Poop City

Pig ears recalled. Seriously.

If your give your dog pig ear treats (and who doesn't?), you'll want to read this, c/o HOWL911:

The FDA announced March 23, 2007 a recall of pig ears (as dog chews and treats) under the brand name Petrapport due to reports of Salmonella contamination, an organism that can cause serious infections in dogs, and, if there is cross   contamination, young children, frail or elderly people, and others with weakened immune systems. Salmonella can potentially be transferred to people handling these dog treats. The FDA advisory contains lot numbers as well as the signs and symptoms of Salmonella poisoning in both dogs and humans.

Here is the advisory.

The recall is unrelated to Menu Foods.

About aminopterin

Aminopterin is a "folic acid antagonist." It was used to induce abortions in the 1950s, causing deformities in surviving fetuses. It has long been used as a treatment for leukemia, with varying results due to its volatile toxicity. It is classified as an "Extremely Hazardous Substance" by the federal government.

It is also used in rat poison, though according to a government profile, aminopterin is not "registered" as a rodenticide in the United States.

Signs and symptoms of acute exposure to aminopterin may include nausea, vomiting, anorexia, stomatitis (inflammation of the oral mucosa), pharyngitis (inflammation of the pharynx), erythematous rashes (red rashes on the skin), hyperpigmentation (abnormally increased pigmentation), chills, fever, gastrointestinal hemorrhage, and renal failure (especially in high doses).

UPDATE: More on aminopterin from vetcetera.
UPDATE 3/24: Technical info on how aminopterin may present in dogs and cats, again from vetcetera.

BREAKING: Rat poison suspected

ABC says rat poison is the suspected Menu Foods contaminant.

March 23, 2007— ABC News has learned that investigators have determined that a rodent killing chemical is the toxin in the tainted pet food that has killed several animals.

A source close to the investigation tells ABC News that the rodenticide, which the source says is illegal to use in the U.S., was on wheat that was imported from China and used by Menu Foods in nearly 100 brands of dog and cat food.

A news conference is scheduled for this afternoon by experts in Albany, New York where scientists at the state's Food Laboratory made the discovery a week after a massive recall of 60 million cans and pouches was issued.

The chemical is aminopterin.

What investigators can't say so far is whether this is the only contaminant in all of the recalled food.

There is some good news according to the source. Knowing the chemical should aid veterinarians who are treating animals that have been sickened by the pet food.

The chemical is used in the United States for, of all things, a cancer drug, according to the source.

Day Eight

- With no word yet on the cause and an unofficial death toll nearing the 1000 mark, Animal Medical Center vet Cathy Langston tells ABC News she has "already heard about 200 cases" of Menu Foods-related illness, and says there "are probably going to be thousands." It is unclear if she was referring to cases nationwide, or those in New York City alone.

- Neil Shaw, chief medical officer for NYC Veterinary Specialists & Cancer Treatment Center in Manhattan, says vets are seeing cases of chronic kidney failure in addition to acute onset. Yet some vets are reportedly telling pet parents not to be concerned unless their animals develop symptoms - even if they ate food subject to the recall. Having lost two cats to renal failure myself, I would not only ignore this advice, but end my relationship with any vet who offered it. Testing blood and urine is easy. Watching your buddy die slowly is hard.

- Newsweek reports that FEMA - er, the FDA - only inspects pet food plants on a "for-cause" basis - that is, when it's too late.  Still, claims industry flack Duane Ekedahl: "Pet foods are the highest regulated product you'll find in the grocery store." Let's hope not. Says Ann Martin, author of three pet health books: "It's wide open. As far as ingredients go, there is no regulation." Which would explain the "road kill, zoo animal carcasses and fecal matter" Martin says is found in some brands. Luckily, according to Newsweek, this whole recall business has only affected a "small number of families."

- The Newsweek story also points out that the suspect Menu Foods plant, in Kansas, is still open. The company says safety checks are being performed "around the clock," but if they don't know what they're looking for, how can they look for it?

- There is still doubt as to how Menu Foods became aware of the contamination. The FDA has said it was revealed through routine taste testing, but it has been widely reported that Menu Foods was alerted to the problem by consumer complaints. If the FDA version is correct, does that mean Menu released the food into the market before they tested it? Or did they not test until their customers' pets started dying?

- California chain Pet Food Express has yanked all Iams, Eukanuba, Science Diet and Nutro foods from its stores' shelves, and is selling other Menu products "only if a client is fully aware of the recall and the potential risk posed by feeding a product made by Menu Foods." Despite assurances from the company, PFE says, "we cannot and do not vouch that they are safe." PFE has posted a useful list of food brands, showing what is and isn't manufactured by Menu. Did you know Newman's Own is a Menu product?

In other recall news:
- A victim's parent questions the recall list. [BARC]
- Plaintiffs wanted for class-action suit. [Progressive Law Group]

Photo: ilun, via Flickr

Menu Foods has a heart, and it goes out to you

After almost a week of unreturned phone calls and refusals to comment, not to mention over 500 suspected deaths (vs. 16 "official" ones), Menu Foods is talking to the media.

