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Topic: Pet Food Recall - check your cupboards!
| Author | Message |
| Linda F | Posted – 3/18/2007 2:49:41 PM | show profile Menu Foods has recalled some of the pet food it manufactures for more than 40 brands, including Iams, Nutro, and Eukanuba...it seems some cats and dogs are suffering from kidney failure after eating the affected products. You can find a list of the affected brands here: http://www.menufoods.com/recall/ And here's a news piece with more info: http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-6489510,00.html Please check your cupboards! Linda -- Linda Formichelli * http://www.lindaformichelli.com Co-author of The Renegade Writer's Query Letters That Rock! The Renegade Writer Blog: http://www.therenegadewriter.com |
| Nikongirl | Posted – 3/18/2007 3:55:08 PM | show profile Thanks for posting Linda.... I don't use any of the named brands but I'm sure many others use some of these products. My puppies are safe. NG |
| j.hodl | Posted – 4/6/2007 5:42:49 PM | show profile Questions! Several weeks into this story and I have yet to see any media tackle the obvious story. How did the contaminated wheat gluten get into pet food products (at this point, even Old Roy dog biscuits at Wal-Mart)? Why wasn't a sample of the wheat gluten tested for safety before it was loaded to shipping to the U.S.? Or after it was unloaded in the U.S.? Or before it was used to make pet food products? Follow-up questions could include: Has cost-cutting by manufacturers become so sacred that when it intrudes on food safety it is never to be questioned? Or are we going to wait to do something until after tainted foreign-sourced foods start killing people? Are our food supply chains so unmonitored that terrorists could doctor it en route, knowing that their deed won't be discovered until the deaths begin? It isn't that far a reach that tainted foreign-grown foods could reach the point of consumption in the U.S. A few years ago, school kids in San Diego became ill after eating tainted strawberries. Investigators ultimately found that a crooked distributor used doctored paperwork to certify as U.S.-grown (and thus qualify for the San Diego school lunch program) strawberries grow in a backwater of Mexico where fertilization with human waste is common. |
| nellie bly | Posted – 4/6/2007 6:47:34 PM | show profile j. hodl- Re the contaminated wheat gluten, I received the following response from Hills when I emailed them about pet food ingredients. (I use Hills products for my pets.) "Melamine is a compound totally foreign to wheat gluten. Hill?s tests for foreign compounds that are a potential risk and tests are tailored to a specific ingredient type. In this particular case, melamine does not reveal itself in this testing regimen. The FDA has confirmed that melamine could not have been found through regular testing procedures." from what I've read, the FDA is still researching how the melamine ot into wheat gluten. |
| petfoodrecall | Posted – 4/10/2007 12:00:53 PM | show profile | email poster Pet Food Recall I just recently found a website where those who has suffered horrible losses or experiences with there pets due to the recent pet food recall are posting their stories. It is a great way for people to vent their problems, tell their stories and even post pictures of their pets. The food companies are NOT taking any responsibity for this horrific nightmare we are all going through and maybe this website can make a difference. They forget, pets are a part of are family too. We need to hold them accountable. Go to www.petfoodnightmares.com to share your Thoughts. |
| wineaux | Posted – 4/10/2007 4:58:42 PM | show profile j. hodl: My husband worked with a food processing company on the Q A end for many years and I sent your post to him, and here's what he had to say: It?s a valid concern. The gluten was likely procured in China because it?s cheaper to process due to labor rates, i.e. a worker in China may make $5.00 U.S. dollars a month while the same processing plant in the U.S. is paying 10-15 dollars an hour fully loaded with disability and health care costs. Thus, a large manufacturer will buy tons of powdered products from China for production due to the immense cost savings. These companies will insist on a Certificate of Analysis (COA) and samples of the product to be sent to their labs prior to shipping into the United States . These COA?s will be filed and a sample will be sent to their own lab for analysis to match the COA and one sample will be held in case of re-call. Once the samples meet the specs for the COA?s the product will be released for shipment form China . The problem being that at most one-two pounds of product have been tested. Most times the plant have not been inspected by a third party Quality Assurance or Food Safety specialist from the US company?s due to proximity and cost associated to traveling to China. A pristine sample could be sent that doesn?t really reflect the product that will be landed with the total shipment. Once the shipments have been approved, tons will ship in cargo containers bound for the big West Coast ports of Seattle, Oakland and Long Beach where they will be transferred to rail and truck lines and shipped throughout the United States. For smaller companies it will go through even more hands. They will be buying the product through a system of food brokers who