Do you like this story?
Pet food recall: Durbin, DeLauro meet with FDA chief
By Gina Spadafori
April 18, 2007
- If you have a sick pet or a question on your pet’s health, call your veterinarian.
- If you’re new to the site, please check out our general information page (includes links to recalled foods).
- If you’d like suggestions on what to feed, click here.
- If you want to report a sick or deceased pet, click here.
- If you want to know what you can do, please read our call to action
- If you want to read all our recall-related blog posts, click here.
Sen. Durbin’s office sent over a media release, which is not yet now up on the Senator’s Web site:
U.S.Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) today met with U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner, Andrew von Eschenbach in Durbin’s Capitol office to discuss the latest recall of pet food, this time caused by contaminated rice protein imported from China.
In the meeting, Durbin and DeLauro learned that the Chinese Government has blocked requests from the FDA to send personnel to China to inspect the facilities suspected of producing the contaminated products. The FDA first contacted the Chinese Government on April 4, 2007, but have not been granted permission to send food inspectors into the country. In response, Durbin and DeLauro sent a letter to the Chinese Ambassador to the United States, Zhou Wenzong, urging the Chinese Government to issue visas to U.S. food inspectors as quickly as possible.
We’ll link to the rest when it’s posted on Sen. Durbin’s Web site. In the meantime, here’s a copy of the letter to the Chinese Ambassador.
Also: We’ve updated our database page with new information from authorities in Oregon and Michigan.
Go to the latest blog post | Go to the PetConnection home page
|Technorati Tags: pet food recall
, dogs, cats,veterinarian, veterinary
Share & Enjoy
|
Facebook
|
Twitter
|
Google Buzz
|
Digg
|
|
Technorati
|
StumbleUpon
|
Delicious
|
Email
|
Home
I’m doing whatever it takes to not purchase anything Chinese. I don’t care if I have to do without. Until they clean up their act and bad attitude forget it. I don’t care if they buy our debt and loan us money. End Story. I’ll go out of my way to buy U.S. No effort spared.
Comment by Steve — April 18, 2007 @ 6:34 pm
I’m with you Steve. I’m also not buying anything from any of the companies that own any of the recalled brands.
So I’m not doing much shopping these days… no packaged foods, no cleaning products, no commercial pet foods, and grocery shopping as little as possible until I can figure out where things come from. (Just saw yesterday that the bulk bins at Wild Oats have the supplier’s name, that’ll help.)
I’m very grateful our local farmer’s market starts here this Saturday - everything sold there has to be grown within a hundred or so miles of here. It’s expensive, but definitely worth it right now.
Comment by Kim — April 18, 2007 @ 6:57 pm
It’s clear that whatever flaws the system has, it’s much safer to purchase food that was actually grown in the US. So I’m making sure that whatever I feed my dogs, it’s all from here. No more imported ingredients from countries with nonexistent food safety regulations!
Also, no feeding of foods with connections to Menu Foods. I still think they knew more before they let on. I had been feeding my dogs Wellness, but not anymore.
In this country, money (and where you choose to spend it) causes the most change!
Comment by Lisa C — April 18, 2007 @ 6:58 pm
Comment by Kim — April 18, 2007 @ 6:57 pm
A person is rich in proportion to the number of things they can afford to leave alone.
Why we Americans ever bought into this thing is astounding. No more.
Comment by Steve — April 18, 2007 @ 7:13 pm
How can you know what ingredients were grown in the US? All of the foods say “Made in the USA”, but they don’t ever mention “with questionable products from China”. I just don’t know how successful you will be in your No China/No Menu Foods boycott. Menu Foods was never listed on any of the recalled products…..
If you look around your house, you will see that quite a lot of it was made-in all, or in part- in China.
Just don’t delude yourself into thinking you’re not buying anything from China. You certainly are, you just don’t know it.
Comment by Lori Lee — April 18, 2007 @ 7:42 pm
I see many more new names here today. That’s good.
Sharon G. sorry for the loss of your kitty. My heart goes out to all. Lori, Elliott, others, thanks for joining in.