Paul Henderson, CEO and president, spoke to the Associated Press:

"This is a puzzling and troubling experience for everybody within this organization," Henderson said in an interview from company headquarters in Streetsville, Ontario. "It is extremely disheartening that we haven't been able to find the causative agent."

"Our hearts go out to all of the pet owners across Canada, the United States and Mexico for any losses they experience and certainly for the worry this incident may be causing," Henderson said.

It's comforting that Menu Foods has finally opened up to us, since any incidental losses we have experienced may be causing us to worry and all. But are the puzzled and troubled folks within the organization also talking to veterinarians?

From vetcetera:

...[W]hile it is nice to know that Menu’s in-house testing revealed a mortality rate possibly as high as 20 percent, what the veterinary community really needs to know are the morbidity data. Of the animals that did not die: did they get sick? If so, what symptoms did they exhibit? How were they treated and what proved effective in their recovery? What tests should veterinarians be running? Should we be sending samples from deceased animals for pathology? If so, to which labs and what samples do they need?

Presumably Menu will require some sort of proof before paying out on claims of pet owners whose pets have died after eating Menu-produced food. Yet Menu hasn’t indicated what sorts of samples veterinarians should be collecting. Whole blood? Serum? Kidney biopsies? (In formalin or not?) These details could prove crucial down the road.

Henderson also offered an explanation as to why there was a delay between the first reported cases and the recall. According to him, two of the sick animals lived outdoors and therefore may have been exposed to other contaminants. This is a pitifully weak excuse on several counts, since for one thing the FDA time line - which in and of itself is questionable - says it took six consumer complaints to get the ball rolling. So what about the other four, Paul?

Meanwhile, in its second cautious press release since the recall, entitled "ASPCA Continues to Respond to Concerns on Nationwide Pet Food Recall," the ASPCA says vets at its Bergh Memorial Animal Hospital "have today started to see a few cases" of food related illness. Guess everyone's going to Animal Medical Center, where since Saturday they've seen 143 animals who may have been sickened by contaminated food, along with 10 definites, one of whom died.

Taking a step back, Denise Flaim and Itchmo offer good advice on food, love and loss.

In other recall news:
- Itchmo has a printable list of recalled foods. [Itchmo]
- Trader Joe's is pulling food, recalled or not. [Trader Joe's]
- The lawsuits begin. [NYP]

Day Six

- New Yorkers and others are flooding Gothamist with horrific tales of dying and dead loved ones, including some who ate food not (yet) included on the recall list.

- The Post says the Animal Medical Center has seen seven cats and one dog with kidney failure since Saturday, and the hospital is investigating 143 cases of potential poisoning. The Daily News quotes the AMC chair as saying ""I haven't spoken to a veterinarian who hasn't seen a case."

- The latest Times coverage consists of what amounts to an FDA press release trumpeting the new official death toll - 13 cats and one dog, including the nine animals who died during food testing. For those keeping score, that comes to five acknowledged deaths of family pets. Heckuva job.

- Itchmo reports that the FDA has yet locate the tainted gluten suspected to be the cause of food contamination, that the Menu Foods facility in question is still open, and that it has never been inspected by the feds. Might want to read that again to let it sink in.

- Vetcetera wonders why the response from the FDA and pet food companies - including Menu Foods, which seems to be talking to no one - has been so anemic, why mainstream media outlets aren't devoting more attention to the story, and why many are downplaying the casualties (see the Times).

News breaks, none of it good

As the FDA narrows its search for the source of contamination in Menu Foods products, the news surrounding this disaster becomes increasingly disturbing.

As reported by Itchmo, complaints of tainted food date as far back as December, contradicting most every report and press release issued so far, as well as the time line issued by the FDA, which says the "first of six complaints" came to Menu Foods on February 20. Even if the February date were correct, that's three weeks and four three days before the recall - time Menu Foods dedicated to making sure its products were, in fact, deadly.

Even so, the head of the Veterinary Information Network tells the St. Louis Dispatch he is suspicious of Menu Foods' disclosures to this point.

"I gotta believe that they know more than what they are saying," Dr. Paul Pion said of Menu Foods.

"We need full disclosure if we are going to figure this out. We got to get the company to give out the history of what was needed for the recall."

The same article reports that "An FDA spokeswoman said she did not know whether the company was cooperating," while Menu Foods did not return the paper's calls.

Here in the city, guardians are flooding vets' offices and food supply stores, and questioning the party line espoused by Menu Foods.

Laura Iskowitz, a teacher from Monroe, N.J., said she's convinced that the death last January of her mixed lab Angel was due to the tainted food.

"She didn't even look like my dog at the end," Iskowitz said. "There's no reason whatsoever for a 3-year-old to die of kidney failure. It's disgusting."

