Pet-food recall: What actually killed the animals?
By Gina Spadafori
May 1, 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 information on recalled foods).
- If you want to report a sick or deceased pet, click here.
The Canadian press had this reported pretty widely a couple of days ago — and it’s blogged in here somewhere. But now the AVMA is saying what may have killed the pets who ate the tainted pet food:
Tests conducted on contaminated pet food and necropsies from affected animals have resulted in a new theory to explain how animals are being adversely affected by contaminated pet foods. A chemical reaction between melamine and cyanuric acid is suspected of forming crystals and blocking kidney function.
The investigation into contaminated pet food has focused on melamine contamination of ingredients imported from China, such as wheat gluten, rice protein concentrate and corn gluten (imported into South Africa). It is now believed that cyanuric acid, as well as melamine, has been found in urine samples from animals that died.
Analysis of the crystals in the kidneys of affected animals have revealed that they are approximately 70 percent cyanuric acid and 30 percent melamine, and are extremely insoluble. Furthermore, tests mixing melamine and cyanuric acid in samples of cat urine resulted in almost immediate formation of crystals that were identical to crystals found in the kidneys of affected animals. Two other melamine- related substances—ammelide and ammeline—may also play roles and are under investigation.
Here’s the rest. And here’s the Toronto Star, from three days ago:
Guelph scientists may be closer to figuring out why North American pets are dying from contaminated food.
Two of the chemicals U.S. authorities say they’ve found in food additives from China – melamine and cyanuric acid – can react to form crystals that could block kidney function, according to the University of Guelph’s Agriculture and Food Laboratory.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration found melamine, which is used to make plastic, in wheat gluten and rice protein concentrate in some pet foods. They’ve also found cyanuric acid, a chemical used to treat water in swimming pools, in wheat gluten.
So far, 16 pets have died, but experts say that number is low. Dozens of contaminated pet food products have been recalled.
“This is a piece of the puzzle, a significant finding,” said John Melichercik, director of analytical services for Guelph’s laboratory services. “We have found these crystals in cats that have suffered renal failure.”
American health authorities have implicated the two compounds, but because neither seemed sufficiently toxic on its own, it was unclear how they were involved. But both compounds are something “you wouldn’t expect to see in pet food,” Melichercik said.
Here’s the rest.
I believe Christie is warming up her fingers for the FDA media briefing, which is to start in a few minutes ( 4 p.m. ET).
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Gina, thanks for combining the two reports. I knew I’d read somewhere about the Canadian research but couldn’t find the link.
Comment by Ally — May 1, 2007 @ 1:10 pm
Detailed Product Description
Characteristic: odorless white crystalline powder or grain
Content: 98.5% min. (powder); 98% min. (granular)
Moisture: 0.5% (max.)
Burnt residue: 0.1% (max.)
pH: 2.8-4.0
Make cyanogen uric acid chloride, saline, fat; used for formating the new-type bleaching agent, resisting oxygen pharmaceutical, paint coating, agricultural weed
killer mainly, Cyaniding lose pharmaceutical slowly with metal, can used in stablizer,
disinfects, decontamination, chlorine of swimming pool, and can also be
used in nylon, firing pharmaceutical and cosmetics additive.
Comment by Linda — May 1, 2007 @ 1:14 pm
Greed
Comment by Steve — May 1, 2007 @ 1:15 pm
http://chemistry.about.com/b/a/257741.htm
Cyanuric acid (1,3,5-triazine-2,4,6-triol, C3H3N3O3) is an organic compound used as a water treatment stabilizer for swimming pools and hot tubs. Amilorine and amiloride also were found in connection with testing of rice protein concentrate. Cyanuric acid, amilorine, and amiloride are metabolites of melamine, so though it’s possible cyanuric acid was added as a contaminant, it more likely resulted from bacterial metabolism of melamine. I think the other two chemicals were found in the tissue and urine of animals that ate the contaminated food, not in the ingredient itself.
Comment by Linda — May 1, 2007 @ 1:17 pm
does anyone know how or why cyanuric acid got into pet food? is this another ‘fake protein’ added in China?
