USA Today: FDA says total pet deaths will never be known
By Gina Spadafori
July 22, 2007
But everyone seems to be revising their counts down, according to the story, because of the absence of verifiable evidence. Which is hard to find since there’s no system in place to count pet deaths, says USA Today’s Julie Schmit and Elizabeth Weise:
The number of dogs and cats killed by contaminated pet food recalled this year will probably never be known, the Food and Drug Administration says.
The FDA received a record 18,000 consumer calls after the largest pet-food recall ever started in mid-March. Officials said in May about half alleged a pet death.
But tying a pet death to the food requires information such as test results from pets’ tissue and blood samples, which the FDA doesn’t have in most cases, it says.
“The sad truth is that we will probably never know with any confidence the number of animals that fell victim to the pet-food poisoning,” says FDA spokeswoman Julie Zawisza.
[...]
The FDA did devote 400 people, a huge number for the agency, to monitor the recalls, collect food samples and take consumer reports. But unlike in human food-borne illness cases, there was no Centers for Disease Control and Prevention staff to do the bulk of the investigation to link illnesses to products.
Here’s the piece.
The FDA has shown its total ineptitude once again!
Comment by PM Hill — July 22, 2007 @ 9:14 pm
“•Banfield, The Pet Hospital, a network of 620 hospitals, confirmed recall-related deaths of nine cats and two dogs out of 26 pets autopsied, says Nancy Zimmerman, senior medical adviser.”
uh, didn’t they say something else earlier in the recall?! anyone have the link?
the article just makes me SO sad. as in tears . . .
Comment by straybaby — July 22, 2007 @ 11:07 pm
Here you go…
from Fox News:
39,000 pet deaths or illnesses from poisoned food, according to Banfield’s extrapolated numbers:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,264972,00.html
Comment by petlover — July 23, 2007 @ 5:30 am
I wonder why the FDA changed its tune about the numbers?? The FDA said Banfield would provide the most authoritative picture of the actual numbers. Hmmmm…
Here’s an earlier FDA quote from April 9 taken from a story from CVT Canada and posted on vetlocator dot com:
“FDA officials previously have said the database compiled by the HUGE VETERINARY PRACTICE WOULD PROBABLY PROVIDE THE MOST AUTHORITATIVE PICTURE OF THE HARM DONE by the tainted cat and dog food.” - [“huge veterinary
practice” is referring to Banfield - caps are mine]
http://www.vetlocator.com/news.....0_pets.php
Comment by petlover — July 23, 2007 @ 5:36 am
Protecting the almighty political and economic bottom line once again . . . . . .
Comment by The OTHER Pat — July 23, 2007 @ 5:37 am
Apologies to CTV Canada:
I wrote “CVT” in my post above, and it should be “CTV.”
Comment by petlover — July 23, 2007 @ 5:39 am
Does anyone have any info in immigrating to Canada. I know somebody who does a great deal to promote animal healing, but might need to immigrate to Canada. I would be so appreciate of any website I could trust.
Some people find the health care system inadequate in this country, others have political gripes, like the FDA busy protecting itself many times instead of protecting the animals and people. Any reliable website helps ever so much.
Comment by Evelyn — July 23, 2007 @ 6:50 am
I’m still wondering, ‘What FDA investigation?’ can’t confirm higher numbers. I had 3 cats. 2 cats ate the contaminated food. The 1 year old died from kidney failure, the 3 year old is recovering from kidney failure, and the 2 year old (who shunned the food) is fine.
I have blood tests on all 3 animals. My vet has confirmed that the pet food was the problem. I am still in possession of the contaminated cat food, and I reported all of this to the FDA within days of the recall. As of this date, I still haven’t heard from anyone.
I can only assume they’re not concerned with pet deaths, pet illnesses, or the contaminated food.
