POISONED PET FOOD AND TAINTED TOOTHPASTE TOO:

A report in today's Canada.com online news service reports that Menu Foods' stock has dipped over 25% after one of its biggest customers (unnamed) had bailed out from the sinking ship. The details of the story, however, say that the unnamed customer will continue to purchase "loaf" ie solid canned food. Have a look at the article for further details. All that Molly can say is "tsk,tsk,tsk; how much my heart bleeds" . The article mentions "the difficulty of shifting production elsewhere". Does this mean that Menu will eventually recover to continue its ways in the future ? Time will tell.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the world an article in today's The Australian says that the Australian government has finally got around to recalling two brands of Chinese produced toothpaste previously found to contain antifreeze in the USA and Central America. The brands implicated are Mr. Cool and Excel. Besides being evidence that the Australian government is pulling ahead in the race with the USA as to which is the slowest to respond the article contains the bizarre statement that the Australian government says that "all consumers (should) check the ingredients labelling on their imported toothpaste and...dispose of any with diethylene glycol listed as an ingredient". Too many martinis on the 4 hour lunch favoured by upper government bureaucrats. As if it was ever listed !!!!!! Molly loves items like this as they give her confidence that insanity is not restricted to the left.

POISONED PET FOOD:

MENU FOODS HARASSED PET OWNERS:

PLUS CHINA RESPONDS TO FOOD CRISIS:

A report in the May 26th edition of USA Today says that the reason why Menu Foods was barred from communicating with people who had lawyers to handle their case against the company was that US District Judge Noel Hillman ruled that the calls were "aggressive" and "harassing". Menu had automated dialing systems set up to phone plaintiffs not just through the week but also on weekends. Menu hired an Atlanta Georgia insurance adjuster, Crawford, to put pressure on the owners of dead pets. They attempted to get owners to sign waiver releases to waive their right to be represented by a lawyer. The Itchmo Blog recently posted a letter from the law firm of Blim and Edelson who represent many of the people suing Menu Foods giving further details of how Menu was harassing plaintiffs.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the world today's issue of the China Daily reports on 'A System to Be Set Up' for regulating food recalls in that country. The final draft of this regulation is expected to be ready by the end of this year. The article presents what is, in fact, a fairly weak response on the part of Chinese authorities, but they are at least trying to improve. It will be interesting to see if they beat the USA to the post in terms of improved regulations, or, as reported previously on this blog, they simply do "something" while the USA "does nothing" and allows its House and Senate bills to die a quiet death.

POISONED PET FOOD:

THE RECALL EXPANDS ONCE MORE:

Yesterday Menu Foods announced yet more pet food recalls due to "cross contamination" of other foods with the melamine added to the wheat gluten that they used in foods included in the original recall. (What...they don't clean their vats !!!!!!!-Molly) . See today's Toronto Star on this matter. The expanded list of Menu Foods products is available here. The new recalls are quite extensive, and Molly will hopefully have time to list them here later. In the meantime check in at the Menu Foods page. The comprehensive list of recalled products maintained by the American Veterinary Medical Association will hopefully be updated soon so as to include these new items. it should be noted that the AVMA has retitled their list from Menu Foods recall to petfood recall, perhaps in response to pressure from Menu or perhaps merely because the problem is now obviously more than a one company matter.

For daily breaking news keep tuned to the Pet Connection site and the Itchmo Blog.

Much more to say, but it will have to wait until later.

UPDATE ON RECALLED PET FOODS:

Since Molly last wrote on this subject there have been further developments in the pet food recall case. The first is that some other companies not on the Menu Foods list have begun to voluntarily withdraw some of their products. These include Purina products such as Alpo Prime Cuts and the Del Monte line of pet treats and foods including Jerky Treats, Gravy Train Beef Sticks, Pounce Meaty Morsels, Dollar General and Happy Tails. Stay tuned to the above corporate websites for any future recalls. Another useful site is the Oregon Veterinary Medical Association page that has a continuing update on recalled foods.

Also, the last time Molly visited the Pet Connection site (about 6:00 pm on April 1) they had 2,800 reports of suspicious deaths reported to them. The Oregon VMA had a listing of 32 deaths in that state reported by Oregon veterinarians.

More later.

