Mass recall of dog and cat food after pets die

Pet owners were worried Saturday that the pet food in their cupboards could be deadly after millions of containers of dog and cat food sold at major retailers across North America were recalled.

Menu Foods -- a major manufacturer of dog and cat food sold under Wal-Mart, Safeway, Kroger and other store brands -- recalled 60 million containers of wet pet food Friday after reports of kidney failure and deaths.

Recalled dog foods

America's Choice; Preferred Pets; Authority; Award; Best Choice; Big Bet; Big Red; Bloom; Bruiser; Cadillac; Companion; Demoulas Market Basket; Fine Feline Cat; Shep Dog; Food Lion; Giant Companion; Great Choice; Hannaford; Hill Country Fare; Hy-Vee; Key Food; Laura Lynn; Loving Meals; Main Choice; Mixables; Nutriplan; Nutro Max; Nutro Natural Choice; Nutro; Ol'Roy; Paws; Pet Essentials; Pet Pride; President's Choice; Price Chopper; Priority; Publix; Roche Bros; Save-A-Lot; Schnucks; Springsfield Pride; Sprout; Stater Bros; Total Pet; My True Friend; Western Family; White Rose; Winn Dixie and Your Pet.

Recalled cat foods

Americas Choice; Preferred Pets; Authority; Best Choice; Companion; Compliments; Demoulas Market Basket; Fine Feline Cat, Shep Dog; Food Lion; Foodtown; Giant Companion; Good n Meaty; Hannaford; Hill Country Fare; Hy-Vee; Key Food; Laura Lynn; Li'l Red; Loving Meals; Main Choice; Nutriplan; Nutro Max Gourmet Classics; Nutro Natural Choice; Paws; Presidents Choice; Price Chopper; Priority; Save-A-Lot; Schnucks; Sophistacat; Special Kitty; Springfield Pride; Sprout; Total Pet; My True Friend; Wegmans; Western Family; White Rose; and Winn Dixie.

UPDATE! MENU FOODS HAS KNOWN THERE WAS TROUBLE WITH THEIR CAT AND DOG FOODS FOR A MONTH, ACCORDING TO THIS REPORT.

http://newcats.blogspot.com/

http://www.apneasupport.org/post-54861.html

I heard something being discussed a couple of days ago. It said genetically engineered grains have been known to cause kidney problems. I am sure Monsanto doesn't want that information out, and so far I have not found referrences to the problem on the net.

Anyone else know anything about this?

I was at art class this morning. One of the other students was showing photos around of her cat. This cat had died yesterday due to kidney failure after she ate the food mentioned in the alert. The vet had tried to save the poor cat, keeping her on IVs for four days, but to no avail.

There is a class action lawsuit being launched, I understand, although I don't have a link to that info as of yet...and my friend from art class is joining in. She collected all the documentation needed from the vet.

Wow, are our cats lucky. They mostly get only dry food, but we give them a little bit of canned food as a treat every night. We only buy Friskies and 9 Lives, just about the only two brands not on the list. Whew!


Mikey and Livvy

WHAT CUTIES! They are indeed lucky cats, shoe...

Here's an update on the pet food story:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070323/ap_ ... ood_recall

The link didn't work, Catherine. But I am so glad you started this thread. Although news programs have said there is a problem, information has been sketchy.

I have been feeding the outside cats Friskies canned food and Meow Mix pouches as treats. Don't generally get anything with gravy but sometimes that is all that is available. All the cats get dry food. That canned food is to keep them around, don't want them wandering off to hunt--they can do their hunting right here and have a full stomach even if they don't.

Shoeless--beautiful cats!!!

Tainted pet food producer expands recall


Saturday March 24, 2007

The Canadian company that sold tainted pet food blamed for at least 14 pet deaths expanded its product recall Saturday, saying it worried consumers could still find the products on store shelves.

Toronto-based Menu Foods said some of its pet foods, possibly tainted with a toxin used as rat poison, were still being sold.

The company said store owners should remove all of its products, regardless of the production date.