Comment by Cynthia — May 1, 2007 @ 1:27 pm
Anne Marie Helmenstine, Ph.D., is a chemist and she says that:
Cyanuric acid (1,3,5-triazine-2,4,6-triol, C3H3N3O3) is an organic compound used as a water treatment stabilizer for swimming pools and hot tubs. Amilorine and amiloride also were found in connection with testing of rice protein concentrate. Cyanuric acid, amilorine, and amiloride are metabolites of melamine, so though it’s possible cyanuric acid was added as a contaminant, it more likely resulted from bacterial metabolism of melamine. I think the other two chemicals were found in the tissue and urine of animals that ate the contaminated food, not in the ingredient itself.
http://chemistry.about.com/b/a/257741.htm
Comment by Linda — May 1, 2007 @ 1:27 pm
Re: Comment posted in another thread—topic seems to fit here:
“That’s what worries me too. If we, our pets, and our foodstock have all been consuming melamine for a while now, as it appears we have been, then why did it suddenly get so much more toxic? Some have talked about melamine’s reaction with cyanuric acid and heat, but I’m still a little skeptical.
Comment by Laura — May 1, 2007 @ 12:40 pm”
I believe it has been going on for some time, just under the radar. Pet owners and vets just did not put it all together until recently. And what have the pet food companies been covering up? For how long? We have seen plenty of demonstration that most cannot be trusted.
Today I was discussing this with a couple of friends. We came up with at least four cases in the past few years that we knew of personally, including our some of own pets, where a cat took sick and died very suddenly and mysteriously. Especially a rapid death by kidney failure in my friend’s young cat—they absolutely could not figure it out, except that, despite intensive treatment, some “crystals” in her urine would not go away. (Sound familiar?) Of course, we did not ask for autopsies—and would the pathologists have known what to look for in 2004? I’ve heard other people comment the same. Maybe with an increase in Chinese imports by the pet food industry in the past year or so, the number of deaths increased and it has become more noticeable.
RIP Mac, Jezebelle, Minnie, and CT. Maybe you too were victims, and we did not know it til now.
Comment by Debra — May 1, 2007 @ 1:42 pm
does anyone have the link for the AVMA story? all the links in the above blog take me to the same Toronto Star page. thanks.
Comment by Nancy — May 1, 2007 @ 1:48 pm
Does anybody know where I would refer my vet to be able to tell if the crystals in my dog’s urine are the melamine crystals? None of the food she ate is on the recall lists, one treat was manufactured in China, and the symptoms are too coincidental.
Comment by kb — May 1, 2007 @ 2:32 pm
Comment by Nancy — May 1, 2007 @ 1:48 pm
Yes - here’s the link I posted from the AVMA’s press release dated today:
http://www.avma.org/press/rele.....recall.asp
Comment by Ally — May 1, 2007 @ 2:36 pm
Comment by kb — May 1, 2007 @ 2:32 pm
kb, am trying this again - my reply isn’t showing up. I would have your vet contact UC Davis’ testing center:
http://cahfs.ucdavis.edu/pet_food.htm
(sorry if this posts multi times and we’re experiencing another glitch. I thought this info important for kb.)
Comment by Ally — May 1, 2007 @ 2:41 pm
kb, Antech Diagnostics posted some images for vet clinics to use in assessing any crystals they might find:
http://tinyurl.com/2y2r48
Comment by Pat — May 1, 2007 @ 2:43 pm
Comment by Cynthia — May 1, 2007 @ 1:27 pm
It seems that the Cyanuric acid is the toxic contamination, that the Melamine may have been in the mix for a long time. Melamine is not generally toxic, but reacts with toxins (according to a patent that steve (not me) found a couple weeks ago) to increase toxicity and longevity.
Large amounts of Melamine were fed to dogs in tests in the 1950s, 10 times the amount in the contaminated pet foods, for an extended period of time. No significant effects. Bear in mind these tests were laboratory tests and the product was ‘clean’ of other toxins. The tests were done when plastics made from Melamine were becomming widely used.