Comment by Karen Goodhart — July 23, 2007 @ 8:10 am
It’s a bit of a “Catch 22”. Without “information such as test results from pets’ tissue and blood samples, which the FDA doesn’t have in most cases” they can’t scientifically (and probably legally) state a known number of deaths from contaminated food. And without an agency set up to do this kind of testing (or to evaluate test results sent in from outside vets and labs)then they can’t generate the needed evidence to make legally verifiable statements.
All of which once again underscores the vital need for a veterinary CDC-type agency or an official network of veterinarians and testing labs whose results will be accepted as the “official word”.
Of course, that would entail spending more money. And they are, afer all, “only pets” . . . . . . . . .
Comment by The OTHER Pat — July 23, 2007 @ 8:28 am
Well, friends, that’s exactly the point. If you don’t/can’t count them, then they don’t count.
It never happened. Move along, nothing to see here. And there never was.
Comment by Gina Spadafori — July 23, 2007 @ 8:39 am
if they say they can’t verify the count, why in the world did they keep saying that they wanted people to report their pet deaths and illnesses? at the time, they must have thought that they were going to do *something* with those reports, yes? my guess is that the numbers were so overwhelming that even if they could verify them, they don’t want to. they certainly don’t want to make any trouble for their pet food industry friends by lending any weight to the class action suits out there. this stinks to high heaven, and i think we should all tell them so… loudly… today… and tomorrow and the next day and the next and the next, ad infinitum
Comment by explodinghed — July 23, 2007 @ 8:50 am
And what about the thousands of postcards sent out? Did that mean nothing at all?
Comment by Trudy Jackson — July 23, 2007 @ 9:42 am
The battle the pet parents have fought to bring the truth to light is too important to bury.
That the FDA cannot count just means that relying on them to do the counting is foolish.
It is not just the numbers that mean something.
I think we need a memorial, a permanent real world place, a fact that cannot be denied for there it is. A dog park, maybe, dedicated to the pets that died and the pet parents who loved them, most of whom are out there rescuing yet more pets.
With a meandering path where every concrete stone has the name of a pet, it would be nice.
Comment by E. Hamilton — July 23, 2007 @ 9:44 am
This is not about the count. This is about what i just found in the cat food. i’m so angry and upset, I’m think i’m going to loose it. really, i’m shaking all over.
I have a cat who is 20 years old. she is being fed people food, plus some canned food to make sure She gets Her vitamins. she is on antibiotics and fluids until she can get some teeth pulled out Fri. She stays dehidrated.
I just bought some Friskies special diet, for urinary problems. Canned. I found a peice of black colored plastic in it. I was looking at it and saw something black so i went all through it, and pulled out this funny looking plastic. I put it in a baggie and took the food away.
Now, i’m just sitting here so upset I’m trying not to scream and cry at the same time. We have been put through enough!! And My God, the cat is 20. she’s made it this far. Damn the PFI.
Comment by Trudy Jackson — July 23, 2007 @ 9:51 am
Evelyn,
I know My daughter wants to move to Canada. And I’m thinking about it too. how much more can We take? No one here tells the truth, that’s for sure.
I have lost 3 cats, had one very sick dog. Now, My dad in Maine has had major surgury, and still has cancer on His kidney [I wonder why]? They keep telling Me I have to come up. My insurance just went up,can’t afford My meds. And the gas of course. I have too many animals to go anywhere, and My vet bills are outragous.
What is going on in this counrty? Can You hear Me screaming?
Comment by Trudy Jackson — July 23, 2007 @ 10:00 am
Comment by explodinghed — July 23, 2007 @ 8:50 am
“why in the world did they keep saying that they wanted people to report their pet deaths and illnesses? at the time, they must have thought that they were going to do something with those reports, yes?”
It’s called placating the masses. Go through a lot of motions to make it *look* like you’re doing something, and then later, after all the fuss has died down, just quietly let it die.
But asking for reports was just a way to create a facade of effectiveness so that we’d *think* something was actually happening.