"As a result of reports from the FDA (US Federal Drug Administration) and various media outlets that some recalled lots of 'cuts and gravy' style wet pet food remain on store shelves, Menu Foods has asked all retail outlets to immediately remove all impacted varieties of wet pet food posted at www.menufoods.com, regardless of the date code," the company said in a statement.

"Menu Foods remains concerned that consumers are able to purchase recalled items," it said.

"There is no known risk from items not listed on the recall list but an abundance of caution is called for in this situation. FDA has been apprised of this action," it said.

link

My cats get only Purina products...Purina Cat Chow and Fancy Feast. I've given them Meow Mix now and then, too.

List of recalled pet foods grows longer

The recall of contaminated pet foods expanded Saturday to include a new brand, even as investigators puzzled over how a chemical called melamine would kill dogs and cats.

Nestlé Purina PetCare Co. said it was recalling all sizes and varieties of its Alpo Prime Cuts in Gravy wet dog food with specific date codes.

Purina said a limited amount of the food contained a contaminated wheat gluten from China. (Read details of Purina recall)

http://www.purina.com/

Melamine- Isn't that a product we use for countertops called Formica- at least the top layer of Plastic laminates. Was this sprayed on the plants as a pesticide?

I think we can safely say that this is a warning to our own food supply. We are under the power of corporations that distribute our food and bottom line economics may dictate the way they treat our food. We already know we are living food and drug experiments, as they want their products out now and see how they affect us later. Great plan! Keep the investors happy, but do they also warn them not to eat their food or are they part of the experiment as well?

If someone, say Cargill, has a similar problem develop then what percentage of foods would disappear from our shelves causing an ensuing panic that affects all of us. http://www.counterpunch.org/gray07222005.html

This little tidbit to chew on-

How much of their waste products end up in our pets food would be interesting to find out.

They have taken over more than 50% of Canada's meat packing industry and provide incredible amounts of salt as well. If you buy sea salt chances are its Cargill. This plus Monsanto and other conglomerates, control our food supply right to the seeds. We eat what they deliver. This is what we are depending on to survive as a species- mass produced foods and GM seeds that won't propagate- it's control over us. When you control the food and it's distribution, water and sleep are all we have left as necessities of life. By controlling these things, they control us. Check out how they defeated the Native Americans and it's a litany of humanitarian abuses as they dehumanize their opponents.

They better pray their food doesn't become contaminated, because once you control people like slaves, they expect to be taken care of and their needs met. Heaven help these near sighted fools that dictate the terms of our existence if their safety cushion breaks down. Then we can use their pollution wracked bodies to feed off as we do the only thing left that these elitist control freaks are good for- Eat them alive!

gOD I'm thirsty for their blood sacrifice so I may eat again. Let's bring back human sacrifice to appease the earth gOD's or at least the guillotine to please us!!! Finally talking heads won't be able to tell lies anymore.

Killing our pets- You'd think that would be enough to make us change our ways of food production, if anything can. We don't seem to care much for our fellow humans lives in this world- but our pets- well that's a different story!

!

It bothers me that the Menu Company "tested" their product on "test cats," and some of them died. Perhaps there are also some of us who are "test humans." I think of contaminated corn that made headlines in Mexico a few years ago:


http://www.organicconsumers.org/ge/naftacorn090704.cfm

I also question if all stores actually remove the contaminated products immediately the call goes out. Who is to stop the store managers from delaying that action for a few hours, hoping to sell the products? The only way a customer could prove their pet ate a tainted product from such a store would be from a receipt that had the time stamped on it, and then it would have to be compared to when the store actually received the alerting message. More opportunity for tampering with machinery...another example of how we're being controlled.

[url=http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/03/31/pet.food.recall.cats.ap/index.html]Cats may be more sensitive to pet food contaminant
[/url]

Cats' greater sensitivity to a chemical found in plastics and pesticides could explain why they have died in larger numbers than have dogs after eating contaminated pet food that has been recalled in North America, experts said Saturday.

