Pet food recall: Sunday night news and open thread

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Welcome to PetConnection.com's Sunday night news and open thread. Gina is still purring with her new kitten, and I'm laughing at this new t-shirt from the folks at Pets Need a Voice Too. I may need to buy two or three of these.

You can purchase the shirt, seen in the photo, here. We don't benefit in any way from the sale of these shirts, other than to be vastly amused by them.

More news: Therese, the intrepid pet food detective at PetSitUSA.com and ThePetFoodList.com, and I have both worked for several years for Jeff Barringer over at PetHobbyist.com. Jeff is a great guy, with two beautiful Rhodesian Ridgeback rescue dogs, Sasha and Gus, who are the loves of his life. He also has two tortoises and an African grey parrot named Bob. Jeff has been wonderful at letting Therese and me take time away from our jobs to focus on the pet food recall story, and he's offered the website's chat program for us to use to have a special "power bloggers" panel discussion on the pet food recall.

Every since the recalls began, there has been a group of bloggers who knew the story was bigger than most people thought at first. We began compiling data, comparing information, collecting personal stories, and digging for facts. Since then, there have been dozens of additional recalls, threats to the human health supply, a re-evaluation of international food safety standards, and a rising wave of frightened and angry pet owners.

This coming Tuesday evening, May 8, at 10 PM Eastern Time, PetHobbyist.com invites you to join us for a panel discussion on the recall with:

Gina Spadafori and Christie Keith of PetConnection.com

Ben Huh of Itchmo.com

Therese Kopiwoda of PetSitUSA.com and ThePetFoodList.com

Kim Duke of PetFoodTracker

To receive a free email reminder of the special chat, sign up here. For complete instructions on how to attend the chat, go here. It's free, you don't need to register or download anything, but you do need to make sure your browser is Java-enabled. And yes, please cross post and help spread the word.

Gina finally got the blood and skull fragments and gray matter out of the blog, so let's try to play nice. Think soothing thoughts of her new kitten Clara, who is purring on Gina's shoulder as she tries to finish up her book deadline. GO GINA!

Update: Interesting article dated tomorrow from the Washington Post, which apparently lives in the future, all about the chemical and scientific aspects of melamine, cyanuric acid, ammeline and ammelide - the last three being called in FDA media briefings "melamine-related compounds," perhaps so as to diminish the perception that there are four toxins present in pet food:

Scientists seeking the chemical culprits in the widening pet food scare have come across some unusual chemistry that may help them understand how two largely nontoxic compounds ended up killing an unknown number of cats and dogs.

At the end of March, investigators detected a man-made compound called melamine in wheat gluten produced in China and sold to U.S. manufacturers as a pet food thickener. The contaminated samples contained various amounts -- from 0.2 percent to 8 percent -- of the chemical.

Melamine has been used for decades in manufacturing. In its chainlike "polymerized" form, it is used to make dishes, flame-retardant fibers and industrial coatings.

Also found in the gluten in smaller concentrations was cyanuric acid. The man-made chemical is used to stabilize chlorine in outdoor swimming pools, especially in regions such as the American Southwest where the sun's rays are quick to dissipate that disinfectant. Two other compounds, ammeline and ammelide, were present in even smaller amounts.

The four compounds have similar chemical structures. One can easily be made into another with the right chemical reaction. All contain relatively large amounts of the element nitrogen. Of the 15 atoms in a molecule of melamine, six are nitrogen. It also has three atoms of carbon and six of hydrogen. Ammeline has five nitrogen atoms, ammelide has four, and cyanuric acid has three.

Full article, in all its science-wonky glory, here.

Update 2: This one from Gina via email. It's an editorial by David McNaughton in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that really gets the big picture of this story, about why it's not about pet food or human food, it's about food. And guess what? "Thousands of pets" have died, not sixteen! Imagine! After stating that "the globe is our grocer," it says that the globalization of the food supply, while it has benefits, also means Americans are at risk from adulterated and dangerous imported products.

That lack of reach has been made all too obvious by the contamination of pet food ingredients imported from China. The presence of melamine, an industrial chemical used by unscrupulous Chinese suppliers to raise the apparent protein level in processed food ingredients, was detected only after thousands of pets in the United States became ill or died after eating tainted pet food.

The contaminant also made it into our human food supply when scraps from pet food production were fed to hogs and chickens in the U.S.