Comment by VJ — April 18, 2007 @ 7:46 pm
I don’t understand why it is okay for the Chinese Gov. to block our FDA’s entry to check on the source of contamination but China is sending so much edible producs into our country - one would think they would cooperate - but maybe they know we have no choice and blocking goods would be too detrimental so we are stuck between a rock and a hard place - with no political clout.
Linda MS
Comment by Linda — April 18, 2007 @ 7:48 pm
I don’t understand why we don’t just provide $ to our farmers to grow wheat, rice, corn…we are already paying them NOT to grow it.
Of course, we couldn’t do it as cheaply or dirty as the Chinese can.
Comment by Lori Lee — April 18, 2007 @ 7:50 pm
Steve,
Very good point in not buying anything made in China. My fear is that most people with cats and dogs are just not paying that much attention to this and the real culperts (menu-etc)in this will not suffer very much.
Comment by Robin — April 18, 2007 @ 7:51 pm
Comment by Lori Lee — April 18, 2007 @ 7:42 pm
No I am not deluding myself. First of all you do not know the first thing about me. Secondly, I worked for a Global Corporation and know the game and the whole outsourcing “racket” backwards, and forward inside out. I don’t need a bunch of “cheap stuff” to fill a void in my life. I am simply going to change my priorities. If it takes six months to find an essential appliance or something that suits my requirements so be it.
Comment by Steve — April 18, 2007 @ 7:54 pm
Lori Lee,
Speaking for myself, I’m not boycotting China completely. It is hard, but I do look for alternatives where possible.
As for the dog food, I feed my dogs The Honest Kitchen. All ingredients of US origin, all certified human grade. They’re one of very few pet foods allowed to print “human grade” on their labels, and the food is made in a human food plant.
Comment by Lisa C — April 18, 2007 @ 7:54 pm
I would LOVE to not buy cat food with products from China in it, but you just don’t know…
We’ve been feeding our cats New Balance Venison and Green Pea dry along with some New Balance wet, Merrick and a few others.
There is nowhere on their label or on their website which would have disclosed the rice protein from China. As a matter of fact, our New Balance bag says NOTHING about rice protein, but yet it does on the website. So much for New Balance’s “Natural” components…
I make it a standard practice now whenever I find out a company uses wheat gluten or rice protein from China to tell them I will NEVER use their product again. It’s about trust. Those who do not engender trust should be put out of business.
John
Comment by John Pierce — April 18, 2007 @ 7:56 pm
Hey Gina,
Did you mean to use this url for the Michigan numbers???
http://www.michvma.org/index.cfm?id=278
Comment by CathyA — April 18, 2007 @ 7:59 pm
Yes, I did. Thanks for the catch. It’s fixed.
Comment by Gina Spadafori — April 18, 2007 @ 8:07 pm
I’m leaving. I think political correctness has gone amuck. Our pets are being poisoned and on the blog we are not able to express outrage or disgust now it must be “nice” and “Polite” and that’s hard to do, it’s as if our own babies are being killed right before us. Lies and coverups and I feel like puking over it all. For certain I can’t be a part of any blog that would block or edit Johnnypaycut for expressing his views against China and what our government is allowing to happen here in the U.S.
And now I have to contain my disdain for these pet food companies because voicing it might hurt someone’s feelings? Right. Well I guess the Pet Food companies are winning after all.
Linda MS
Comment by Linda — April 18, 2007 @ 8:10 pm
Someone asked why we don’t just pay our farmers to grow our own grains so we don’t have to import them..
http://tinyurl.com/27qwlk
(snip)
ATCHISON, Kan. — MGP Ingredients Inc.’s plant off of US Route 59 is the nation’s largest processor of wheat gluten, a protein used in thousands of food products, from dog food to frozen diet meals to soup
(snip)
The plant is just a few dozen miles from a competitor’s warehouse whose shipments of imported wheat gluten last month sparked one of the nation’s largest pet food recalls. Until the news that an industrial chemical in the shipments was linked to cat and dog deaths, few realized that as much as 80 percent of wheat gluten used in the United States for human and animal food comes mainly from Asia and Europe .
