A: The FDA is the place to report a pet food recall related illness (,) for pet owners and for veterinarians. There is a huge difference between a suspected case and a confirmed case. Cases have to be confirmed with laboratory testing (not only to be counted but also for any legal action). We cannot speak to numbers reported on websites… as there are no reporting standards and therefore all those numbers would be pure speculation. The blog-o-sphere is interesting, but not necessarily accurate. In informal surveys of veterinary practices, we are not seeing massive numbers of deaths or illness. Reports of illnesses have dropped off significantly since owners were informed of the recall. Owners have taken our advice, stopped feeding the recalled foods, and consulted with their veterinarian. Very few pets have become seriously ill and most have responded to conventional treatment for renal failure.

WHO exactly is reporting “hundreds of thousands” affected? And surely, as you said, they can speak to the numbers reported by Banfield, Oregon, Michigan and VIN, can’t they? Perhaps only VNN approved vets are real. The VNN vet said on CNN not to feed pet food with wheat gluten, yet I don’t see that in this pet food FAQ. Has she gone ROGUE? Will her password be (gasp) deleted?

“Most dry pet foods don’t routinely utilize the wheat gluten meal in their formulations.”

“A very small percentage of pet foods are involved”

Reading the foodlabels is not a prerequisite before issuing a statement like that ? There is no link between imported quantity and it’s use ? A 30% increase in visit to vets is no indication that something is not totally right here ?

“Most experts in internal medicine who study kidney disease, do not believe that melamine is truly the culprit. Little work is done in our small animals, particularly cats, on the toxicity of this substance.”

Oh my, and research on the effects in rats is no indication ?

“The good news is that all along we have been treating these dogs and cats appropriately, they are responding well, most pets that have eating recalled food are healthy and fine, and we are still looking hard.”

This would be very funny if it weren’t so sad.
How can you treat someone “appropriately” if you don’t know what is causing the illness (toxity in their words). What about longterm prognosis & wellbeing ?

Vets (or anybody else for that matter) are infallable ? Never make a mistake ? Right.

But for me what is most unforgivable, (and unbelievable) is that the VNN is firmly sticking to their legalese—-a tortured definition of the number of “official” deaths. As long as the VNN makes no effort to even acknowlege that there may be many more animal deaths beyond those 16 who died in Menu’s controlled lab test more than a month ago, anything else they say must be increasingly viewed as wholly suspect, as well. Why the VNN’s PR and media people who are probably University trained in crisis management don’t see that is amazing to me. It’s always the coverup that gets ya, folks.

Earlier in the week one of my local papers printed an article with a Q and A section that I recognozed immediately as coming from the computer of a Public Relations professional on a mission. Now I know exactly where the gullible reporter got the Q and A.

http://www.myvnn.com/press.php?press=7
VNN is a FREE service for veterinarians used to help them get involved with their local news media to provide much needed expert medical advice to the public. VNN specializes in producing and distributing complete news packages for its national network of veterinarians. {…} The VNN project was made possible by an educational grant from the Western Veterinary Conference (WVC) and is currently funded by Merial.

They have a FAQ for the pet food recall that I suggest all READ as it mentions blogs (how they hate them, how they use them)::
http://www.myvnn.com/press.php?press=8

It’s run by Dr. Jim Humphries, who apparently appears on lots of radio and TV shows, not to mention had (and still may have) some commercial interests (besides his own Video production company).: Check his bio: http://www.myvnn.com/bios.htm

I ran across a collection of links about VNN, among them was this one:
http://taxi_image.advanstar.co.....3-web.html
The VNN resources, found at http://www.vetnewsnet.com, are available to all participating veterinarians. Interested candidates must meet seven qualifications listed on the site to become a veterinarian reporter, and Humphries plans to conduct telephone interviews. Once accepted, VNN reporters will be expected to develop relationships with local media outlets and receive a toolbox containing news packages of edited video, radio talking points and articles each month.

Participants who stray from the VNN-approved message will not be network supported, Humphries says.

“Should a veterinarian become rogue, they will not be sent any more information and their password will be deleted,” he says.”

ROGUE? Approved message? Funded by Merial? Is it these people who are helping to keep the number at 16?

VNN information for their “reporters”, in which he says Royal Canin recall was due to aflatoxin:
http://www.pavma.org/Pet_Food_.....ecall.html

I don’t expect any TV vet to tell me what to feed. Neither do I expect them to tell me I need a degree in nutrition to feed my pet. Nor will I listen to any vet who is associated with VNN. I’ll only listen to the ROGUES!

Information is good, panic is bad, but bland canned approved messages from authority figures who are not allowed to speak their mind doesn’t cut it right now.

Of course, the damage caused by the recent tainted wheat gluten may be different, or with greater toxicity to the affected kidneys and therefore have a different prognoses than what my cat has been dealing with, but I wanted to let you know that some cats can live quite a while with compromised kidneys and have a great quality of life. Good luck to all of you.

I completely agree with you Sandi K. For my family, the worse is far from over. Yes, some of my cats that showed minor symptoms have improved but my PooPoo who spent 20+ days in the vet will have to be on subcu fluids for a long time in addition to diuretics with weekly trips to the vet for who knows how long. Having also lost two cats during this fiasco, it’s definitely hard to move on. Every time I go outside, I still expect to see those two running up to me and I get upset all over again. Poo thinks I’m crazy because every time he goes outside to romp and play, I follow him around all over the place. I’m so scared that he is going to get sick again so I am watching him like a hawk.

Anyway, it’s definitely far from over for us.

I think the female vet should have said something about the continuing treatments for the pets that had already sustained kidney damage and, of course, the costs associated with those treatments. She also said, based on her experience I believe, that the number of pets coming in with ARF seemed to have diminished. I hope that is true since owners sbecame more proactive once the issue gained more media attention during the second week, but I don’t want pet owners to to become complacent, thinking that their animals do not need monitoring and that all is well. As someone suggested here, we may see animals with shortened lives and a lesser quality of life as a fallout effect, even though the pets survived the immediately life-threatening period once they received intensive treatment. I certainly hope not.