McNaughton isn't any more optimistic than I am that David Acheson's appointment as "food safety czar" is going to make that situation better any time soon - or ever:

In response, the Food and Drug Administration has created a new position of "assistant commissioner for food protection," or "food czar" as the post was dubbed by the media. Unfortunately, the appointment of a czar falls well short of what's needed, which is an outright revolution in how we safeguard the food supply.

He went on to outline just why that matters, and how dire the situation truly is.

Certainly, the FDA cannot protect every American from food-borne illness or death. But when you consider that more Americans die each year from what they eat than were killed in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, surely it has room to improve.

In fact, right after those attacks, federal officials initially did demonstrate a sense of urgency about possible "agro-terrorism." "I, for the life of me, cannot understand why the terrorists have not attacked our food supply, because it is so easy to do," Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson observed in 2004 as he left office.

Since then, however, time has dulled the appetite for vigilance; the FDA still inspects only a tiny fraction of incoming agriculture products.

What should we do about it: He has a suggestion:

The FDA can't enforce American standards on foreign producers. But the United States can and should use its leverage as a major buyer of goods to insist that foreign governments do a better job of screening edible goods before they are exported.

Or, as Acheson suggested in yesterday's Baltimore Sun article, we could do some more research and not, you know, actually do anything.

Stuff we missed? Email us or post here! You know me, I never sleep.

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Comments

[Kat]

Hahaha...nice shirt!

[The OTHER Pat]

SPEW ALERT!!!!



You owe me a new monitor!!!!



Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!

[Phyllis]

probably asked this in the wrong spot...is anyone listening to Itchmo on Pet Central?

[Christie Keith]

ACK! I FORGOT!!!!!!!!!!! OMG I hope it's archived!

[mal]

RE:Comment by Phyllis — May 6, 2007 @ 6:43 pm



I have been listening..not much news but Durbin shuld be on in just a bit

[Laura]

Boy, there's NOTHING more helpful to a writer than a new kitten. :)



Gina, hope everyone's happy and well. Sounds like you've got yourself a new muse. Or perhaps "familiar" would be more appropriate. :)



Much joy to you both.

[Gina Spadafori]

Christie ... Today is Sunday, not Saturday. :)



Maybe you haven't got all those brain cells put back in yet.

[Christie Keith]

At least I knew it wasn't Mother's Day.

[Therese]

"Pet Food Detective" Hey...I like that!! ;-)

[Phyllis]

Gina: I asked via e-mail to steve dale. He responded during the show...didn't get much of an answer as to why he was negative about petconnection...something about promoting cooking for your pets...maybe it will make more sense to you than me.

[Donna]

Is there any one place where someone is compiling a list of action steps for pet owners? I know there has been mention of write your gov't. rep. What else can and should be done?

I have serious concerns if there is not some strong organization to this effort it will simply lose strength and be dropped from media coverage. Especially true with recent reports that one pet food company has already removed recall info from its website.

[slt]

Comment by Phyllis — May 6, 2007 @ 7:39 pm



hmm. Sounds like a case of "Damned if ya do, damned if ya don't"

[Sharon]

Donna, please go to itchmo's forum and click on the Making a difference heading.

[Elaine]

I had posted earlier that we need to make a concerted effort.



My first thought is that we should all contact Chairman Collin Peterson and Ranking Minority Member Bob Goodlatte of the House Committee on Agriculture.



Phone 202-225-2171

Fax 202-225-8510



The House Ag Committee is having a hearing on Tuesday, and will be covering food safety, Country of Origin Labeling, USDA's proposal to allow cattle of any age to be imported from Canada, and who knows what else. There was a link earlier today to a press story about this.



Faxes and phone calls are better than email.



It is good, when you send the fax to cc. to your own State Representative and Senators (that way your letter serves the purpose of sending 3 letters) Also cc to the FDA, USDA, and whoever else you can think of.



I think, if everyone would do this tomorrow, we would certainly get their attention!



It would be good if someone would write up a set of talking points for folks to use when making calls.

[Gina Spadafori]

Phyllis: Thanks for asking, but honestly ... I don't care what he thinks. As I said before, it's his problem, not ours.



Sure don't get the "cooking at home" thing, though, unless he was confusing his show with our blog. He has featured two "cooking for pets" authors since this started. Both good ones, by the way: Arden Moore and Liz Palika. We know them both, and respect them. So no complaints there!



For us, though, the issue has never been anything more than this basic one: You buy a food product, and the very minimum the company and the government should be working to ensure is something that won't sicken or kill you or your pet.