(snip)
A group that represents the nation’s “dirt-under-the-fingernails” wheat growers says subsidies from foreign governments, combined with low US tariffs for imports, have resulted in a flood of imported wheat gluten priced significantly below the 65 cents per pound the domestic version fetched at the time the tainted shipment arrived. Last year, wheat gluten from China averaged 43 cents per pound at the port of arrival, said Steve Pickman , MGP Ingredients vice president of corporate relations .
Comment by Flo — April 18, 2007 @ 8:34 pm
Since there seems to be some interest in agriculture policy on this site——-for those who may not already know, there is a good chance that a new farm bill will be crafted and go for vote in congress yet this year. Subcommittees are already meeting to ferret out issues that need to be addressed, renewed or changed. The most recent farm bill was passed in 2002 (Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002 to be precise). Obviously much in the economy and the arena of world trade has changed since 2002. Import/export issues, agribusiness regulation, ethanol/renewable energy production, crop subsidies and land and water conservation policy will no doubt be on the legislators’ minds. Many people unfortunately think of farm policy as affecting only farmers and rural areas of the country. We know better. We who have been following the pet food crisis know that what is grown, how it is grown, and how it is processed has implications to every man woman, child and animal in America.
Lobbyists of all ilk, foreign and domestic, will be busy as little bees. You may wish to make your feelings known to members of the U.S. House of Representatives Committe on Agriculture.
Comment by elizabeth R — April 18, 2007 @ 8:48 pm
Didn’t know if you’d seen this. Wilbur-Ellis has been importing this stuff since last July.
(AP) WASHINGTON An industrial chemical that led to the nationwide recall of more than 100 brands of cat and dog food has turned up in a second pet food ingredient imported from China.
The discovery expands the monthlong cascade of recalls to include more brands and varieties of pet foods and treats tainted by the chemical.
“This has exposed that the safety standards for pet foods are not in place in any significant way and the kind of drumbeat, day after day, of recalls has shaken consumers’ confidence in the pet food industry’s adherence to food safety standards,” said Wayne Pacelle, president and chief executive officer of the Humane Society of the United States.
The chemical, melamine, is believed to have contaminated rice protein concentrate used to make a variety of Natural Balance Pet Foods products for both dogs and cats, the Food and Drug Administration said Wednesday.
Previously, the chemical was found to contaminate wheat gluten used by at least six other pet food and treat manufacturers.
Both ingredients were imported from China, though by different companies and from different manufacturers.
A lawmaker said Wednesday the Chinese have refused to grant visas to FDA inspectors seeking to visit the plants where the ingredients were made. An FDA spokesman later said the visas were not refused but that the agency had not received the necessary invitation letter to get visas.
“It troubles me greatly the Chinese are making it more difficult to understand what led to this pet food crisis,” Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., told The Associated Press after meeting with the FDA commissioner, Dr. Andrew von Eschenbach.
A message left Wednesday with the Chinese Embassy in Washington was not immediately returned.
Natural Balance said it was recalling all its Venison and Brown Rice canned and bagged dog foods, its Venison and Brown Rice dog treats and its Venison and Green Pea dry cat food.
The recalls now include products made by at least seven companies and sold under more than 100 brands.
The company, based in the Pacoima area of Los Angeles, said recent laboratory tests showed its recalled products contain melamine. Natural Balance believes the source of the contaminant was rice protein concentrate, which the company recently added to the dry venison formulas.
A San Francisco company, Wilbur-Ellis Co., began importing the ingredient in July from a Chinese company, Futian Biology Technology Co. Ltd., according to Wilbur-Ellis president and chief executive John Thacher.
It resold the ingredient to five pet food manufacturers, including Diamond Pet Foods Inc. of Meta, Mo. Diamond manufactured the dry dog and cat foods recalled by Natural Balance, Diamond Pet Foods spokesman Jim Fallon said.
Thacher declined to identify his company’s other four customers, except to say two tested the ingredient and found no melamine. Wilbur-Ellis has not heard from the other two, both of whom received limited amounts of the ingredient, Thacher said.
The source of the melamine remains unclear. It may have contaminated the rice protein through the reuse of dirty bags used to ship the products.
Thacher said an April 4 delivery from Futian Biology included 146 1-ton bags of rice protein concentrate. All were white except for a single pink bag, which was stenciled “melamine.”