Comment by The OTHER Pat — July 23, 2007 @ 10:04 am
The FDA does not want the full count. I had my cat euthanized on July 10 because of kidney failure. She ate a free sample can of food in March and was lethargic and urinating on the floor within 5 days. Cornell said her urine sample was positive for melamine. The vet and I both contacted the pet food company and the FDA multiple times. Nothing. Both groups said my indoor cat probably got into antifreeze. No matter how many times we offered to send samples of food for testing, they were not interested. Now she’s dead and the vet called the FDA regional office, and they said there was nothing to be done, because that batch of food would have been “consumed” by now. So my cat who had melamine in her urine will not be counted.
Comment by Mrs. P — July 23, 2007 @ 10:09 am
As long as campaigns are financed by big corporations and their lobbyists - nothing will change. Both parties are mired so deep in slush money that they are all compromised.
But I’m sure if I bring the idea of federally financed campaigns with a level playing field, you’ll hear the cries of ‘Commie’ mostly from lobbyists for big oil, the AMA, the pharmaceutical industry, Rupert Murdoch, and everyone else who gets an unfair advantage when “money talks.”
Comment by Andrea 2CatMom — July 23, 2007 @ 10:49 am
It’s not ‘placating the masses’ or patronizing. The FDA has lots of numbers and statistics related to this.
Sorry to say that it’s a simple fact - the vast majority of people whose pets died in this time frame, whether from contaminated food or not, do not have the evidence required to confirm the connection.
I know that we do not. In the end our only evidence will be if our cat ‘recovers’ from the kidney failure. Since recovery from ‘normal’ renal failure is practically unheard of then a recovery points to the contaminated food, and the relatively insoluable crystals gradually clearing from the system.
We have another test in 4 weeks and her levels have improved eact test. None of this constitutes direct evidence, just a heck of a lot of circumstance…
We’re still not keeping empty cans for months, so if the whole thing happened again we still would not have evidence. We’re not keeping sample cans just in case our pets get sick again next week. We’re not likely to start doing this, either.
The vast majority of people do not keep what is necessary to provide a legal chain of evidence and simply won’t get counted.
I don’t think getting counted is as important as getting changes made, anyway. Our system does not make changes without bodies. It has always been that way, and will be for a very long time to come. It is not going to change for this event, and the media isn’t going to switch from infotainment to news, either.
Am I frustrated with all of this? Can’t you tell? Exhausted may be the better word to use. These events happened. They educated a few people who were affected - and yes even 40000 is a few when you are talking about a population of 300000000. That’s 4 in 30000 and it isn’t very many at all.
Next time there will be the informed consumers and there will be the ones who never figure it out, those affected and those who never heard the news at all. Just like this time.
The best you can do is be informed yourself. Buyer beware - as ever. Industry will not be watching out for you, you need to watch out for them and not get trampled. It is what it is, the best system that money can buy.
Comment by steve a — July 23, 2007 @ 11:08 am
It’s all about the money. Deaths don’t help sales. So, let’s pretend there were few.
Minimize the problem to improve sales and limit the backlash of opinion.
They don’t want counts. And the counts here and by Banfield are just as real and way more close to accurate than any “poll” that would ever be taken to sway public opinion.
We need to re-lobby Congress to help keep them focused on fixing these problems, not allow corporations to donate to avoid fixes. The agencies are lobbied to minimize the issues to avoid fixing them.
We need an animal CDC, a reorganization of the FDA/USDA/CPSC agencies to shuffle responsibilities and funding to better serve the public and to eliminate the industry influence into those agencies by rotating people, and we need greatly improved food and feed safety procedures and rules, more inspections, mandatory recall authority, country of origin labeling on all products, and greater responsibility on importers and retailers to be financially and criminally responsible for product defects and taints. If they have more of their own skin in the game, they won’t be so quick to cut corners.
I am also thankful to see Rep. DeLauro putting a ban in a bill on Chinese poultry. At a time when the Chinese are having asian flu problems with their fowl, and both they and ourselves are having quality control issues with imports, why on earth would we buy chickens from there until they eliminate their asian flu problem and we fix our import controls?