Molly

PET FOOD RECALL REDUX:

To say the least Molly has been following the continuing news around the Menu Foods recall closely. The latest statement by the American FDA (Food and Drug Administration) has perhaps muddied the waters rather than clarified them. This statement has implicated the chemical melamine as the causative agent. For another explanation of what melamine is see the Wisegeek site. Molly's trouble from reading the sources above, and their original sources, is that melamine simply doesn't appear to be that toxic of a chemical. The Wikipedia site (I must admit not the be all and end all of accuracy) says that melamine is not known to be toxic to humans but that large amounts may lead to kidney stones and reproductive failure. The FDA report posted today (and also in their televised press release) plainly states that they are not certain that melamine is the causative agent. The situation has begun to resemble an "argument between laboratories" (something that Molly has been familiar with in the past) as the Cornell University Amimal Health Diagnostic Center has issued a press release more or less defending their original findings of aminopterin as the agent implicated. Molly has already reported on these sources in previous blogs her.

MEANWHILE, the Pet Connection site has upgraded their data base of suspicious deaths to 2,600 entries, up from what Molly previously reported two days ago. Also the Hill's Corporation has announced the first recall of a dry product, their Feline DM Formulation. To her great relief Molly sells none of the above product. To her great relief Molly sells none of this product, but she has gone to the extent of phoning clients who purchase the Royal Canin product from her to advise them to withhold feeding their pets same until the situation is clarified. She has also sent an email to the Royal Canin corporation requesting further clarification of their recent press release stating that their foods are NOT affected by the recall. What Molly wishes to see clarified to HER satisfaction is NOT that they "don't use the same supplier" but that they DON'T import ANY wheat gluten from China. At all, at all at all !!!!!! Molly's own cats eat the Royal Canin Urinary SO diet dry with no ill effects, but she cannot in good conscience sell diabetic foods to clients until the matter of the Hills recall is clarified.

As a side note Molly has found that Royal Canin and VMD/Medi-Cal are actually the same thing, being owned by the same corporate entities. THIS was news to me, a paranoiac about corporate control. Without the concentration of ownership and "outsourcing" in our wonderful "global economy" this sort of thing would be far more localized than what this item has become. One more item in the argument against "globalization", and in favour of the sort of local economy that sensible anarchists advocate. But that is politics...

For now Molly will continue to report news as it develops on this matter and hopefully clarify things for readers. She urges you to consult the original sources mentioned above and in previous posts on this blog for up-to-the-date news rather than depend upon the mass media.

Molly

MORE ON POISONED PET FOOD:

The latest news from the American Food and Drug Administration, and scientists at the New York State Animal Health Diagnostic Center, along with the New York State Food Laboratory, is that the toxic component in the pet foods from Menu Foods that have killed several animals in the USA and Canada is a compound known as aminopterin. So far the deaths of 15 cats and two dogs have been confirmed by the company. Readers interested in following the continuing story should consult the FDA and Diagnostic Center websites rather than depending solely on the mass media. The FDA site contains statements from Nestle Purina, Hill's Pet Nutrition and P&G Pet Care (owners of the Iams and Eukanuba lines). P&G stands for Procter and Gamble. Amazing how integrated a lot of this stuff is. The Diagnostic Center site contains recommendations for both the pet owning public and the veterinary community. In the case of the former it tells you what to look out for as well as a general overview of renal failure. For veterinarians the Cornell site gives advise on diagnostic procedures. Other good places to follow the developing story include the Animal Medical Center of NYC, and the Pet Connection unofficial pet death registry . Both these sites give a story that says that the number of cat and dog deaths is much higher than has been so far admitted by the company. The latter lists 1,459 possible cases at the time Molly visited their website. The numbers climb by the hour.

Aminopterin is a 4-amino analog of folic acid and a synthetic derivative of the natural product pterin. It inhibits the enzyme dihydrofolate reductase by competing with folate for the binding site blocking tetrahydrofolate synthesis. by doing this it interferes with DNA, RNA and protein synthesis. At one time aminopterin was used as an abortifactant and later as a chemotherapy agent in cancer treatment. The first use went out of favour because of an association with birth defects such as neural tube defects. In chemotherapy its use was replaced by that of methotrexate, less potent but also less toxic. The LD 50 of aminopterin in rats is 2.5 mg/kg. Aminopterin is only used as a research drug in North America today where it is being re-investigated for use in leukemia. It is, however, used as a rodenticide (rat poison) in other countries such as China. Most information on treatment of aminopterin ingestion is rather old as the drug hasn't been in common use in Canada or the USA for some time. First aid recommendations include administration of activated charcoal or saline cathartic. Sorbitol has also been suggested to promote excretion. The use of 30 mg of folate daily(in rats- obviously higher doses for other animals) has been suggested as an antidote for recent aminopterin ingestion. All of this is probably futile where renal failure has already occurred.