Wilbur-Ellis isolated the entire shipment at a Portland, Ore. warehouse and sent out samples for testing. The pink bag’s contents tested positive for melamine while the two white bags tested were negative, Thacher said.
Futian Biology later told Wilbur-Ellis that a damaged bag was replaced with a clean one, Thacher said. The company then “certified the product was all fine,” he added.
The Las Vegas importer of the contaminated Chinese wheat gluten, ChemNutra Inc., that led to the original pet food recall has suggested that spiking a product with melamine can make it to appear to be richer in protein during tests, thus increasing its value.
ChemNutra also imported rice protein concentrate from China, though from another source. Spokesman Steve Stern said the company is testing those shipments.
The recalls began March 16 when Menu Foods recalled 60 million cans of dog and cat food after the deaths of 16 pets, mostly cats, that had eaten its products. The FDA said tests indicated the food was contaminated with melamine, which is used in making plastics and other industrial processes.
Five other companies later recalled pet products also made with wheat gluten tainted by the chemical. The FDA has since blocked Chinese imports of wheat gluten.
Menu Foods continues to add more varieties to its recall list. Menu Foods spokesman Sam Bornstein did not know if the Streetsville, Ontario-based company also used rice protein concentrate as an ingredient in its pet foods, sold under more than 100 different major and store brands.
A House committee is holding a food safety hearing Tuesday and is expected to discuss the pet food recall.
(© 2007 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. )
Comment by Eva — April 18, 2007 @ 8:52 pm
Gina or Christie, is Dr Becker still going to be on Good Morning America tomorrow and if so do you know what time? Thank you for everything!
Comment by Sandi K — April 18, 2007 @ 9:03 pm
Linda - I hope you don’t go. You have had really good input to the forum. The comments I saw from johnnypaycut didn’t seem offensive - but maybe they had been edited.
Comment by Jenny — April 18, 2007 @ 9:06 pm
About farmers…..lived in the middle of corn fields for years, now I live in the middle of citrus groves. Increase in housing developments are making our farms disappear. Rising property taxes for farmers, years of bad weather and plant disease make them give up and sell their land for millions. And the attitude of my county government is all aimed in one direction…..towards development. Your oranges are going to cost more in a few years as groves are rapidly disappearing. I’ve been bird dogging the county govt. who are in charge of the Land Use Plan. So it helps to get involved locally too.
Farmers can barely make it - will be worse with rising fuel costs. Those subsidies for the family farmer (not corporate megafarms) sometimes make a difference between being there one year to the next.
Comment by CathyA — April 18, 2007 @ 9:35 pm
It’s late & I need to get some sleep. Up super early & gone all day tomorrow but need to say this. Earlier I’d replied to a comment regarding an overheard rumor about having to see a vet in order to get holistic food, supplements, etc. Don’t remember which posting it was on. Just wanted to clarify. There is a group referred to as CODEX which is comprised of mega-pharmaca companies all over the world who want to take away our right to buy holistic, aromatherapy, supplements, homopathic NATURAL remedies. They only want us to use engineered drugs that they make billions of dollars from to poison our bodies. Not that in an emergency, manufactured drugs can definitely save lives. I’m all for saving life. I’m just saying don’t get drawn into the doggie anxiety drug, etc. If you have a pet that suffers from anxiety there are flower essence remedies that work. If you use the incorrect one on your pet, it absolutely will do NO HARM. It would be like taking a sip of water. Does it normally harm you. No. The same remedy you give your pet, you can take at the same time for yourself because you are feeling what your pet is feeling. Two good books are “Bach Remedies” written by Bach himself & “Flower Essence Remedies” by Jessica Bear & Tricia Lewis. One more comment regarding CODEX. There is a coalition fighting it.
Comment by VJ — April 18, 2007 @ 9:41 pm
are we supposed to believe this?!
“The source of the melamine remains unclear. It may have contaminated the rice protein through the reuse of dirty bags used to ship the products.
Thacher said an April 4 delivery from Futian Biology included 146 1-ton bags of rice protein concentrate. All were white except for a single pink bag, which was stenciled “melamine.”
