate imported by ChemNutra over the last year went to undisclosed pet food companies, spokesman Steve Stern said. The 11th is under quarantine and being tested. But just one of the other 10 is known to have been tested; results from those tests, done last week, showed it was not contaminated, Stern said.
Scientists at the University of Guelph say they have discovered a chemical process that may explain how pets in Canada and the United States were affected by contaminants discovered in recalled pet food products last month.
They found that melamine and cyanuric acid - compounds identified as contaminants in the gluten that was used in the recalled pet food - react with one another to form crystals that may block kidney function.
Menu Foods said on Friday that ChemNutra was wrong in implying that suspicious wheat gluten used in its pet food may have come from other suppliers, since it did not start having problems with tainted supplies until it starting working with ChemNutra.
U.S. officials have said the wheat gluten used in pet food made by Menu Foods was tainted with melamine, an industrial chemical that is not approved for use in food, and is linked to a U.S. pet food recall that includes over 100 brands and could expand further.
"ChemNutra's statement is wrong, and unnecessarily alarms consumers," a Menu Foods spokesman said via e-mail.
After the 2001 terrorist attacks, the government and experts developed protections against an array of threats. But as time passed without new attacks, the sense of urgency drained away. In the case of foodstuff, the FDA's Import Strategic Plan fell victim to budget constraints, competing priorities and government inertia.
"The bottom line is that the United States is being overwhelmed with food imports, and they are not being screened by the FDA," said William Hubbard, a former FDA associate commissioner for policy and planning.
"A lot of time and effort went into it, and the best minds of the agency were brought in," he said of the import protection plan. "It wasn't approved or disapproved. It was basically, 'We can't do this because we have no money. This is all good stuff, and it should be done, but we don't have money.' "
There is, however, a new urgency. The chemicals implicated in the pet deaths, identified as melamine and cyanuric acid, were found in protein ingredients used in human foods, ranging from bread to veggie burgers. One of the most common of these ingredients is wheat gluten.
FDA investigators suspect the interaction of melamine (used to make plastics more pliable) and cyanuric acid (used to sanitize pool water) might have caused fatal kidney problems in pets. A possible reason for adding the chemicals is that in certain tests, they can make food ingredients appear protein-rich.
This week, the FDA announced that it was expanding testing for contamination of human foods, though none has been detected. China, a country with a reputation for lax safety standards, is a major supplier of ingredients in pet and human foods marketed by U.S. companies.
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28 April 2007 in 2007 pet food recall, Pet Connection | Permalink | Comments (158)
It's been 24 hours since the FDA last responded to my follow-up questions to yesterday's press conference about the pet food recall.
More than 24 hours since reporter (and veterinarian) Dr. Debbye Turner of CBS News asked "should we expect any additional voluntary recalls among pet food in the coming days and weeks?"
More than 24 hours since David Elder of the FDA replied to her, "We aren’t aware of any other potential recalls at this time involving either pet food produced from contaminated wheat gluten or from contaminated rice protein concentrate. As we say time and again, the investigation is open, we continue to follow the trail, but we don’t have anything else that we expect to emerge."
And yet, just before Turner asked her question and Elder made that response, Costco announced a recall of some of its Kirkland Signature dog foods due to melamine contamination in the food - contamination detected, they told me, by the FDA itself.
Which makes me wonder, wouldn't finding melamine in un-recalled pet foods in its own labs have itself been reason to "expect any additional voluntary recalls among pet food in the coming days and weeks"?
Then examine the fact that within 16 hours of Turner's question and Elder's reply, six recalls in addition to the one from Costco were announced - Harmony Farms, Natural Balance (expansion of previous recall with new products), Blue Buffalo (recalled their entire product line after recalling one run of one kitten food previously), Canine Caviar, Mulligan Stew, and Chicken Soup for the Pet Lover's Soul.
Seven new recalls, at least one of them prompted by a finding from the FDA's own testing, within hours of the FDA saying "we don’t have anything else that we expect to emerge."
UPDATE: I got an email from the FDA's press office at 7:39 PM Eastern Time:
We found later that other FDA officials did know about it but Captain Elder didn't have that information available when the telebriefing began. A press release from Diamond Pet Food has since been posted on our website http://www.fda.gov/... . We also expect additional recalls from Sierra Pet Products and Blue Buffalo Company. Attached is American Nutrition's announcement.
The very recalls I'd been asking him about, and that we'd already reported at PetConnection, yesterday.
Remind me again why we have an FDA? Oh yeah:
The Food Drug and Cosmetic Act of 1938 (U.S.C. Title 21, Chapter 9): "The FDA is responsible for protecting the public health by assuring the safety, efficacy, and security of human and veterinary drugs, biological products, medical devices, our nation's food supply, cosmetics, and products that emit radiation."
27 April 2007 in Creatures, Reality | Permalink | Comments (0)
Tags: FDA, pet food recall
OPERATOR: Next question comes from Debbie (sic) Turner. Your line is open.
REPORTER: Thank you. This is Debbie Turner (sic) with CBS News. As it relates to pets, are you confident that you have confiscated and contained all the melamine adulterated or contaminated, whether it be wheat gluten, rice protein concentrate, and should we expect any additional voluntary recalls among pet food in the coming days and weeks?
