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Old April 5th, 2007, 11:24 AM
loopoo loopoo is offline
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Unhappy this is from peta.. but

just thought i would post latest read on whole recall thing, from peta..

Yesterday, the dean of the Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine confirmed that Menu Foods had contacted the college in early March, when cats in Menu labs stopped eating their food. Almost a full week later, the company sent tissue and urine samples from sick animals to Cornell, acknowledging that the food was toxic. Nearly two more weeks passed before Menu issued a recall.

Although the FDA continues to blame tainted wheat gluten for recent cat and dog illnesses and deaths, a mounting number of complaints about sick and dying animals who ate only dry food that did not contain wheat gluten strongly suggests that there is another source of contamination. Evidence from reputable laboratories indicates that an excessive amount of vitamin D in pet food may be to blame. Vitamin D overdoses produce symptoms similar to those seen in animals who recently got sick or died after consuming only dry foods. PETA is demanding that the FDA refocus its investigation to include other likely causes instead of pandering to the pet food industry and focusing on an ingredient that is found in only a moderate number of foods.
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Old April 5th, 2007, 11:55 AM
Edgewaters Edgewaters is offline
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I'm worried about this too.

What I've seen suggest a vitamin D3 supplement specifically. I know that just prior to the recall, there was a lawsuit against Royal Canin, alleging toxic levels of vitamin D ...

We just switched to Felidae and I noticed it has a D3 additive ... I'm getting worried again. The cats are in fine fettle at the moment but that doesn't stop me worrying.
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Old April 5th, 2007, 11:59 AM
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rainbow rainbow is offline
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What was the date of that post from PETA? The FDA has been saying the cause is melamine found in the wheat gluten for almost a week now.
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Old April 5th, 2007, 12:17 PM
Edgewaters Edgewaters is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by rainbow View Post
What was the date of that post from PETA? The FDA has been saying the cause is melamine found in the wheat gluten for almost a week now.
No, that's what the media has been saying in their eagerness to declare the crisis over. The FDA has been a bit more cautious:

The association between melamine in the kidneys and urine of cats that died and melamine in the food they consumed is undeniable. Additionally, melamine is an ingredient that should not be in pet food at any level. However, we are not yet fully certain that melamine is the causative agent. As in any investigation, we follow leads, use advanced forensics and try to narrow down the cause.

http://www.fda.gov/cvm/MenuFoodRecallFAQ.htm

There's also this:

Melamine, which hasn't been documented to be highly toxic, may be a marker for something else in the gluten, says Neal Bataller at the FDA's Center for Veterinary Medicine.

http://www.usatoday.com/money/indust...ood-usat_N.htm

Last edited by Edgewaters; April 5th, 2007 at 12:20 PM.
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Old April 5th, 2007, 12:18 PM
loopoo loopoo is offline
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date on peta site was april 3rd..
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Old April 5th, 2007, 01:06 PM
Prin Prin is offline
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I'm not sure if PETA just took the Royal Canin suit and ran with it.

IMO, if it was vitamin D, it probably wouldn't have been limited to just one batch of food. But I could be wrong.

Eukanuba and Iams took out a full page ad in the paper here yesterday assuring everybody that their dry food was ok.
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Old April 5th, 2007, 01:57 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Edgewaters View Post
No, that's what the media has been saying in their eagerness to declare the crisis over. The FDA has been a bit more cautious:

The association between melamine in the kidneys and urine of cats that died and melamine in the food they consumed is undeniable. Additionally, melamine is an ingredient that should not be in pet food at any level. However, we are not yet fully certain that melamine is the causative agent. As in any investigation, we follow leads, use advanced forensics and try to narrow down the cause.

http://www.fda.gov/cvm/MenuFoodRecallFAQ.htm

There's also this:

Melamine, which hasn't been documented to be highly toxic, may be a marker for something else in the gluten, says Neal Bataller at the FDA's Center for Veterinary Medicine.

http://www.usatoday.com/money/indust...ood-usat_N.htm

The FDA is a little slow in updating their FAQ page.
Here's what they said on March 30/07:

Quote:
Cornell College of Veterinary Medicine Dean Donald Smith joined a panel of experts at a U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) March 30 press conference in Washington, D.C., to announce that both Cornell and the FDA had independently identified a contaminant called melamine in samples of recalled pet food and in suspect wheat gluten used in its manufacture. Melamine is a chemical used in plastics.
Quoted from: http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/...etFood.kr.html
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Old April 5th, 2007, 04:27 PM
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Spirit Spirit is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Prin View Post
I'm not sure if PETA just took the Royal Canin suit and ran with it.
The RC lawsuit happened over a year ago and has magically resurfaced.