I’d be delighted to buy more Chinese products as those reach the standards and reliability of those we buy from Korea and Japan.
Comment by Dennis — July 23, 2007 @ 11:43 am
Comment by Andrea 2CatMom — July 23, 2007 @ 10:49 am
I totally agree. Why are people campaigning for president so soon? This just costs megabucks which largely comes from special interests. Wish we could restrict campaigning to 6 weeks like the UK does. If you can’t say everything you need to in that time frame, you don’t need to be in office.
Comment by Carol — July 23, 2007 @ 11:55 am
Trudy—You need to take care of yourself and your animals first.
Canada does sound mighty attractive. Less guns, more caring of people instead of big corps., less taking away our freedoms that I grew up with and expected to last my lifetime.
My grandchild wants to move to France. This used to be the best country in the world.
Your animals need you. I have given up many a trip and so has my daughter just because we figured our animals needed us.
About the FDA, why are they issuing so many recalls—got a notice for more today. Wow, where are the food controls?
Comment by Evelyn — July 23, 2007 @ 12:14 pm
steve a, i’m not all that concerned about whether each and every case of illness or death reported to fda can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt, since nobody’s going to be criminally prosecuted anyway. and simply shrugging shoulders and saying buyer beware doesn’t get it for me either.
fda doesn’t want to cop to the body count. that’s *not* ok with me. we all know that for every person who reported a pet death, probably a dozen or more went unreported. i think about these helpless animals, dying horribly in dark closets, under beds, in basements and garages because their owners didn’t realize what was happening, or didn’t have the money for a vet visit.
what the pet food industry has done is *not* ok. what fda and usda has done is *also not* ok. the revisionist version of the mass poisoning of our pets is already underway, and to concede to that is not an option for me. to say that they hold all the cards and that things will never change so buyer beware is not helpful.
i will personally fight the fda’s “so sorry, no death toll” position, because i know that position is crap. if we simply tolerate crap, what we’ll get is more crap. i’ve already tied up their phone lines today, giving them my opinion of their latest escapade. will it help? possibly not, but it certainly can’t hurt. why should they get to sit around in their air conditioned offices and collect their paychecks and not be made uncomfortable? they can take my phone calls, and listen to me snark… in fact, it’s the least they can do, and never let it be said that fda didn’t do the very least they can do.
Comment by explodinghed — July 23, 2007 @ 12:25 pm
Evelyn, Thanks!
And Explodinghead, you are so right. Because each and every one of those poor pets do count. we can’t say it’s all ove, let’s move on. we still have plenty to do. I don’t ever want all this to be in vain. I call and sign things all the time. we need changes and We won’t get them unless We make it happen.
Comment by Trudy Jackson — July 23, 2007 @ 1:23 pm
Comment by steve a — July 23, 2007 @ 11:08 am
“It’s not ‘placating the masses’ or patronizing. The FDA has lots of numbers and statistics related to this.”
What I consider to be “placating the masses” is the fact that they continued to publicly ask people to report pet illness and death when they *knew* they didn’t have the facilities or the funding to confirm whether there was a strong enough evidentiary link to do anything with the information.
Comment by The OTHER Pat — July 23, 2007 @ 1:57 pm
Or to put even a blunter point on it, they continued to publicly ask people to report pet illness and death when they *knew* they had no intention of ever doing anything with the information.
Can you say “round file”?