Perhaps someone used water treated with Cyanuric Acid in irrigation, or to clean product before processing, then they added the Melamine, and pow - mix in a little urine and you get tiny crystals of death…
Our Maine Coon is back up to 6#13 now, very slowly gaining weight, and a month to go for the next blood test. She is eating more, and still does not really like the K/D diet, but there are several flavors she will really dig into…
Comment by steve a — May 1, 2007 @ 2:44 pm
Linda and steve a,
Both melamine and cyanuric acid (along with amilorine and amiloride) were found in the ChemNutra wheat gluten (see articles quoted above, e.g.). This was first reported a couple of weeks ago, if memory serves.
So both compounds that react to form the crystals were present in the bad gluten from the get-go…
Comment by David — May 1, 2007 @ 3:11 pm
Thank you Pat and Ally!
Comment by kb — May 1, 2007 @ 3:17 pm
Also, as reported here in previous days, cyanuric acid is an intermediate product in synthesis of melamine from urea. So it is easy to see how it could be present as an impurity in “melamine scrap” before it was ground into a powder and added to gluten.
Comment by David — May 1, 2007 @ 3:19 pm
Every time I try to read the FDA conference thread, I get a message that Internet Explorer has encountered and problem and must close down. No trouble reading this thread. Anyone else having this problem?
Comment by Linda P. — May 1, 2007 @ 3:43 pm
Yep. There’s definitely a problem with that post.
Don’t worry: The FDA is investigating, and there will be no recall of the site.
(Translation: Black Dog is checking it out now.)
Comment by Gina Spadafori — May 1, 2007 @ 3:45 pm
Comment by kb — May 1, 2007 @ 2:32 pm - Does anybody know where I would refer my vet to be able to tell if the crystals in my dog’s urine are the melamine crystals? None of the food she ate is on the recall lists, one treat was manufactured in China, and the symptoms are too coincidental.
kb, my vet set my cats urine samples to Antech Diagnostics for a urinalysis & to check for the melamine crystals. See link above to their website.
Turns out we dodged another bullet, my cats urinalysis was completely negative & no crystals found. I am very relieved, but of course still worried about future recalls.
Comment by catlover — May 1, 2007 @ 3:49 pm
FireFox working fine, if that helps.
Comment by Peggy — May 1, 2007 @ 3:49 pm
Looks like the FDA is trying to back paddle…AGAIN!!
“The agency has received as many as 17,000 calls … regarding this pet food incident that are alleging some form of animal illness or death,” Michael Rogers, head of the FDA’s field investigations unit, told reporters.
Of those, information obtained from 8,000 calls has been entered into the FDA’s database and “roughly 50 pct of those allege an animal death,” Rogers said.
But government officials emphasized the actual number of pet deaths directly caused by the contaminated pet food may be much lower.
“Those reports of deaths are just that — people who called in and reported deaths that might be related to the pet food,” said Ken Petersen, a veterinarian with the U.S. Agriculture Department, who spoke at the same news conference. “We have not confirmed those that are related to the pet food and that will take some time.”
http://tinyurl.com/2sbo29
Comment by mal — May 1, 2007 @ 4:02 pm
Gina, funny! That’s the first laugh I’ve had all day. Thanks!
Comment by Marilyn — May 1, 2007 @ 4:06 pm
Gina -
Thanks for checking out that glitch on the FDA thread. I went over to itchmo briefly and just got back. The thought actually did cross my mind that someone was purposely trying to mess it up!! :) Maybe I’m getting paranoid after the various disappearing articles, etc. lol
Comment by Linda P. — May 1, 2007 @ 4:08 pm
Comment by Linda P. — May 1, 2007 @ 3:43 pm
Still a glitch with the FDA conference thread? I’m getting the same error as Linda P. was earlier.
I just don’t get it — I just checked the ABC News site and they have NOTHING since April 27th. Do you think they ate poisoned pet food and bit the dust, or do you think they STILL JUST DON”T GET IT!!!!!!! Thought you guys (Dr. Becker???) had a GMA connection — I would think they would be all over this stuff.
Gina and Christie, you have been a lifeline for information. Thanks for all of your effort in gathering news for those of us who were lucky enough to learn about your site. I truly would be lost without this info — we have no local media, and clearly some of the national media is still asleep at the switch.
If I’m looking in the wrong place on ABC, please let me know, I would expect it to be with the other “regular” news at this point.
Also, any word on the postcards arriving yet?