CAPTAIN ELDER: There was a recall announced today (PetConnection note: That recall was actually announced the day before) involving the rice protein concentrate. It was announced by Chenango Valley Foods. And in this announcement it covered the product Smart Pac, product produced, marketed by the firm Smart Pac that we mentioned during the last call on Tuesday of this week, and it includes additional products distributed by a firm called Foster and Smith. These again were associated with the contaminated rice protein concentrate. We aren't aware of any other potential recalls at this time involving either pet food produced from contaminated wheat gluten or from contaminated rice protein concentrate. As we say time and again, the investigation is open, we continue to follow the trail, but we don't have anything else that we expect to emerge. However, with the caveat, the inspection is ongoing and we are going to follow the trail until it ends, and if another recall emerges through that investigation that's what will be necessary to continue to protect animal health and we will make sure that we do that as expeditiously as we can.
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27 April 2007 in 2007 pet food recall, Pet Connection | Permalink | Comments (62)
Looks like Menu is placing the blame for the contamination of pet food that led to the massive ongoing pet food recall squarely on ChemNutra, the company that sold the pet food manufacturer wheat gluten contaminated with melamine.
And the Canadian company is doing it the American way: with a lawsuit.
From the Emporia Gazette, in Emporia, KS, where the plant that received the contaminated ingredient is located:
“Menu Foods prides itself on providing customers with wet pet food products made with high quality ingredients,” the company’s attorneys stated in the court petition, filed in Lyon County District Court. “In 2006, ChemNutra promised Menu Foods that it could supply one such high quality ingredient, wheat gluten to Menu Foods. ChemNutra breached its promise.”
The gluten came to ChemNutra from a Chinese supplier.
At Congressional hearings earlier this week, Menu Foods President Paul Henderson said the gluten may have been spiked as part of a fraud. Melamine is high in nitrogen, he said, and could make wheat gluten appear to be high in protein.
“What this appears to be is a case of deliberate contamination of wheat gluten in order to pass off substandard product,” Henderson told a U.S. House committee. “For a seller who knows how industry testing methods work, this would allow them to cheat the buyers.”
ChemNutra Chief Executive Officer Steve Miller, in a letter on the company’s Web site, said he feared his own company had been “the victim of deliberate and mercenary contamination” as well. He said the Chinese company that sold the gluten had been recommended to ChemNutra by a reliable source.
“We assure you that we will never again do business with the supplier of the suspect wheat gluten, XuZhou Anying Biologic Technology Development Co., Ltd.,” Miller wrote. “...We hope that U.S. and Chinese investigations of XuZhou Anying reveal what actually occurred.”
In the lawsuit, Menu Foods asks for a judgment “substantially in excess of $75,000.” It also asks that ChemNutra indemnify Menu against all costs associated with the recall and any lawsuits pressed against Menu as a result of the recall, along with any other damages the court chooses to assign.
Full story here. Here's the AP version
UPDATE: So far unconfirmed, but from a flood of email from readers, there may be another recall - Therese from thepetfoodlist.com and I are digging into it now.
UPDATE 2: I found it on the PetSmart press center website. It is an extended list of recalled products carried by PetSmart, that includes several Blue Buffalo foods, dated as having been added today.
These products are NOT referenced on Blue Buffalo's own website, which still states that only its one run of one kitten food was affected by the recall.
Update 3:Itchmo just got a press release from Blue Buffalo, which he has reproduced in its entirety here. Excerpt:
We at the Blue Buffalo Company have just learned that American Nutrition Inc. (ANI), the manufacturer of all our cans and biscuits, has been adding rice protein concentrate to our can formulas without our knowledge and without our approval. This is product tampering, and it apparently has been going on for some time. The can formulas that we developed, and trusted them to produce, never contained any rice protein concentrate. It appears that only an FDA investigation of ANI’s rice protein concentrate supplies forced them to reveal this product tampering to us.
While this activity by ANI is in itself unlawful, the situation is further clouded by the fact that ANI has been receiving rice protein concentrate from Wilber-Ellis, some of which the FDA has determined to be contaminated with melamine.
So while no BLUE or Spa Select canned product has tested positive for the presence of melamine, and there has been no reported illness due to any of our canned products, we simply cannot be sure of what ANI has been including in our formulas. For this reason, we have decided to remove all of our canned and biscuit products from retail distribution. While this may seem to many to be a major over-reaction, as other ANI customers will probably only recall the products that tested positive for melamine, we see this as a matter of integrity.
Update 4:And forwarded from itchmo, a press release from ChemNutra - seems the FDA searched ChemNutra's office today. And since Menu's suing ChemNutra, ChemNutra is doing some finger pointing of its own:
Steve Miller, Chief Executive Officer of ChemNutra, said “We have cooperated and complied fully with FDA investigators both prior to and since being served with today’s search warrant, and will continue to do so. We keep very good records which has made it relatively easy for the investigators to retrieve what they needed.” He added that, “We also now believe that our wheat gluten customer, Menu Foods, used significantly more wheat gluten monthly than we supplied to them, so we hope that Menu Foods will disclose its other sources to the FDA to ensure that any suspect product is quarantined.
