Pet Food Recall Expands;Will human food be next?

Originally posted by strangefires
Hills foods(no updates) still only Prescription Diet m/d Feline Dry food (only can be bought from vet)

Thanks for the update strangefires.

One little thing I would like to add about the Hills prescription foods is that I was able to purchase this online after I initially bought it from the vet (without any prescription information).

Here's an AP stroy that estimates that over 39.000 cats and dogs may have died from this contamination.
Cats seems to be more likely to die from the bad food and not all animals die or get sick.
apnews.myway.com...

At least six pet food companies have recalled products made with imported Chinese wheat gluten tainted with the chemical. The recall involved about 1 percent of the overall U.S. pet food supply.

I was just one noun away from potentially losing my lil' buddy. I got him the Science Diet Savory Juices, instead of Savory Cuts.

Despite this I have since switched him to high protein no grain "organic" foods. Lots of rabbit and lamb. I'd kill the rabbits myself if I didn't have to worry about worms.

Hopefully this incident will motivate others to do the same. Cats and dogs don't eat wheat gluten, or much wheat at all in the wild. Whatever grains and other plants they get is whatever is in the stomach of the critters they love.

Menu Foods CFO sold his shares right before massive recall

TORONTO -- The chief financial officer of Menu Foods Income Fund (TSX:MEW.UN) sold nearly half his units in the pet food maker less than three weeks before it announced a massive product recall, according to insider trading reports. The reports show that Mark Wiens sold 14,000 units for $102,900 (US$89,700) on February 26 and February 27. As of Monday's close of $4.46, the units would be worth $62,440.

After the sale, Wiens owned 17,193 units and had options to buy 101,812, the trading reports show.

Nothing like jumping ship! After what this particular company did, I hope their ship sinks through a bottomless pit!

Isn't that basically the same thing Martha Stewart was stylin' an ankle bracelet for?

Originally posted by apc
Isn't that basically the same thing Martha Stewart was stylin' an ankle bracelet for?

Yeah oh man, I hope this dude goes DOWN big time.

One more thing... for pets suffering from kidney failure, let me reiterate to get some homeopathic dandelion root and put it in whatever food you're feeding them. I saved my cat a year ago from kidney failure. She's fine now. You can get this at Whole Foods Market, or any Health Food Store. I order mine online from VitaminShoppe.com.

Natural and homeopathic remedies can save your pets if you catch it early enough... don't give up!

That's more than Martha made, isn't it?''

Did they (Menu ) drag their feet on the recall so this guy could sell his shares before the bad news hit the fan?? If he made the deal, with 'inside info'.....surely he's guilty of insider trading as well as selling poison??

ChemNutra learned on March 8 from one pet food manufacturer that the wheat gluten it had sold them – all from the Xuzhou Anying - was among ingredients suspected as a potential cause of pet food problems.

www.fda.gov...

So this pet food manufacturer( I'm guessing, Menu )knew sometime before March 8.....likely even by Feb 20 (see the quote below).....Plenty of time to sell everything off by Feb 26-7.''

....the timeline of the recall raised a number of concerns. Although there have been some media reports that Menu Foods started getting complaints as early as December 2006, FDA records state the company received their first report of a food-related pet death on February 20.

One week later, on February 27, Menu started testing the suspect foods. Three days later, on March 3, the first cat in the trial died of acute kidney failure. Three days after that, Menu switched wheat gluten suppliers, and 10 days later, on March 16, recalled the 91 products that contained gluten from their previous source.

(I add the bolding for emphasis)

www.sfgate.com.../g/a/2007/04/03/petscol.DTL

This was really a low thing to do......withhold the information that could have saved so many little lives, just to save/make some money.

Another quote from the above site, was quite painful.....it's exactly what I was doing.....

.....there was one more horrifying chapter. Because kidney failure causes nausea, it's often hard to get recovering pets to eat. So a lot of these owners got down on their hands and knees and coaxed and begged and eventually hand-fed their pets the very same food that had made them sick. ......owners didn't know that the food was tainted.

''
''

A spokesman blamed a clerical error in the latest recall:

Pet food company cites clerical error

TORONTO, April 12 (UPI) -- A clerical error led to the delay in the latest recall of contaminated pet food, a spokesman for the Canadian manufacturer said.
"Humans are not perfect. Someone made a mistake," Menu Foods spokesman Sam Bornstein said via e-mail to USA Today. "We were shocked."

I guess when all else fails, blame it on the secretary! That has got to be the lamest excuse ever!

New Expansion of Recall:

Rice Protein has been included in the melamine poisoning! New pet foods have been recalled, and more are expected.

The industrial chemical melamine has been found in more pet food, and suspicion is falling on a second pet-food ingredient imported from China as the source of the contamination. Natural Balance Pet Foods said Tuesday it found melamine in samples of some of its food, which led to a recall. The company suspects melamine was in a rice protein concentrate used as an ingredient, said President Joey Herrick in an interview.

Source

I read this just as my cat decides to puke up his new uber-healthy all natural grain-free food.

Oh well at least it doesn't have any rice protein in it.

I need to find a market that sells rabbit. I really wanna start feeding him raw.

Hogs and Chickens fed tainted feed:

WASHINGTON - Two federal agencies said Saturday a continuing investigation affirms that the risk to humans from hogs that may have eaten contaminated pet food is very low and that no recall is warranted.
The government said last week that 345 of 6,000 hogs that may have the food are believed to have been placed on the path to slaughter, but that almost all are still on farms in California, New York and South Carolina.
Source

WASHINGTON - The U.S. government said on Monday 38 poultry farms in Indiana were given contaminated feed containing melamine in early February, with some of the animals likely to have entered the food supply.Source

More pet food recalled:

Chenango Valley Pet Foods has begun voluntarily recalling pet foods manufactured with a certain shipment of rice protein concentrate, the company said Thursday.