Comment by michelle — May 1, 2007 @ 4:56 pm
My dog was affected by IAMs dry food. Had a complete physical in late october and was fine. Now has kidney problems. I swithed to Natural Balance and now that is recalled. I’m looking for a dog food that is made with all US sourced ingrediants (nothing from China or 3rd world country with no controls on food safety); that is all organic and made with 100% human grade food (no byproducts, etc.) and is made by an internal company owned plant - not outsourced to a contract manufacturer. Does such a dog foof exist on the market? I found only one company — almost perfect but they outsourced their vitamin c from china. Yuk!!
Comment by lee — May 1, 2007 @ 6:34 pm
What I don’t understand is:
WHY IS CYANURIC ACID in the pet food in the first place???
Where did it come from?
Sorry for the emphasis but I must have missed this information somewhere cause this just makes no sense to me.
Comment by Sharon — May 1, 2007 @ 7:18 pm
Sharon,
It came from China, along with the melamine and ?????
Comment by David — May 1, 2007 @ 7:29 pm
David said:
Both melamine and cyanuric acid (along with amilorine and amiloride) were found in the ChemNutra wheat gluten (see articles quoted above, e.g.).
The about.com chemist said: Cyanuric acid, amilorine, and amiloride are metabolites of melamine, so though it’s possible cyanuric acid was added as a contaminant, it more likely resulted from bacterial metabolism of melamine.
I’ll try once again! Amilorine and amiloride were found in the TISSUES of affected animals. Only cyanuric acid and melamine were found in any of the foodstuffs. While amilorine and amiloride MAY be metabolites of melamine (in mammalian bodies perhaps - no one has explained their presence yet), the BACTERIAL breakdown of melamine is cyanuric acid, ammeline and ammelide. These are not the same compounds. Only bacteria with a certain enzyme, which sequentially takes off an amine group one at a time, can act on melamine. I could bore you with links, but if you really want to get these terms straight for some reason, just Google bacteria melamine.
Sigh…..I’m starting to feel like Bernie……
Also VIN has updated their page and say that the crystals are melamine cyanurate:
http://www.vin.com/promo/MenuRecall.htm
Comment by CathyA — May 1, 2007 @ 8:12 pm
MELANIME CYANURATE
http://www.patentstorm.us/pate.....ption.html
Mitsui Toatsu chemicals Inc. (Japanese)
Granular melamine cyanurate and preparation process thereof
Melamine cyanurate has been prepared generally by separately dissolving melamine and cyanuric acid in water, mixing the resultant aqueous solutions to react them, collecting a precipitate of sparingly-soluble melamine cyanurate so formed, and then drying the melamine cyanurate.
Comment by CathyA — May 1, 2007 @ 8:20 pm
I just read the AVMA article and I do not know WHY they mention ammeline and ammelide. As Karen’s article states below, this is NOT what they found in the tissues. I think they’re also confused!
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/.....03671.html
Researchers in at least three labs found cyanuric acid, amilorine and amiloride — all by-products of melamine — in the crystals of animals’ urine, tissues and kidneys, according to Dr. Brent Hoff, a veterinarian and clinical toxicologist and pathologist, at the University of Guelph, in Ontario, Canada;
Comment by CathyA — May 1, 2007 @ 8:24 pm
Here’s the much talked about
Detroit’s Rescue 4 Undercover: Investigation Into Pet Food Recall
Pretty GOOD VIDEO!
http://www.clickondetroit.com/.....tml?source
Get “Howling MAD!”
Comment by katandbryant@yahoo.com — May 1, 2007 @ 8:30 pm
Oh joy. Look where all the melamine cyanurate suppliers are.
http://tinyurl.com/yr2rg3
Gee - do you suppose any of them ever produce any low-quality surplus they need to unload? :(
Comment by Pat — May 1, 2007 @ 8:33 pm
Lee,
I have switched my dog over to Canidae. She loves it and they claim that all ingredients come from U.S.A., and all natural. So far so good, but I just pray that their suppliers of anything don’t get any of the crap from China!