The small number of confirmed reports of pet deaths, bolstered by a far larger number of unconfirmed anecdotal reports, suggests cats were more susceptible to poisoning by the chemical melamine, officials with the Food and Drug Administration and American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals said Saturday.

"I am concerned we have a situation where we have a sensitive species and it is the cat," said Steven Hansen, a veterinary toxicologist and director of the ASPCA's Animal Poison Control center in Urbana, Illinois.

Testing by the FDA and Cornell University has found melamine in samples of recalled pet food as well as in crystal form in the urine and kidney tissue of dead cats. They've also found the chemical, in apparently raw form in concentrations as high as 6.6 percent, in wheat gluten used as an ingredient of the recalled cat and dog foods, said Stephen Sundlof, the FDA's chief veterinarian.

"There was a sizable amount of melamine. You could see crystals in the wheat gluten," Sundlof told The Associated Press.

Sundlof and others have not been able to explain why the chemical would have caused the kidney failure seen so far in the roughly 16 confirmed pet deaths, all but one in cats. There are anecdotal reports of hundreds more pet deaths.

"It has a very low toxicity, at least in rodents. The problem is, we don't have information in cats, and that seems to be the most susceptible species," Sundlof said of melamine. Sundlof also allowed that the tainted cat foods could have contained higher concentrations of melamine than did the dog foods.

Nestle Purina PetCare Co. said Saturday it was recalling all sizes and varieties of its Alpo Prime Cuts in Gravy wet dog food with specific date codes. Purina said a limited amount of the food contained a contaminated wheat gluten from China. (Full story)

Earlier in March, Menu Foods became the first of three pet food manufacturers to recall its products. It did so after cats began to fall sick and die during routine company taste tests of its wet-style pet foods, sold under nearly 100 store- and major-label brands in the United States, Canada and Mexico. Other than in the recalled products, melamine has not been found in other Menu Foods pet foods, the company said.

Melamine is used to make plastic kitchenware, glues, countertops, fabrics, fertilizers and flame retardants. It also is both a contaminant and byproduct of several pesticides, including cyromazine, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

The United Nations Environment Program considers melamine of low potential risk, as does the EPA. The agency has sent FDA the database information it has on the chemical and will provide technical assistance as needed, EPA spokeswoman Enesta Jones said Saturday.

Sundlof said the FDA had not found any studies of melamine in cats, and the results of only a single 1945 study that tested it on dogs. That study suggested the chemical increased urine output when fed to dogs in large amounts.

"That was pretty much it," Sundlof said.

Still, it is well known that identical substances can have very different effects on cats and dogs. For example, the flea killer permethrin is OK to use on dogs but lethal to cats, Hansen said. The same could be the case with melamine.

"Cats are very sensitive to many different chemicals, whether drugs, pesticides or plants. We certainly know they have some unique physiological responses that make them susceptible in cases where we wouldn't expect it in other species," Hansen said.

The investigation has traced the melamine to wheat gluten that Menu Foods, Nestle Purina PetCare Co. and Hill's Pet Nutrition bought from an unnamed U.S. supplier. The latter two companies have recalled a limited number of products since Friday. The wheat gluten, a protein source, was imported from China.

Sundlof said the recall could expand further, depending whether other pet food manufacturers also bought wheat gluten from the same supplier.

"We're still in the process of tracing it at this point," Sundlof said. There is no indication the wheat gluten entered the human food supply, he added.

Please watch your pets closely, and don't feed them any food from any of the companies listed in this thread... and please post any updates you may find out about this situation.

[url=http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18076803/]Tainted pet food still on shelves, FDA says
Agency inspected about 400 stores nationwide
[/url]

Don't let your guard down yet, everybody. Don't buy it if you're not sure it's NOT tainted.

WASHINGTON -

Ok, but WHICH STORES are still selling it and where are they located?
If that info had been given, people would know simply not to buy their pet food at those businesses!

Oh, geez...I forgot...it's BUSINESS!