Melamine and aminopterin were already identified, and a third contaminant (not related to wheat) was just found in some dry foods (Sorry... for the life of me, I can't remember what the third is, and google's not showing me anything).

Just another reason to stay away from the lower quality "mass produced" foods.

Edit: How annoying! I searched and searched the net again, and couldn't find it, so I phoned a couple people who would know for sure. They both said that there was definitely a third contaminant found, but they're saying that even though it shouldn't be in the food, it's not what's killing the animals, and tests are pending... which makes sense (I guess) as to why I can't find any information about it online.

All in all, I think there's just a lot of cover ups going on right now until they find a solid answer. Even the tests back in December were a bunch of crap. Supposedly, they fed a certain food to so many animals, all of which got sick and most of which died, but when they tested the food and found nothing wrong with it, and so they dismissed the food. I mean what the crap is that??? It's just getting silly, imo.

Last edited by Spirit; April 5th, 2007 at 06:47 PM.
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  #9  
Old April 5th, 2007, 08:00 PM
Edgewaters Edgewaters is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by rainbow View Post
The FDA is a little slow in updating their FAQ page.
Here's what they said on March 30/07:



Quoted from: http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/...etFood.kr.html
Ah but the quote from Neal Battaller is from April 2nd!!

Parse that news story ... its not in conflict with what the FDA has on their FAQ ... all it says is that they identified melanine in the samples (the media keeps trumpeting this, but that's not all there is to the story).

The FAQ says this also but goes on to say they're not certain if it's the cause of death at all. The April 2nd quote from the FDA's Center for Veterinary Medicine indicates that the FDA is suspicious because the melanine is not in sufficient levels to cause such high toxicity.

Also note that the FAQ is post-March 30th because that was the earliest date the FDA announced melanin as a possible agent ... and it was updated April 2nd as indicated at the top of the page ...


Even in the article you've linked to there is mention of the FDA and Cornell's uncertainty:

Quote:
However, Smith emphasized, Cornell researchers have not been able to match the known toxic effects of melamine with all of the clinical and pathologic signs observed in affected cats and dogs. He specifically referred to signs of acute damage to the tubules and the characteristic pattern of cellular inflammation that have been seen in affected kidneys.

There's also this little tidbit:

Quote:
The FDA has left open the possibility that the recall will be expanded.

"Because it's an investigation, new leads come up every day and we follow them, so things could change, so I can't rule something in or something out in terms of what PETA is reporting," FDA spokeswoman Julie Zawisza said.
http://www.pe.com/localnews/inland/s...31.d65e3b.html

Last edited by Edgewaters; April 5th, 2007 at 08:21 PM.
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  #10  
Old April 5th, 2007, 08:35 PM
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SableCollie SableCollie is offline
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When the recall first happened, when no one had any idea what was going on, we asked a local vet what she thought could be causing the illness and deaths, and she said she believed it could be an excess of Vit D. This was before anyone knew anything about the wheat gluten being contaminated. I guess the symptoms the animals were exhibiting were consistent with Vitamin D toxicity, at least according to that vet. I also read that a lawyer who is representing pet owners in the Royal Canin lawsuit had urged the FDA to have the Vit D levels checked in the Menu foods, because he said the symptoms the animals experienced were so similar to the ones his clients' pets experienced. Who knows? Nothing would surprise me at this point.
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  #11  
Old April 6th, 2007, 09:10 PM
Edgewaters Edgewaters is offline
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April 6th now and FDA still hasn't changed their position on melamine despite the media rush to declare "case solved" by distorting FDA statements by being selective about the facts.

From a story today:

Quote:
The FDA has found melamine, a component of fertilizers and plastic utensils, in the gluten, but that may not be the culprit, said Sundlof, director of the FDA's Center for Veterinary Medicine.

"Melamine is not very toxic as a chemical, so we're wondering why we are seeing the kinds of serious conditions, especially the kidney failure, that we're seeing in cats and dogs," he said.

"We are focusing on the melamine right now because we believe that, even if melamine is not the causative agent, it is somehow associated with the causative agent, so it serves as a marker," Sundlof said Thursday.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/04/06/pet.deaths/index.html
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