Comment by John — May 1, 2007 @ 9:11 pm
Lee,
I also switched my dogs over to Canidae after having emailed them with questions. I am only supplementing with canidae right now. They are on a home made diet. BTW, for anyone else that may have questions about Pet tabs viamin suppliments…I call Pfizer to aks about ingredients etc when I switched to a home made diet and got the run around from them about where they sourced their ingredients. They referred me to their website and my vet for more “nutritional” information. Needless to say I nixed them from the list of “trustworthy” food additives. If anyone wants the email copy I got from Canidae, please email me and I will send it over. Kelli@kellistravel.com
Comment by kelli magnus — May 1, 2007 @ 9:31 pm
Lee,
Try Evangers.
Evangers.com
My cats love the cat food and they are real fussy. I spoke to the company and they are here in their own plant. Their rice, they grind into flour, grown in Texas. Great company. Answered all my questions.
They do not even have any sort of glutens in their plant.
Hope this helps.
Comment by Peg — May 1, 2007 @ 9:33 pm
I think that one of the more interesting parts in the Toronto Star article was the quotation from Dr. Melichercic (on the longer reference) was the reference to “other junk” that has yet to be identified in the crystals. I mentioned this on Molly’s blog when I quoted this article, and I think that it says that the real cause is still up in the air.
Mollymew
Comment by Pat Murtagh — May 1, 2007 @ 9:59 pm
Comment by CathyA — May 1, 2007 @ 8:12 pm
Cathy, I *parenthetically* included amiloride and amilorine for the sake of completeness… I did read that they were found in food as well as in the animals… if that is incorrect, I apologize, but at any rate it wasn’t central to the point I was trying to make.
My post addressed this quote in Linda’s post (and similar statements elsewhere):
“so though it’s possible cyanuric acid was added as a contaminant, it more likely resulted from bacterial metabolism of melamine.”
But both cyanuric acid and melamine *are* present in the gluten as well as in the animals. This is quite important for people to understand, as it means it is unnecessary to postulate other means to explain the presence of cyanuric acid in the animals. As I said… “So both compounds that react to form the crystals were present in the bad gluten from the get-go…”
Comment by David — May 2, 2007 @ 8:55 am
Comment by CathyA — May 1, 2007 @ 8:20 pm
That’s interesting, but why would someone bother to make the stuff, what is it good for?
Comment by David — May 1, 2007 @ 3:11 pm
Yes, the crystals will form without being in solution, but from what I’ve been reading from the Cornell folks it seems that the presence of the various chemicals in urine the crystals form more effectively. This seems to make sense because the kidneys are particularly affected by this poisening. Otherwise, you could (quite properly) conclude the cyrstals form everywhere the compounds interact (digestive tract, blood, any flesh metabolizing the compounds along with the nutrients), and they probably do, but they do much moreso in the kidneys.
In this case, so it seems, the urine forming in the kidneys is a catalyst - not necessarily becoming part of the precipitate, but enhancing the reaction.
Now what we need is something to dissolve the crystals without killing the patient…
Comment by steve a — May 2, 2007 @ 12:11 pm
Comment by David — May 2, 2007 @ 8:55 am
Yes, you are right, the other byproducts were also found, but are not generally thought to have toxic effects, or side effects, yet…
It would be interesting to know if the Cyanuric Acid was simply the result of bacterial activity in storage, or if it was an additional contaminant coming from some process change.
Either way none of the companies were shipping product for long, and probably will not be for some time to come, now.
I’ll still be happy to buy the torches, if someone else will pick up the pitch forks and matches… ;)
Comment by steve a — May 2, 2007 @ 12:16 pm
“I’ll still be happy to buy the torches, if someone else will pick up the pitch forks and matches”
Storming Frankenstein’s Castle?
Comment by Joyce — May 2, 2007 @ 12:47 pm
Comment by steve a — May 2, 2007 @ 12:11 pm
Steve, I wasn’t proposing that the melamine cyanurate crystals formed in the gluten; it’s evident that they form in the kidney. I was trying to emphasize that both melamine and cyanuric acid (CA) are present in the gluten… therefore it’s unnecessary to invoke metabolic decomposition of melamine, yada, yada to account for the CA in the animals… it was already in the gluten.