buy in bulk and then re-sell throughout the US . These companies will request the same COA?s as the big boys but that is where the checking will end. They will take the word of the brokers and transfer liability onto them if a recall situation ensues due to one contaminated ingredient. As far as terrorism goes, these products are wide open. If the COA?s are faked and the brokers or third party customers do not analyze them there is nothing to stop them from entering the country. Only 5% of cargo is inspected in the incoming containers and that is mostly for nuclear or fissionable materials. America ?s food supply is wide open especially when your are dealing with a large food manufacturer who no longer wants to produce food in the US due to pension funds and cost of doing business and are in the process of moving all of there production to co-packing facilities, which to a larger and larger degree are outside the US and outside the inspection of the USDA and FDA. This is why the organic and small natural food companies are growing at 20-30% annually, people are actually starting to care where there food comes from, and what they are eating. |
| j.hodl | Posted – 4/16/2007 12:14:30 PM | show profile Thanks Wineaux! I appreciate your input. Your husband's comments are most welcome and indicate that there is a larger story to report beyond the disappearance of Happy Tails Meaty Beef Chunks in Gravy from store shelves. If pets can be endangered by imported food, what about humans? An update on the pet food recall that appeared in some business publications last week offered evidence that the presence of melomine in the Chinese wheat gluten wasn't by accident. The processor in Shanghai, worrying that the gluten didn't have a high enough protein content added the melomine as an "improvement." While the officials of the processor and the Chinese government have avoided comment on these charges, workers at the plant, interviewed by Western reporters fluent in Chinese, confirm the alteration of the wheat gluten. Additionally, the workers were surprised to hear of the U.S. pet food recall. It was never reported in the Chinese press, where the Communist government-owned papers and media only reports good news about the government and the country. |
| wineaux | Posted – 4/16/2007 3:58:13 PM | show profile Here's a little more about China's food export problems....scary stuff. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070413/ap_on_re_as/china_food_fears |
| wineaux | Posted – 4/16/2007 4:02:11 PM | show profile I do think the American public is more concerned now about where their food comes from than ever before. Hence, organic food companies are really skyrocketing right now. My husband has been in organic food processing business for sometime, and the past few years it has grown astronomically. The problem is that some companies, wanting to jump on the organic bandwagon are buying in bulk "organic" products from, guess where? China. |
| nellie bly | Posted – 4/29/2007 11:04:31 PM | show profile "Filler in Animal Feed Is Open Secret in China" the NY Times reporters in China have been doing some great reporting on the melamine issue. This was just posted on the Times website: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/30/business/worldbusiness/30food.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin If youve been following this story, you know that a few pet foods with rice protein concentrate were also recalled. This after the wheat gluten recall. I just wonder if all rice concentrate comes from China? Is it even available in the US? The low allergen cat food that I buy wasn't recalled but the mfr won't say where their rice protein comes from...so I assume it must be China. They say that they've tested it, but I'm wary... |
| j.hodl | Posted – 4/30/2007 11:40:31 AM | show profile Then perhaps you read this morning's article in which an unnamed Chinese government official shrugged, saying that melamine is routinely added to per food products in China, so what are you worrying about? That melamine is a chemical not intended for human (or pet) consumption and that it is added because it makes the products appear to have more protein than actual should make one question all food products coming from China. One must realize that in China, capitalism is still in the Wild West days. Anything goes because there are few standards or regulations. The Wall Street Journal reported recently that our inspectors have in fact caught and rejected for import other food products that were altered with chemicals and other products, often so the product would command a higher price. For instance, a carcinogenic dye was added to duck feed so the eggs they lay would have reddish yokes for the gourmet market. Even the Journal admits that we are not doing enough to catch all the product tampering going on in China. That the Chinese official would brush off melamine augmentations so blithely brings to mind the incident reported 100 years ago here where a candy maker was caught using shavings of beef bones in place of cocoanut. "The kids love it," he shrugged. Perhaps we can convince the Chinese government to adopt some food standards by refusing to import such products until they do. But don't hold your breath. Communist governments, especially that in China, have never been big on doing anything to make anything safer, from food to the air they breathe in Beijing. |