The following dry pet foods are involved in the recall:

Doctors Foster & Smith Chicken & Brown Rice Formula Adult Lite Dog Food. It was sold in containers with net weights of 5, 12.5 and 25 lbs. with code dates best used by Jan. 24, 2009, Feb. 8, 2009, Feb. 26, 2009, April 10, 2009, and April 17, 2009.

Doctors Foster & Smith Chicken & Brown Rice Formula Adult Lite Cat Food. It was sold in containers with net weights of 3 and 7 lbs. with a code date of best used by March 13, 2009.

Lick Your Chops Lamb Meal, Rice & Egg Cat Food in packages with a net weight of 4 lbs. and a code date best used by April 29, 2008.

Bulk Chicken & Brown Rice Formula Adult Lite Dog Food sold to one consignee, SmartPak, in a 2,000-pound tote with a ship date of Feb. 9, 2007.
Source

FDA quarantines ALL vegetable protein products from China. Including corn.

I wonder if this will affect my breakfast cereal too?

4/27/07, IMPORT ALERT #99-29
COUNTRY: China (CN)
MANUFACTURER/SHIPPER: All

"DETENTION WITHOUT PHYSICAL EXAMINATION OF ALL VEGETABLE PROTEIN PRODUCTS FROM CHINA FOR ANIMAL OR HUMAN FOOD USE DUE TO THE PRESENCE OF MELAMINE AND/OR MELAMINE ANALOGS"

www.fda.gov...

[edit on 5/2/07 by makeitso]

apc,
Where can I buy this for my 2 dogs?

I've been buying fresh chicken and boiling it everynight for my dogs but now I hear last night that chicken and pigs have been fed this ingrediant.

This is so scary!

Does this mean that humans shouldn't be eating chicken and pork now?

Somebody please tell me what to feed my pets.....
thanks!

[edit on 2-5-2007 by MagicaRose]

[edit on 2-5-2007 by MagicaRose]

Buy what? uber-healthy food? I just found a little uhm... pet health-food store I guess you could call it. They don't stock Alpo or Purina, just brands that are "all-natural", "organic", etc. Most of it is a little more expensive than grocery store brands, but the caloric content is higher so you feed less per serving.

If you can't find anything in the phone book or online I'd say just ask around. Employees at some of the big chain pet stores might know, even though they're competition.

Azmira Holistic Animal Care products are available in some health food stores. Here is a link to the Azmira website: www.azmira.com.... There is a page that lists retailers where you can purchase it.

Also Mike Adams at NewsTarget.com did a 4-part interview with the woman who created the Azmira product line. Her name is Dr. Lisa Newman and she reveals a lot of shocking things about mainstream pet food in the interview.

Here are links to the interviews:

Healthy food for pets: Dr. Lisa Newman reveals the pet health-enhancing ingredients in Azmira Holistic Animal Care products

Part 1: www.newstarget.com...
Part 2: www.newstarget.com...
Part 3: www.newstarget.com...
Part 4: www.newstarget.com...

THIS IS A MUST READ!


Intentionally Tainted Pet Food federal officals state!!News report

WASHINGTON - Imported ingredients used in recalled pet food may have been intentionally spiked with an industrial chemical to boost their apparent protein content, federal officials said Thursday

That's one theory being pursued by the Food and Drug Administration as it investigates how the chemical, melamine, contaminated at least two ingredients used to make more than 100 brands of dog and cat foods.

In California, state agriculture officials placed a hog farm under quarantine after melamine was found in pig urine there. Additional testing was under way to determine whether the chemical was present in the meat produced by American Hog Farm in Ceres since April 3, the state Department of Food and Agriculture said.

As of today May 3rd, Menufoods has expanded recall yet again.

Go to Menufoods for more information.

Not sure what to make of this.

China Makes Arrest in Pet Food Case

Mao Lijun, head of the Xuzhou Anying Biologic Technology Development Company, is being held in coastal Jiangsu Province, about 320 miles northwest of Shanghai, though a police spokesman in Pei County declined to say on what charges.

Regulators also said that Xuzhou had failed to disclose to China’s export authorities that it was shipping food or feed products to the United States and thereby avoided having its goods checked by food inspectors.

Smoking Gun?

Despite its denials of knowing anything about melamine contamination, Xuzhou appears to have sought to buy large supplies of melamine, even in the weeks after the pet food recall.

The company had posted more than a dozen advertisement on the Internet seeking supplies of melamine scrap, the impure waste of an industrial chemical that animal feed producers here often mix into the feed to artificially increase the reading of the protein.

On March 21, Xuzhou Anying had posted this on an Internet trading site called EC21: “We urgently need a lot of melamine scrap.”

In one March 29 posting on a trading site operated by Sohu.net, a Chinese Web site, people who said they were with Xuzhou Anying wrote, "Our company buys large quantities of melamine scrap all year around." There were also postings on several other online trading sites, like ChemAbc.net.

www.iht.com...

Can anyone find these adverts to buy melamine? That would be interesting.


[edit on 5/3/07 by makeitso]

Hog & Chicken feed in 6 states contaminated.

Melamine-Tainted Feed Has Entered Human Food Chain

WASHINGTON, DC, May 2, 2007 (ENS) - A chemical used to make plastics that contaminated pet food, ~ has now been detected in the human food chain. Melamine has been found in hog feed in six states and in chicken feed consumed by at least three million chickens.

So much for boiling chickens and feeding it to your pets.

The hogs have been quarantined, but the 3 million chickens have already been processed, ie, sold to your local store for your consumption.

oops, strangefires already posted this, sorry.

[edit on 5/3/07 by makeitso]