As to how both melamine and CA ended up in the gluten, I’ll repeat the statement I made earlier: Cyanuric acid is an intermediate product in synthesis of melamine from urea. So it is easy to see how it could be present as an impurity in “melamine scrap” before it was ground into a powder and added to gluten. That’s the simplest hypothesis I am aware of…
Comment by David — May 2, 2007 @ 12:48 pm
Like everyone else here I can’t believe just how big this problem is becoming or should I say we are now realizing.
I can’t help but think about all the cat websites I have read over the years that talk about how one of the biggest problems cats expereice is kidney disease.
Pet food companies even brag on their packaging the benifits of the food for health kidneys and now it seems the very same food could be causing the problem.
My male cat expereinced stones about 2 years ago and the vet then put him on C/D. We now are switching him to a mostly wet deit (Canidae) and will keep an eye on him.
Like others here I also had another cat I adopted from the pound and she got deathly ill 2 times and bounced back within days, the vet could not explain it. One day she got sick again and died the next day. The vet could not explain it. We fed her Iam and Nutro so now I really wonder if the food caused the problem.
Comment by Gordon — May 2, 2007 @ 12:57 pm
KATHY A & OTHERS:
I thought corn gluten shipped only to South Africa was “tainted.”
Referring to the VIN article below, did they test U.S. or S.A corn gluten?
**********Quotes from VIN article below********
Are melamine and cyanuric acid present in the affected foods?
Yes. Studies have confirmed that both melamine and cyanuric acid are present in the affected foods. It is not present in other foods tested. It is present in the wheat gluten, corn gluten, or rice protein concentrate used in the manufacture of the affected foods.
http://www.vin.com/promo/MenuRecall.htm
Comment by petlover — May 2, 2007 @ 12:58 pm
petlover - I think VIN was talking about S. Africa results too. I haven’t searched in a couple of days for news from S. AFrica. I know they confirmed melamine, can’t remember if they’ve said anything about cyanuric acid in public. But I’m sure the vets are communicating. Would be nice if the German lab that found the melamine would post something. The SAVA newsletter is not a clickable link at their org so no new news from them.
As to the confusion between amiloride/amilorine and ammeline/ammelide, I noticed today that the latest article from Karen Robards (Pitts paper) says ammeline/ammelide instead of the other two. I emailed her to see if I could get this straightened out, as it is a direct contradiction to what she said earlier. I just don’t know if this is a matter of confusion, but new information. VIN did say that they have found 11 substances so far in the ingredients, the rest of them unknown at this point.
I am pretty interested in whether amiloride was metabolized in the body or was present in the food. As it’s a diuretic, if present in the food, it would immediately start the peeing, dehydrating the cells as it acts on the Na channels in the cells, thus lowering the amount of water in the body, thus causing crystals to fall out in the kidney.
If the gluten and RPC both had melamine and cyanuric acid and they’re both fairly soluble in water I don’t get how they could have been turned into wet pet food without making melamine cyanurate or some other compound. I can’t see how they’d be separate in the food. While VIN says it’s melamine cyanurate, the Guelph guys call it an agglomerate of melamine and cyanuric acid.
Comment by CathyA — May 2, 2007 @ 2:35 pm
steve - as to dissolving the crystals……don’t need to, just flush them out with IVs - hydration. A dog might drink enough to keep up with being socked with so many diuretics, but a cat never would - they don’t have the same thirst drive as dogs. They might drink more, but not enough. I think that was the key to the people who took their cats in after eating food, even if they weren’t very sick or sick at all.
Comment by CathyA — May 2, 2007 @ 2:40 pm
Comment by CathyA — May 2, 2007 @ 2:35 pm
“If the gluten and RPC both had melamine and cyanuric acid and they’re both fairly soluble in water I don’t get how they could have been turned into wet pet food without making melamine cyanurate or some other compound.”
Didn’t the guys at Guelph imply that the crystal formation is pH dependent? Thus, if pH decreases with production of urine, the crystals form. That was my take.
(I’ve used the swimming pool cyanuric acid test described on the VIN page; at standard pool water pH of 7.2 to 7.4, adding the melamine test reagent to a pool water sample containing CA, you get a milky/cloudy precipitate, not macroscopic xtals)
Comment by David — May 2, 2007 @ 2:52 pm
David, is this a strip test or something or are you pouring powder into a vial of pool water? What happens when the pH is a step lower?
