POISONED PET FOOD AND TAINTED TOOTHPASTE TOO:

Yesterday's USA Today had an interesting report, once more documenting how blogs such as the Pet Connection and the Itchmo Blog became the front line for information that concerned pet owners wanted during the pet food recall crisis. Reports on what foods had been recalled were widely scattered between various sources, and Pet Connection, Itchmo and others such as PetFoodTracker.com and PetsitUSA.com became the front line providers of information. This sites also introduced the innovation of live blogging of FDA news conferences. The Pet Connection also complied a database of animals affected, something that no official agency had the mandate to do. Go to the above article to read more about how the internet became a web of timely news and comment in this case. The only fault that Molly finds with this article is that it is not proven that Itchmo and the others are banned in China. The site that they use to track this has been discussed previously on Molly's Blog. It lists Molly's Blog as blocked in China even though Molly regularly gets hits from that country.

Meanwhile another article in the Toronto Star gives more detailed coverage of how much Menu Foods has lost because of the pet food recall. Sales for the period involved were down 31.3% from the same period last year. Two of Menu's main customers have decided to source their production elsewhere. Interestingly enough these two companies are on top of an announcement on March 16th, when the recall began, that Menu was losing its major corporate client, one that represented 11% of its sales. Menu went from a $1.3 million profit to the first quarter of 2006 to a $17.5 million dollar loss in the first quarter of 2007. The final estimated cost to Menu will be about $45 million excluding lost sales and litigation costs.

On the toothpaste front an article in the June 3rd edition of the China Daily reports Chinese officials as denying that their toothpaste can cause harm. The General Administration of Quality Supervision says that a list of ingredients is available to the US FDA. Interesting if true because this would mean that the FDA knew about this matter long before it issued its warning. The Chinese Health Ministry also issued a report saying that the diethylene glycol found in the toothpaste is "harmless at less than 15.6% of the content, citing an unnamed 2000 Chinese study. The mind boggles at what this study did.

Finally, as part of Molly's continued effort to list other Chinese brands of toothpaste that may have been exported, here's another list. Molly urges the reader to look back on previous blogs at this site to see what has already been listed.

Brand Supplier

Kingcol Suzhou Fluo Daily Used Chemicals

OEM Suzhou Fluo Daily Used Chemicals/also Jiangsu

Longli Group

Longli Jiangsu Longli Group (note: this company also

makes mouthwash - is this the upcoming recalled

item ?)

Dentakleen Yangzhou Royal Home Products Manufacture

Quanli Shanghai Quanli Commodities

More items to follow later.