The probable source of the contamination, according to the latest news, is wheat gluten imported from China. This product is made by washing dough made with wheat flour with water until the starch is rinsed away. The product was originally developed in China where it is known as "seitan" (pronounced SAY-tahn). It is an alternative to soy products such as tofu (ICCCH- Molly) because of its texture which more closely resembles that of meat. Its original use was as a meat substitute for Chinese vegetarians such as some Buddhists. The texture is probably why it was initially considered as an additive in pet foods. For its use in pet foods Molly advises that the reader consult the Royal Canin article on the matter at http://www.royalcanin.us/articles/wheatgluten.html . Gluten is actually a highly digestible source of protein even for animals such as cats. Where the use of this product has previously been associated with problems in animals it has generally been in association with Irish Setters who have an intolerance (NOT allergy !!) to gliadin found in wheat, barley, oats, etc.. This is somewhat similar to celiac sprue in humans. (Molly note: Molly has occasionally come across animals who seem to have a similar problem, though I must admit that they have never been fully diagnosed, ie a "gluten intolerance". They are very occasional, never Irish setters-Molly sees very few of those- and often require the owners "cooking for the pet". Quite OK if you like the cat or dog enough and have the time. Some people do indeed love their pets enough). Wheat gluten is actually an excellent source, perhaps the best, of the amino acid glutamine.

Gluten is actually very much underproduced in North America - for those who are wondering why a wheat product is being imported from China. There are presently only three major US producers of gluten, MGP Ingredients of Kansas, Manildra, also of Kansas, and Archer Daniels of Illinois. Over 50% of the US supply of gluten is actually imported, some from China but also some quantities from the EU. MGP Ingredients has stated that they have done business with Menu Foods in the past, but that it has been 18 months since they made any shipments as they have curtailed production in the last two years due to inability to compete with cheaper imports. The company has also moved increasingly into the biofuels industry in the recent past.

MOLLY ASIDE: The ethanol industry has been implicated in a number of problems recently of which the rising cost of basic foodstuffs in Mexico and other Central American countries is the most prominent. There is considerable dispute about whether ethanol production is energy efficient without government subsidy, let alone whether it is "carbon efficient". The general principle would be, in Molly's opinion, that government subsidies that distort the market should be withheld if at all possible and that the most desirable form of ethanol production would be localized and small scale. Several initiatives are underway here in Manitoba around the latter matter. The growth of "biofuels" in popularity has raised commodity prices considerably in the past few years, something that can easily be applauded from a farming perspective but may have other, wider implications. The pet food problem may be one of them, though it pales in importance to the cost of corn in Mexico where corn is the food of the poor. While sugar cane is the primary feedstock in Brazil's highly successful biofuels initiative corn is the basic ingredient of the American program. What this means in terms of prices can be seen from what Molly has gleaned from a comparison of commodity prices at one brokerage firm here in Canada. The price of corn has risen from a final average in 2004/2005 of 101.73 (prices in Can $ per tonne) to the present price of 183.13 as of March 16th, 2007. Because of this effect the price of feed wheat has risen in tandem from 103.09 to 181.00 as acreage is diverted to corn production in the USA. The price of human consumption grade wheat such as # 1 of various varieties has risen nowhere near as dramatically, and prices of such have been such that Chinese competition can overtake the American and Canadian supplies for speciality products such as gluten. Most of China's wheat is produced on the North China Plain in three provinces, Henan, Shandong and Hebei where it is often dependent on irrigation for successful crops. Premium prices are paid in China for high gluten wheat, and government policy has been successful in lowering China's dependence on imported wheat, though less so in establishing reliable grading systems. anyways, back to the main thread...

Aminopterin is used as a rodenticide in China. China is a major exporter of gluten to other East Asian countries such as Japan and Vietnam. Before the recent increase in wheat prices gluten was only available in North America in Asian food markets, health foods stores and other outlets that catered to cults diets. It has been popular, despite the prevalence of celiac sprue, in cult diets such as macrobiotics and has been a common ingredient in vegetarian fare served at "fashion food" restaurants in various countries.