Quite frankly, I don’t remember anything about crystal formation being pH dependent…..it’s all starting to run together!
Just searched my notes again, here’s an interesting bit:
Site selling melamine cyanurate - contaminants are melamine and cyanuric acid, pH 5-7, solubility 1 g/100 ml water
http://www.unibrom.com/mca.html
Comment by CathyA — May 2, 2007 @ 3:04 pm
Cathy, it’s basically a primitve optical density (turbidity) test… the cloudiness of the mixture is proportional to the concentration of CA in the pool water. The test is done in a cylinder about 8 inches deep… you peer in from the top as you move a stick with a black dot on it up and down in the test mixture… when the dot “disappears”, you read the value off the calibrated stick. Kinda like using a Secchi disk to evaluate clarity of pond water, if you’re familiar with that.
I’d try dropping the pH to see what happens, but my old test kit is exhausted. It’s on the list for the next trip to the pool store…
Comment by David — May 2, 2007 @ 3:15 pm
And just as a note, melamine cyanurate is a fire retardant. I’ve looked at several reports, from Denmark, IL and OR which are fairly recent 1998 to 2004 I think, which don’t recommend it as a fire retardant (even though they’re trying to get rid of halogen containing fire retardants due to toxic gases when they burn) because there’s zero information on environmental and human toxicity. I think it’s used widely in Asia for use with plastics, but not in EU or USA.
Comment by CathyA — May 2, 2007 @ 3:30 pm
David, in the pool test, the mixing gives small crystals (cloudy looking) because they form quickly. Slow-forming crystals are the ones that get big, like leaving salt water out to slowly evaporate.
It may not be just the urine pH. The concentration of melamine and cyanuric acid may gradually increase (and precipitate) if kidney filtration leaves them both behind. I forget which classes of molecules the kidney filters out, but I think it has to do with size and polarity. Don’t know which way these compounds would go.
Comment by Carol PW — May 2, 2007 @ 3:36 pm
CarolPW: Yeah, if you leave a puddle of pee on the floor you’ll eventually get crystals as it dries, even normal pee. I think some of the kidney filtering is controlled by hormones, like aldosterone and other things. Calcitrol IIRC has an effect too. Plus one cannot imagine pure cyanuric acid and melamine just floating around unattached to something or other.
I would think melamine would be changed in the stomach. From INCHEM doc:
Melamine is a weak base. It is neutral in the pH range of 6 to 13. The cation C3N3H+(NH2)3 is present in the pH range 1 to 4
From INCHEM doc on isocyanuric acid (same as CYA):
Ref listed: Intravenous Cats LD50 2,144 mg/kg Ref.5 J. Pharmacol. Exp. Ther.:, 103, 420 (1951)
4.3 Initial Assessment for Human Health
Several subchronic oral toxicity studies demonstrated renal damages, such as dilatation of the renal tubules, necrosis or hyperplasia of the tubular epithelium,increased basophilic tubules, neutrophilic infiltration, mineralization and fibrosis. These changes were probably caused by crystal of this chemical in renal tubules. The mechanism of this renal toxicity is supported by the toxicokinetics studies in animals and humans, showing that this chemical is quickly absorbed and excreted to urine within a few hours as an unchanged form.
Comment by CathyA — May 2, 2007 @ 4:01 pm
Carol, increasing concentration of melamine and CA seems like another plausible explanation for why the crystals seem to form (or grow?) in the urine. Perhaps both decreasing pH and increasing concentration affect xtal formation/size. Perhaps microcrystals form in the blood (a la the pool water test) and aggregate and grow in the kidney. I suspect a more complete description of what is happening will emerge one of these days.
I do recall reading a description of someone mixing melamine and CA solutions into cat urine and watching macroscopic xtals form.
Comment by David — May 2, 2007 @ 4:01 pm
Just realized I forgot to look at the size of the magnification in the photo of the crystals - was thinking more like tiny kidney stones. But they are less than 10 um so very tiny. No slow growth needed.
