POISONED PET FOOD:

THE EVER WIDENING RECALL:

The news around the pet food recall continues to widen, seemingly by the day now rather than the week. The latest items include the fact that Menu Foods has added another item to their recall list ie Natural Life Vegetarian 13.2oz cans. Readers are urged to keep checking the menu Foods list for further updates. They are also urged to keep tuned to the more comprehensive list compiled by the American Veterinary Medical Association as well as keeping up with the Pet Connection site for daily breaking news.

More seriously the Natural Balance company has expanded their list of recalled products from the four dry foods listed previously. The items recalled now include the Venison and Brown Rice Treats for Dogs and the Venison and Brown Rice Canned Formula for Dogs. The company has issued updates on their website.

USA Today has an article on this latest recall. The troubling thing about this latest recall is that the source found to be contaminated with melamine is not wheat gluten but rather rice gluten, also imported from China. The rice gluten was imported from China by the San Francisco company Wilbur-Ellis. Wilbur-Ellis sold the rice gluten to five pet food manufacturers, one of which was Diamond Pet Food which added the concentrate to the Natural Balance venison based foods. The Chinese exporter is Binzhou Futian Biology Technology. On the same subject the Sacramento Bee has a story that says there may be five more foods not yet on the recall list which have fallen under suspicion due to reports from the local members of the Veterinary Information Network. Testing is expected to begin on these today.

Molly wonders just how widespread the practice of adulterating protein products with melamine is in China. This is company #2 that has been implicated. With rice gluten added to the list of suspect products the possibility that this contaminated concentrate has entered the human food supply becomes more and more likely.

More later,

Molly