Keep up with the latest recall headlines here.

AMENDMENT: I neglected to mention BARC Blog as a local source. They are following the story, including some hanky-panky with the recall list.

Where to turn

Many of you are no doubt spending a lot of time trolling for updates on the food recall. I'm posting the latest and most relevant info I come across in the right hand column, and will continue to do so. As always, watch for new headlines there as well.

The best overall source I've found (thanks to the BARC Blog) is itchmo!seattle, which is doing an incredible job of not only of analyzing what is known, but digging up what isn't. Itchmo is what Poop City wants to be when it grows up.

Based on what I'm seeing, several things are becoming apparent. One is that dogs are being sickened by the contaminated food - not just cats, as some outlets have reported. Another is that the list of contaminated lot numbers is growing, as is the number of seriously ill and possibly dying companion animals. Another is that Menu Foods has flubbed the recall operation, first by a delay between the time the problem was known and the time the recall was initiated, and second by being less than helpful to the public in this time of great anxiety.

Locally, the Times recall story is number one on its "most e-mailed" list, but updates are slow in coming from the conventional media. From where I sit, the blogs own this one so far.

More to come.

Graphic: itchmo!seattle

We are what they eat

Regardless of our dietary habits, virtually all of us are at risk of coming in contact with contaminated food, be it spinach or lettuce or miscellaneous. But there is something about poison in cat and dog food that is especially upsetting. Maybe it’s the childlike trust our companion animals place in us - they don’t choose what they eat, we do. And when we screw up, they are the ones who suffer.

This weekend’s events have again revived the discussion of what best to feed our own brood, a sometimes excruciating back-and-forth that began in 2004.

My wife and I have four cats; three years ago we had six. Our two boys - first Mookie, then Buster - each died at an early age from renal failure. Mookie was nine when he began losing weight dramatically, in 2004. Within three months of his diagnosis he was dead. Before we had him euthanized - his kidneys were so swollen with foreign mass that they had nearly pinched off his digestive tract, making it impossible for him to defecate - we were told that his condition was congenital and extremely rare. According to a veterinary specialist, Mookie had basically been dying since the day he was born. He was the runt of a litter found in my parents’ garage in North Carolina who grew to be a big, smart, and by all appearances healthy boy. Then he was gone.

Eighteen months later, the unthinkable happened. Again. Buster, the biological brother of three of our four girls, was constipated. It could have been any of a dozen things, but it wasn’t. It was kidney disease. He was six.

That’s when we panicked. Was the cause of Mookie’s renal failure a misdiagnosis? Was something in our apartment making our cats deathly ill - the air, the water?

Was it the food? One of our vets (we had four by my count) told us that certain off-the-shelf dry foods had been blamed for causing renal failure years ago, but that the problem had been corrected. One vet would recommend “upscale” brands, while another claimed that one food is usually just as good as another. We were even told the lining in the ubiquitous pop-top wet food cans was suspected to cause health problems. What the hell do you do with that information? In the end, figuring more expensive had to be better, we put everyone on Science Diet, both canned and dry.

Buster died in April of last year, two years and eight days after Mookie.

Then last month Zoe began losing weight. We were sure it was her kidneys, but according to lab work that isn’t the problem. More likely, we’re told, it’s the stress of getting her butt kicked daily by Izzy, our resident bully. Still we recently put everyone on Eukanuba Low Residue canned, to help their digestion. It’s not affected by the recall, but it just as easily could be.

In the meantime, we’ve talked about trying “people food,” or a pre-prepared vegetarian or vegan diet (we’re both vegetarian). Of course we worry about making sure they have the right vitamins, etc., but knowing how mainstream pet food is made, the veggie brands make a compelling case.

Sure, Evolution Diet Pet Foods do not contain meat, but they do contain all the same proteins that are in meat.  And without the rotting animal heads, spines, guts, dried blood, cholesterol laiden animal fat, and fecal matter that makes up animal meal and other animal by products.

Is it any wonder that the leading causes of death in dogs, cats and ferrets are heart disease, stroke, cancer and kidney failure?

More compelling is the fact that we have no real reason to believe they’re eating healthy now. Like those who depend on us, all we have is blind faith, and its track record is suspect, to say the least.

Photo: Mookie, 1994-2004

AT Reports: the Roomba

The Roomba - the little robotic vacuum you turn loose on your floor - has always seemed too good to be true, like Mr. Popeil's "As Seen on TV" Veg-O-Matic or Hair in a Can (sigh).

According to Apartment Therapy readers, though, the thing really works - even on pet hair and cat litter. The majority of AT commenters also say their pets are often interested in it or oblivious to it, rather than frightened by it - a key consideration in our household.

Says Sarah:

We have two long-haired, 50 lb. dogs and one Roomba in a 1200 SQFT home with wood floors. We no longer have a "real vacuum," just the Roomba, a Shark hand-vac, and a dust mop.

Now how much would you pay?