Comment by Carol PW — May 2, 2007 @ 4:17 pm
Comment by CathyA — May 2, 2007 @ 2:40 pm
Increased fluids is a good idea, but our cat’s kidney function did not improve over the first 2 months of treatment, including periodic sub-cu fluids, and her use of water is way up, and our use of clumping litter is way up. It may be we need to do more, I’ll negotiate that with the vet at the next test.
The crystals are described as extremely insoluable. I would expect once enough form to block the dystal tubes, as described in the notes on examinations, there is very little flow through and around the crystals.
It is also entirely possible our cats kidney problems are purely coincidental, just because she ate foods from Menu in the suspected time frame and suffered a dramatic weight loss with kidney failure is no reason to connect the dots this way.
It is clear from the numbers that dogs and cats are equally affected, but cats have a long history of kidney problems in general, but mostly with age, we don’t have the age issue, and no history of kidney issues with the parents of the cats.
So what is different? Only the food. So why is there no improvement? Speculation only, the kidneys are still blocked. Maybe it’s not the crystals, or maybe they simply are not just flushing away with extra fluids.
That’s what makes it so hard to know. Too many variables. Fortunately this was not a sole food source or both would probably be dead now. Instead the one that hogs the gravy is sick, and her sister is fine. On the surface, though, it seems more needs to be done for this cat to recover, or maybe we really are treating something unrelated…
Comment by steve a — May 2, 2007 @ 7:35 pm
Question for those that understand all this better than I do…
Will this cause long term problems for those pets that only ate a little of the contaminated pet food. I mean, if your pet only ate enough to cause blood in the urine according to the Vets blood work up. Increased thirst, urination and lack of appetite was a factor for the trip to the Vets. (There was never the vomiting, lethargy, bad breath or diarrhea.) Will these animals own bodies past or dissolve these crystals?
Can my pet’s body fight this off? He was on 3000 mgs of antibotics a days for several weeks and seems to be fine. Seems is the key word. I am afraid for him. Sammy is a large Golden Lab. His brother Boomer died March 15, 07. You see he loved the dog food that was contaminated, it was not a normal part of thier diet and was meant only as a special treat.
Comment by Teresa — May 2, 2007 @ 7:39 pm
Comment by Teresa — May 2, 2007 @ 7:39 pm
Don’t have an answer, but we’re in basically the same place.
Here’s to Boomer, let’s keep Sammy and Mischeif going one day at a time, week by week…
Our next blood check is a month from now, I won’t know much more until then. Unless the folks from Cornell come up with something new…
Comment by steve a — May 2, 2007 @ 8:20 pm
Cyanuric acid, ammelide and ammeline are all impurities normally found in melamine. Melamine content
runs around 95% with the balance mostly made up of the above three substances. All previous toxicity
studies done for decades have used melamine in the above named concentrations. Cyanuric acid is less
toxic than melamine by a factor of 3, and with ammelide and ammeline, your stomach couldn’t hold enough
to poison you.
It’s also worth noting that the crystals cooked up at Goof U, don’t look a bit like those alleged to
come from poisoned animals:
http://www.labservices.uoguelph.ca/urgent.cfm
In the mean time, I find it more than a little interesting the righteous up in arms approach of the
FDA as far as melamine in gluton was concerned and that it should never be present in any quantity, but
the rather casual approach to feeding melamine contaminated animals to people. Apparently the FDA isn’t
too fussy about adulterated food stuffs as long as they’re produced in the US.
In the mean time, I find it interesting that melamine gluton feed to pigs and chickens doesn’t bother
them a bit, and it doesn’t appear to bother dogs, rats or mice in clinical studies, but if you mix it
with the rest of the Menu Foods ingredients, it kills in a matter of days.
Isn’t the melamine hoax getting just a little stale at this stage of the game?
Are we ever going to get straight answers about toxins that went into the food at the rendering plants?
Comment by Don — May 3, 2007 @ 12:11 am
Don said: Melamine contenruns around 95% with the balance mostly made up of the above three substances.
Don, most melamine I found was 99% pure. I don’t think it was in this case as I still believe it was a mix of junk someone put together as the price of melamine has gone up. There aren’t any studies for mixes of melamine cyanurate, whose common contaminants are cyanuric acid and melamine. Melamine cyanurate is the one that has no studies.
Comment by CathyA — May 3, 2007 @ 3:52 am