Final Molly Note: Molly would not be surprised if human cases were diagnosed in the near future amongst that segment of the population given to food faddism. It's possible that various agencies are looking as we speak. Keep tuned for this.

PET FOOD RECALL:

The press, from highbrow to lowbrow to nobrow has been full of stories about the major pet food recall announced by Menu Foods some days ago. Molly has taken to carrying around the list of recalled foods with her at all times so that she can respond to the numerous phone calls from concerned pet owners and can snoop through the cupboards of clients whom she actually visits. people who are interested in accessing the complete list can visit the Menu Foods website listed above (at least until they have to declare bankruptcy). The basic story is that only canned and "packet" foods are affected. No dry pet foods are included, and canned foods that come in "solid slabs" rather than "chunks" are also not affected.

A class action suit has been launched from Ontario, and some Manitoba owners may participate. Molly doesn't have enough information to comment on the legalities of this case given that the cause is still basically unknown (how gluten relates to renal failure escapes me) and how the company responded to initial reports is also still unknown. Molly can remember the last such case which affected the Royal Canin line of prescription diets about a year ago. In that case the company responded with due diligence and discovered the cause rapidly. Molly has little doubt that Royal Canin has better quality control than an outfit such as Menu Foods.The problem was corrected, and all four of Molly's cats presently eat the Royal Canin S/O diet as part of their feeding. The cause was a formulation error (maybe one more reason to not depend on computers as if they were infallible) which added an excess of vitamin D to the foods. As Molly sometimes takes great pleasure in emphasizing to health food nuts natural products are not non-toxic. Some of them are the most toxic substances on Earth. When trying to make this point about vitamins Molly uses the following language (I'll try and transcribe the tone of voice and inflection):

"Vitamin A is the MOST POISONOUS vitamin. Vitamin D is the SECOND most poisonous vitamin"

Molly varies her inflection so as to try and bypass what amounts to a religious belief that "natural" (and hence vitamins) is "good" while "artificial" (usually subsumed under the very strange term of "chemical"- as if everything in the world wasn't a chemical) is "bad". I probably have about as much success in this as I would in arguing against the curative effects of Holy Water (let's not get into homeopathy now). The word "poisonous" is used to try and bypass this religious mindset rather than the word "toxic" that is more common when discussing these sort of problems "in-house".

What struck Molly most forcibly while this stuff was happening was the extent of the list. For years now I've joked about how the pet food industry gets its foods from the same plant, puts different labels on it and charges different prices depending upon nothing greater than the advertising budget. What I didn't realize was the extent of this practice. While looking over the 93 !!!!! items listed on the recall list I noticed that some foods that I had always recommended as "high quality", such as Eukanuba and Iams, were coming from the same plant as the "ground-up rubber tires" foods sold at Wal-Mart. Looks like I was fooled. I was really shocked to see a Science Diet item (Science Diet Feline Savoury Chunks) on the list, as I always assumed that Hills was big enough to be vertically integrated throughout its entire process. Welcome to the age of "outsourcing" Molly.

But some things are far from "new". Over 35 years ago when Molly was a chemist she had a friend who was another chemist- but from Jordan. When this guy first got his degree he originally tried to find a job in Algeria shortly after they had forced the French to withdraw from the country. Like all good "liberation ideologues" they had to "prove themselves" and produce whatever the colonial power had produced. He applied for a job in a "toothpaste factory" and was given a tour of the facilities. There was a main vat from which the whole production emanated. it came down the line and was divided by sluice gates into various streams. In each stream a dye was added to give colour or a flavour was added to give taste. As he told it, the guy looked at it, took the free lunch and taxi fare and thought..."Oh fuck, this is exactly what Algeria needs...25 "different" types of toothpaste that are really the same toothpaste. " I can see the new ruling class growing in Venezuela doing exactly the same thing in the near future, and my main disappointment is how far the process has advanced here in an industry that I thought I knew much more about than I obviously do know.

Anyways, for those who are interested in knowing a little bit more about pet foods I recommend the CVMA site and its Pet Food Certification program and for a broader overview of the whole matter- without cultism , an important point- an individual site called the Dog Food Project. This latter site is a wealth of information, including a layman's guide to reading and judging pet food labels. The author is a veterinary technician with a previous degree in nutrition, and her site is one of the best that I have seen on this matter.

Molly