Wilbur-Ellis isolated the entire shipment at a Portland, Ore. warehouse and sent out samples for testing. The pink bag’s contents tested positive for melamine while the two white bags tested were negative, Thacher said.
Futian Biology later told Wilbur-Ellis that a damaged bag was replaced with a clean one, Thacher said. The company then “certified the product was all fine,” he added.”
I’m sorry, but dirty bags had enough Melamine to contaminate one ton each?! Enough so that pets were getting sick and dying from a supposedly non/low toxic material? And didn’t I see that Natual Balance was saying it was a March 28th production run even though they were pulling everything to be thorough? And if the pink bag was replaced . . . Why do they keep acting like this is an accidental contamination? WHY?!?!
Was I born yesterday and nobody told me?
Comment by straybaby — April 18, 2007 @ 10:27 pm
Comment by straybaby — April 18, 2007 @ 10:27 pm
You’re right.
Last I heard, neither the FDA nor the VIN would even confirm that melamine is the toxin. “It’s just the marker,” they say.
So, sorry, but I ain’t buyin’ the dirty bag scenario. That’s as clumsy a lie as the average five-year-old would come up with.
Not to mention that the folks in the plant would have had to have been both color-blind and illiterate not to notice the suspect bag. Somehow, that seems unlikely.
Comment by Laura — April 18, 2007 @ 10:44 pm
Comment by VJ — April 18, 2007 @ 9:41 pm
You’re right - you don’t need a prescription to buy that stuff. Mostly because most the majority of it is snake oil - it flat-out doesn’t work.
You think the FDA is poorly regulated? Check out the dietary supplements trade. ZERO oversight. They could be selling you nuclear sawdust and no one would know.
That said, though, Bach stuff DOES seem to work well. I’ve used Rescue Remedy on anxious dogs for years with reasonable effectiveness and no health side effects. It could be really useful for folks whose pets are refusing to eat - not because of the food, but because they’re picking up on their owner’s anxiety about the food.
Comment by Laura — April 18, 2007 @ 10:49 pm
well heck, at least *they* haven’t used “clerical error” . . . . yet. I’m tempted to go in the kitchen and empty a bag of salt and fill it with flour just to see the *contamination* level :p
and where the heck is the stuff they’ve been importing since July?! EEP!
I think everyone at the Marches should wear a T-shirt that says “I have a brain” or “I wasn’t Born Yesterday” It’s getting downright insulting.
Comment by straybaby — April 18, 2007 @ 10:50 pm
New news from USA Today regarding location of companies that bought the rice protein:
The other four manufacturers have yet to be named, but are located in Utah, New York, Kansas and Missouri, Wilbur-Ellis said in a news release.
http://www.usatoday.com/money/.....usat_N.htm
Comment by Jill Weisenfeld — April 19, 2007 @ 12:18 am
Someone asked me if I knew why China is selling food to the west (or anywhere) when their own people are starving.
I guess its because people are greedy (the west) and can buy it cheaper from China and the Chinese companies are greedy and even selling it for less than the Western companies could buy it from other sources they make much more money than if it was bought and used in China.
Isn’t the US the largest producer of wheat? Why are we buying from China or othere areas of the world when we could use the grains grown in our own country?
Comment by Maureen (Lilly and Lucy's mom) — April 19, 2007 @ 12:20 am
The pink bag is nothing but a bullsh—cya. And so is their amazingly efficient response timeline if you ask me. The media is reporting industry spin not facts. WHAT REPORTER IS GETTING THE FACTS???? (since we cannot depend upon any agency responsible to the public to do so).
Behind the whole scandal is the fact that these suppliers have NO motive to provide a product of benefit to “consumers” (I won’t even say people/pets because we’re only $ to them) but only a motive to make more and more and more money. Corporations need to have their rights as “citizens” revoked and be issued charters again by the PEOPLE they are supposed to benefit. If they do not provide benefit or break the public trust, their charter should be revoked. WE ARE CITIZENS HERE AND THEY ARE RESPONSIBLE TO US. AND SO IS OUR “GOVERNMENT”……
Comment by 4lgdfriend — April 19, 2007 @ 9:17 am