“We placed our wheat gluten in quarantine as soon as Menu Foods informed us that it might have contributed to pet illnesses about which Menu Foods had apparently been aware for some time. We can only hope that Menu Foods has taken steps to ensure that this situation will not be allowed to spread even farther because of its inaction.”
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|Technorati Tags: pet food recall, dogs, cats,veterinarian, veterinary
27 April 2007 in 2007 pet food recall, Pet Connection | Permalink | Comments (109)
A reader of this blog told us yesterday that her local Costco was pulling pet food off its shelves, and an employee said it was because the food was "bad." None of the Costco Kirkland brand foods had been recalled at that time.
I contacted Costco but received a "no comment" response, along with a statement that someone else could contact me who could answer my questions.
Today at around 4 PM Pacific Time, I heard from Craig Wilson, Vice President, Food Safety and Quality Assurance for Costco.
He said Costco was informed last Friday at around 4 PM by American Nutrition, which manufactures their canned dog food (they do not make a canned cat food), that some of the Wilbur-Ellis melamine-contaminated rice protein powder had been used to manufacture some foods in Costco's Kirkland Signatures pet food line. He said Costco did not suspect their foods might have a problem prior to this because they were unaware that any ingredients in their food came from China, or that there was rice protein powder in any of their foods. Rice protein powder is not listed on the label; the label ingredient in question is "rice flour."
After hearing from American Nutrition, he immediately ordered all suspect foods removed from the shelves in all Costco stores nationwide. "Even with no test results yet from American Nutrition, I pulled it nationwide," he said.
During this afternoon's FDA press conference, CBS News' Debbye Turner, a veterinarian, asked the FDA's David Elder if there were any more recalls planned or pending. Elder answered no, he wasn't aware of any further pet food recalls that were planned at this time. He stressed the investigation was still open, and that they'd keep following the trail.
While Costco did not officially notify the FDA it was recalling the food until around 3 PM Pacific Time today, well after the press conference had ended, according to Wilson the FDA had already tested Kirkland pet foods, not subject at this time to any recalls whatsoever, and discovered one of them contained melamine.
Wilson stressed that Costco acted with caution to prevent harm to any pets who might eat the food. They believed their food was safe, and American Nutrition's own tests did not detect melamine in the food. It was FDA testing that detected the contamination. Wilson said that American Nutrition is working with the FDA, and that "many" other brands are involved, "not just Costco."
"The affected dates are from August '06-April '07," he said. "I'm sending a letter out to each and every person who purchased the dog food during the recall period and to make sure they get a full refund. There have been no out of the ordinary reports of illnesses on any of our Kirkland dogs."
Costco, he said, is not relying on outside testing to assure the safety of their pet foods. "We are testing everything, absolutely everything, internally. Pet food's under tremendous scrutiny right now." He said this includes their dry pet foods as well as canned, although they do not contain rice flour.
The recalled food is Kirkland Signature Super Premium Canned Food, item # 38436, best buy dates of Aug. 21 08 to April 15 of 09.
I wrote the FDA immediately after the press conference asking about the statement Capt. Elder made about there being no planned further recalls, and pointing out the Costco recall that had been announced that day. In an email at 2:34 pm PT this afternoon, the FDA's Michael Herndon said, "As Captain Elder said on the call we are not aware of any other recalls at this time."
I wrote back asking for clarification, and at 3:03 pm PT, received another email, stating, "We have not received any information from Costco regarding a recall so far today." He did not respond to further emails.
The question of how the FDA could state that they were not aware of any pending recalls in their afternoon press conference when they had already detected melamine in un-recalled foods - and as Wilson said, apparently not just in the Costco foods - remains an open one.
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|Technorati Tags: pet food recall, dogs, cats,veterinarian, veterinary
27 April 2007 in 2007 pet food recall, Pet Connection | Permalink | Comments (110)
I'll be liveblogging the FDA media teleconference at petconnection.com at 4:15 PM Eastern.
We were having some technical issues at PetConnection, but I believe they've been resolved. If there are any problems with the site during that time, I'll pick it up here on Dogged.
WHAT:
Update on Recall of Pet Foods
WHEN:
Thursday, April 26, 2007, at 4:15 p.m. EDT
MODERATOR:
Julie Zawisza
Assistant Commissioner for Public Affairs,
FDA
WHO:
Daniel McChesney, DVM
Director,
Office of Surveillance and Compliance
Center for Veterinary Medicine,
FDA
Captain David Elder
Director, Office of
Enforcement
Office of Regulatory Affairs, FDA
David
Acheson, MD
Chief Medical Officer
Center for Food Safety and
Applied Nutrition, FDA
Kenneth Peterson
Assistant
Administrator for Field Operations
Food Safety and Inspection Service,
USDA
26 April 2007 in Creatures, Reality | Permalink | Comments (0)
Tags: FDA, pet food recall
Go to the latest blog post | Go to the PetConnection home page
26 April 2007 in 2007 pet food recall, Pet Connection | Permalink | Comments (70)
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