Doesn't matter what the brand is, food ought to be generally non-toxic. Not sure I understand what's so controversial about that.



Oh, and we'd like the government not to lie to us, either.



If you want to home-prepare pet food, you should be able to do that, too, without "experts" scaring you into believing it's so complicated that the FDA's Dr. Sunloff can't even manage it. (As he said in last Thursday's media briefing.)



Sure, you need to do your homework, and we recommend consulting your veterinarian. But after all that, if you want to prepare your pet's meals at home, more power to you.



We bet you manage to feed yourself and your kids without checking in with your physician constantly, after all.

[Gina Spadafori]

Christie: Point well taken.

[Elaine]

I went to Itchmo's forum and thought the ideas were good, but I do think we need to concentrate in a big way on Congress. I sent an earlier post about contacting the House Committee on Agriculture before their hearing on food safety Tuesday, and it is apparently still flying around in cyberspace. Hope it shows up soon, I don't want to type it all again.



This earlier post was in response to Donna

[Sharon]

re: Home feeding



Bizarre as this sounds, do you know how many times in the past week I've looked at these cats of mine and wished they were dogs because they wouldn't be overly persnickity and would more easily eat home- made food?



Strange but true :)

[Sharon]

Elaine, we have done what we can with Congress. They are addressing it as they can, they also have other things to do and of course, their vacations are coming up soon. Which is why it was suggested that we attack from another angle.



Legislation is great. Durbin and DeLauro are great. But we need to look at what can be done to help the situation right now.

[Elaine]

Sharon,



I just thought a flood of phone calls and faxes right before the food safety, COOL etc hearing would be helpful. I have worked on other issues and commented at hearings on the state level, and, sickening as it is, they do seem to go whichever way the wind blows instead of doing what is RIGHT!



But I agree, we need to do other things, as well, and this is certainly a criminal situation.

[Jen]

Thanks for posting about our shirt at PNV2!!!!

And a special thanks to Marna (one of our city coordinators) for coming up with the idea!

Jen

[Phyllis]

Gina: Well, I don't really care what he (steve dale) thinks either. I have found both this website and Itchmo very supportive and helpful. I will keep coming back. Thanks a million for all your hard work!

[Sharon]

Elaine, my first draft of the AVMA letter is posted on that thread. Open for many edits and plus, it can be stolen/hijacked and made someone's own with no complaints from me.



Create a thread over the for immediate action on the hearing and I'll help spread the word. It gets lost in the blog.



I'd love nothing better than to help with this. We;ve got 1 1/2 days. That's plenty of time ;)

[Elaine]

Sharon,



Only problem here is: I am a technogeezer (Aunt Granny calls us that) and your suggestion to Creat a thread over, is way over my head and beyond my capabilities. :) Don't laugh at me.



My post with the numbers for the House Ag Committee was at 7:59



I am not too good at talking points.

[Elaine]

Sharon, I know what you mean about things getting lost in the blog.



So many folks have said so many good things that would be good talking points. but they are now here and there.



Guess I should have been jotting a few down, huh?

[straybaby]

"their vacations are coming up soon."



so what?! food still needs to be safe! ;) we need to keep pounding away at the law makers daily. yes they have other things to do, but this is also a matter of National Security I would think. And we have been listening to 6yrs of terror talk, so I think they need to listen and listen good. I want the front runners making noise on this, I want state officials across the country making noise about this. The media will not pay enough attention, so we need to keep the politicians in the loop and bugging them. WHY the whole darn country isn't outraged by this is beyond me. The government is supposed to be working FOR US. So let's make them. And lets get them to start speaking about it so the media has no choice but to listen (or at least air some of those sound bytes nationally)



AND we need more than a *misdemeanor* criminal investigation. That's just absurd!!



We also need to identify all the groups that would benefit by the very things we want and make sure they are out there speaking up.



Sorry for the mini rant! I'm just very afraid this will get swept under the rug. Websites are moving the recall to the interior pages and the FDA is saying all clear from a guy who's been on the job for less than a week along with announcing they will be doing nothing. GAH!and come tomorrow, 20 million chickens will be just fine to eat and we'll get another lesson in the *dilution factor* OY!

[Marilyn]

Just found this article on EINNEWS.com. Maybe the winds of change in China are beginning to blow in our favor...



http://tinyurl.com/2p2eb6



China's New Economic Model by Joseph E. Stiglitz



"Today, China is discussing a “new economic model.” Of course, the old economic model has been a resounding success..."



