Recalled pet foods contained a chemical used to make plastics, but government tests failed to confirm the presence of rat poison, federal officials said Friday.
The Food and Drug Administration said it found melamine in samples of the Menu Foods pet food, as well as in wheat gluten used as an ingredient. Cornell University scientists also have found the chemical, also used as a fertilizer, in the urine of sick cats, as well as in the kidney of one cat that died after eating the company’s wet food.
The new finding comes a week after scientists at the New York State Food Laboratory identified a rat poison and cancer drug called aminopterin as the likely culprit. The FDA said it could not confirm that finding.
Apparently, wheat gluten was also shipped to one or more producers of dry dog food – which is why I’m posting this update. Keep an eye on the news from the FDA these next few days to see if there also is a danger to your pets from some brands of dry dog foods, as well.
The most boring of my several careers was in traffic management, btw. My 2¢ worth of experience reminds me that few containers – vessels, cargo boxes, grain barges, truck containers – are ever thoroughly cleaned. Certainly, not up to standards that should be required for foodstuffs.
A local radio station’s morning show recently had a representative from an up-and-coming pet food manufacturer reguarding this. She said she’s seen how Menu Foods and others operate… that they make the wet and dry food in the same factory, literally right next to each other. They also use the wheat glutin in the dry food, so there’s no reason not to suspect that the dry food is poisonous as well.
Man, I’m SO glad I got my pets on a raw diet, and away from the diseased, nasty crap they cram into processed pet food years ago! For those interested, check out http://www.switchingtoraw.com. That’s where I learned about the raw diet, and my kids are MUCH happier and healthier as a result!
In regards to the container cleanliness – my Instructor at one point worked at a Sugar Refinery – and had some “horror” stories about the state of the sugar when it arrived (from Africa) for processing – held in the storage holds or rusty old ships – it would be bulldozed and loaded out with the machinery leaking oil onto it – there would be broken glass, metal, animals, etc. – he then said in the refinery itself they would mop the floor of the factory and then dump the mop buckets into the preprocessed side of things.
For those interested, check out http://www.switchingtoastroturf.com.
Your altruism is an inspiration to us all.
Dear fuzzy marshmallow,
You wrote:
“The most boring of my several careers was in traffic management, btw. My 2¢ worth of experience reminds me that few containers – vessels, cargo boxes, grain barges, truck containers – are ever thoroughly cleaned. Certainly, not up to standards that should be required for foodstuffs”
Wow John!
Your insightfulness never ceases to amaze. For years we’ve had to endure your curmudgeony, longwinded, and usually completely wrong observations about the world around you.
It’s wonderful to see you mature into a wise conveyor of pearls such as this.
Perhaps tomorrow an observation about foot funguses you’ve had to endure? Maybe another pithy retort about the latest piece of technology for you to completely mispredict the fate of? Why not another truely useful endevor, like challenging someone to post high-quality .eps images of the plate negatives for North Korea’s supernotes?
Ah, it’s the likes of you and Rush Limbaugh that keep us young at heart and let us laugh at life again and again.
Thank you John…thank you.
4. You mean Ed, numbskull.
Its numskull not “numbskull”, numskull. 😛
lol – discussions on the correct spelling of insults are great!
7, tallwookie, u dun hit dat dere nale rat on de hed, dere’s jes nuthin’ lak sumbudy dat caint spel
numbskull numskullbozo.Good work, too darned funny for me this afternoon !! 🙂
[Apologies in advance for taking up valuable room in this discussion]
This was a discussion? Pardon me for mistaking it for some random shit hole where people post baseless garbage.
Why do we need special food for dogs again?
I save lots of money by mainly feeding my dog tablescraps and trust me the dog likes meatloaf and pizza more than it likes “raw foods,” “organic foods,” or “dog food.”
10. Hell, my dog will eat road apples if I dont stop her……Thats horseshit for you city slickers.
4-11: This is why I read this blog. I live for this kind of humor! I got a good laugh just now & that’s making my banged-up hand feel much better today.
Seriously, tho, does it disturb anyone at all that NY State & the Feds can’t agree on what’s in the gluten? Is rat poison & melamine that chemically similar that they could be easily mistaken for each other, or could all of that garbage really be in my cat’s food at the same time? (No wonder she tries to cover it up sometimes like it’s her crap from the litterbox….)
6. From Rogets Thesaurus:
numbskull
NOUN: A mentally dull person: blockhead, chump1, clod, dolt, dullard, dummkopf, dummy, dunce, thickhead. Slang : dimwit, dumbbell, dumbo. See ABILITY.
You stand corrected, thank you.
13, Thanks, mark. Free Guiness for ya’ !!
Roget’s II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition. 1995.
numbskull
NOUN: See numskull.
Hence the 😛
8 – Bozo should always be capitalized, you slackjaw lackwit. :-p
15. To use a Bubbaism, dang!
16, Geezer, since this is no longer a ‘discussion’, I’ll just suck up some more bandwidth and thank you for the spelling correction. Unlike _some_ ‘Bozos’, I’d like to think that intelligent people actually post here. Comment accepted and noted 🙂
Wutz a’bout dem China kin eatzing dawg. Haz dere’s bin sick China kin?
My muter-in-law eatz dawg fuod becuz itz cheaper, shez on fixed incume. Should I takez her to der Vet?? Plz advize.
but, but there’s a problem with the heading for this article. The FDA is saying that it may be melamine but that doesn’t change the fact that the New York State lab, as well as a couple of labs in Canada, still found Aminopterin in 2 out of 3 samples they tested.The results from Cornell confirm melamine but haven’t ruled out aminopterin. Their earlier press release mentions that the NY State lab has more resources and methods for testing than Cornell which may explain why they missed it at first. And the FDA hasn’t yet officially ruled out the presence of aminopterin, just that they found melamine in dry dog food. Truth is, we still don’t know for certain what is causing this mess.
The wheat gluten is used to make the gravy. Now, why do (some) people spend tons on the “pets”? My dog gets about half table scraps and half dollar store dry. If there is a healthier dog around, they must be getting the same diet.
Does it matter if they are a num / numbskull? Why not use a good insult like Bush, or Shrub, or GW? Fewer letters and conveys the same meaning.