"Equally interesting, China is attempting to move away from the export-led growth strategy that it and other East Asian countries have pursued. That strategy supported technology transfer, helping to close the knowledge gap and rapidly improving the quality of manufactured goods. Export-led growth meant that China could produce without worrying about developing the domestic market.



But a global backlash has already developed."



The article goes on to explain how China is considering focusing more on domestic development instead of exportation. All of which sounds like a good idea to me - both for them and us.

[Steve]

Steve Dales an entertainer and "personality".

His job is to keep the sponsors happy. Not talk tough issues.



The "Ann Landers of the pet world."



http://www.bdrp.net/

[carly]

I LOVE the FDA t-shirts. But...why are only a few of the numerous styles shown marked "Made in the U.S.A."? And the rest are made--don't tell me--I don't want to know.

[straybaby]

what qualifies him to be "America's Pet Expert, Steve Dale"?

[Donna]

Thanks for the responses and ideas for action steps.



Another thought after initial contacts with gov't - someone menitoned Iams had removed its recall info from their website. Consider how many pet food companies are owned by large corporations. If you want the potential of a true economic impact then look at the number of products Iams' parent company has in its portfolio. Hint: 104. Now, how many people in the US own pets? Pet owners can move their purchase power ($) elsewhere. It doesn't have to be a threat, simply stated if I cant trust you to provide safe, quality food for my dog, I cannot in good conscience continue to support your other products.

[Steve]

Thats why he's against Home Cooked Diets probably.



Wouldn't get the big buck sponsers.

[Steve]

Comment by Donna — May 6, 2007 @ 8:58 pm



120 Million pet parents. My advise is to halt immediately buying from the supermarket chains and big box pet stores and start supporting local smaller pet and feed shops operations.



Thats would be a big step. They'll appreciate your business and the service will be higher quality.

[straybaby]

"I can't trust you to provide safe, quality food for my dog, I cannot in good conscience continue to support your other products."



Now that would be a nice simple postcard blitz to Corp Heads.



We mustn't forget Vitamin/supplement manufactures in this either. We need to let them know that we would like our raw ingredients from countries that have comparable standards (or superior!)to ours. No point in having good gluten if the Taurine is poison ;)

[Laura]

Hey, Christie, thanks for the geeky goodness link to the WaPo article - (intro) - but dang, would it KILL 'em to provide a little context on the side?



As in - "two innocuous chemicals"? Well, one could (and many have) argue the relative non-toxicity of melamine in small doses - but cyanuric acid?! In whose universe is that stuff innocuous?



Anyway, thanks for the update as always, and I'm glad the Post is keeping it appropriately geeky for those of us who appreciate a little science at the breakfast table - but I guess I'm saddened that the issue of why this matters and what's at stake seems to take second place to the science. :( Especially in a town like DC, where what one reads over breakfast might actually *influence* something on occasion.



Okay, enough kvetching. At least they're writing about it, right?

[Christie Keith]

Yeah, at least they are. I have something a reader sent me that I need to run past some science types to even understand, but I might have something sciencey to report this week, too! We'll see where it goes.

[CathyA]

They just did a bit on NPR about melamine and mentioned since all countries know our FDA is underfunded and undermanned, they don't have to worry about what they send us.



Last night I was looking at melamine in other countries. EU actually has tolerances set in meat due to use of cryomazine (an IGR insecticide which the body metabolizes into melamine at the tune of 10%). EU has also done studies on plasticware. Not that much melamine migrates of out melaware, but formaldehyde does and some of it was so poorly made it actually smelled when hot food was put on it. Most of these are made in China and a good portion of them have current cartoon characters on them. Yep they're all for kids.

[safefoods]

Soneone suggested that human food groups would be a good idea now that many of us are feeding our pets human food.



Here are two:



http://foodpolicy.wetpaint.com/



http://safefood.wetpaint.com/



Has anyone else started a blog, webpsge, site, wiki, or another venue?



If so, please list them.



Thank you in advance

[The OTHER Pat]

Donna - to clarify:



IAMS removed the recall information from their *homepage*, not from their website.



It's still there. It's just that now you have to click the "What's New" button to get to it.

[The OTHER Pat]

Here's where they put it:



http://us.iams.com/iams/en_US/jsp/IAMS_Page.jsp?pageID=WN

[Peggy (AKA: Big Fat Momma Cat)]

http://www.tricities.com/tristate/tri/news/consumer.apx.-content-articles-TRI-2007-05-06-0025.html





in the side bar under the pic:



"MGP Ingredients Inc. in Atchison, Kan. Monday, April 30, 2007. MGP, the nation's largest producer of wheat gluten, is operating at only 20 percent capacity due to increased competition from foreign suppliers."

[Peggy (AKA: Big Fat Momma Cat)]

http://www.agweb.com/get_article.aspx?pageid=135811&src=gennews





"USDA today announced that some hogs and poultry that had been withheld from the market can be processed for slaughter while others are still to be held off the market pending further review."



"Today's announcement ... does not specify how many animals are released for slaughter and how many animals are being held."



"In several cases, feed samples have tested negative for melamine and related compounds. These tests were conducted by federal laboratories or state laboratories using approved methods. It is assumed that because only small amounts of the contaminated feed were mixed with other rations, the melamine and related compounds were no longer detectable. USDA has concluded that, based on the human risk assessment and the inability to detect melamine in the feed samples, these animals no longer need to be quarantined or withheld from processing."



"In other cases, feed samples have tested positive for melamine and related compounds; feed samples were not available; or feed samples have not yet been submitted for testing. These animals continue to be withheld from processing, but are not yet being culled, pending the results of the animal risk assessment. This assessment is expected to be completed within one week."

[Peggy (AKA: Big Fat Momma Cat)]

http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/!ut/p/_s.7_0_A/7_0_1OB?contentidonly=true&contentid=2007/05/0129.xml



Would like to see some proof of this:



"Scientists also calculated the risk if melamine were present in all the solid food consumed by an individual every day. The amount consumed is still approximately 2,500 times lower than the level considered safe. These individuals are still extremely unlikely to exhibit any adverse health effects."

[Maudigan]

If the headlines where slightly tweeked, say instead of pet food producers getting this tainted protiens/glutens some major bread producers got it all. They sent it all out into the market.

People started showing up in hospitals all over the nation, with those horrid symtoms our pets showed.

The same numbers, some 20,000 people effected. Offical numbers.

Recalls start drifted in, then more, then a few here and there. Missing shipments. No one can tell Americans which products are safe or not.

How far fetched was this from being the case? Not far enough. Way too close.

[Kim]

Re: the Iams link - they haven't changed the link, it's just not on their home page anymore. (Which totally sucks.)



And fyi - links to the 14 Major National Name Brands of recalled food are always on the list I have over at Pet Food Tracker, and I check them every time I update the list in case they change. (Links are actually on both of the lists...)

[Peggy (AKA: Big Fat Momma Cat)]

mash the 2 parts of that link together to get to the reference

[JanC]

Let me save everyone lots of money for all this testing.....I already know the results.



Safe for human consumption due to the dilution factor. Geez, how can I see into the future like that? Bet me everyone else could've come up with the very same thing. They should save the taxpayers' dollars because they already know, as we do, what the results will be.



I just wish the pet food companies would come forward & tell us exactly what they plan to do to reassure us that feeding our pets their food is a safe thing to do. So far, I've only seen one step up to the plate. I check some of the websites to see if they have anything posted....NOT....everyone is amazingly silent on this topic.



Home cooking is great, my dog is doing super but not sure about long term.....I'd like to go back to dog food with home cooked added in instead of the opposite.



Love that tee....cracked me up.

[Kim]

Grrrrr. The melamine may be safe, but what about the cyanuric acid, and what about the cyanuric acid / melamine combo?



We're being killed by idiots.

[Peggy (AKA: Big Fat Momma Cat)]

That is what I want to know also, Kim.



They say nothing of cyanuric acid or testing for it in pork or chicken.



It's the combination that kills!



Plus, what about other contaminants? That Chinese wheat germ is filthy!!!

[mal]

RE:Comment by Kim — May 7, 2007 @ 6:20 am





You are exactly right!!



Our pets have been eating melamine laced pet food for quite possibly a long time,with no supposedly harmful results. But throw a few other chemicals in there or a chemical breakdown due to higher heat in processing or whatever (WE REALLY DON'T KNOW..DO WE)and look at the tragic results.



Plus the unknown element..pets or people on antibiotics or other drugs, weaker immune systems..any number of other variables that could interact with a "safe" ingredient..mix this all together and ther is no way of knowing what the results could be.



There is NO WAY the FDA can say that there are no reasons to be concerned. We have seen the results of complacency and WE ARE CONCERNED!!