Comment by The OTHER Pat — July 23, 2007 @ 2:03 pm
I am pessimistic about what I think will happen with all this REVISIONISM. I was one of the lucky people who already knew our Pet Food was made from Dead, Dying, Disabled and Diseased meat. I knew that already, and I tried in vain to tell my friends and family as I wanted all my 4 legged friends to be as blessed as our 4 cats. I had no luck in convincing my loved ones of the danger…prior to this recall. I have followed your pet connection blog faithfully…sometimes tearfully. I have to ask myself…just what would it take for these companies to do the right thing? What did it take for me to see that the food I was feeding my pets was not QUALITY? The death count continues because of our complacent society. We need to wake up! What will it take to wake us up? Thank you Pet connection for this blog. I will continue to come here and I will continue to pray that people get their heads out of their cell phones long enough to see and hear what is really going on. I will continue to try to reach my friends and family to change my four legged friends diets. All you have to do is try it for a while. I definitely can feel joy when all 4 of our cats are sitting around waiting for their Chicken to be cooked. That never happened with a plain ole bag of Purina! I no longer see their food as separate from ours. It is all just food. I have taken a couple pieces of their chicken for myself…and while I wouldn’t like it mixed with carrots and squash…It looks and smells just like a heavenly chicken sandwich…with specks of carrot etc. I think the answer is in not compartementalizing their food from ours. It is all just food when it comes right down to it. I hate them (pet food industry) for what they are doing now. But, I had every reason to hate them before now…and I am glad on a certain level that some of the more hard headed human beings that I know…are now forced to think about their own laziness. I still have no luck convincing my friends and family to home cook their pet food. The numbers apparently are not enough to cause them to even pause and consider their own laziness. Somehow…the fact that they have used IAMS (insert your brand here) for 7 years with no trouble…will not even cause them to consider changing their own spending habits. It is pathetic and it reeks of a more internal problem. I would hate to think that I had to watch one of my cats to suffer and die…in order for me to realize how freekin lazy I am to have to pour the food out of a bag each day! I would not wish society to be poisoned on a mass level….but I fear that it is exactly what needs to happen in order to manifest the changes necessary. God help us all…that we can not see unless we are jeopordized personally! Looks like it might happen. A few hundred people getting sick and dying because our corporate bigshots know better what is good for our country!
Comment by Concha Castaneda — July 23, 2007 @ 2:27 pm
Concha, Does it make you feel big to blame victims and call them names? Get out your dictionary and look up the word compassion. Making a sweeping generalization and calling people “freekin lazy” is very inappropriate.
Comment by Roberto — July 23, 2007 @ 4:20 pm
This thread is about a subject that brings out the sadness and pain among those who have come to petconnection.com for all the reasons we know too well.
I just found this blog on the NY Times website for people to be able to share what lengths they have gone to for their pets. It’s full of love and beauty, and sadness, too. (Most NYT articles are free, but you have to register.)
http://news.blogs.nytimes.com/.....-no-limit/
Comment by Maureen — July 23, 2007 @ 5:22 pm
The FDA is a puppet of the pharmaceutical and food industries that it is supposed to regulate. The FDA’s puppet masters in the industry and the Administation the industry is in bed with don’t want the truth to be told. One lie follows another, anything to protect a corrupt and greed driven industry by an Administration that has been bought and paid for. Pet owners and the consumer be damned!
They will continue to lie through their teeth hoping the slaughter of the innocents will be forgotten. GREED is ALL they care about, LIES are ALL they know.
Comment by MFEMFEM — July 23, 2007 @ 6:30 pm
I agree that GREED reigns supreme, MFEMFEM. The PFI is waiting for people’s amnesia about the slaughter of the innocents to kick in.
Comment by Evelyn — July 23, 2007 @ 6:43 pm
Comment by Evelyn -
The PFI is waiting for people’s amnesia about the slaughter of the innocents to kick in.
Hmmm…no amnesia here! Apparently a lot of others have no trouble remembering either…evidenced by the numbers of people now buying more ‘naturally’ made pet food. Heard that they will be rationing it around the country, until they can catch up with the demand.
All the ‘junk food’ brands must be off of a lot of people’s shopping lists now!
I, for one, will never forget…
Comment by Marcy — July 23, 2007 @ 7:26 pm
Posted by The Other Pat:
” … It’s a bit of a “Catch 22”. Without “information such as test results from pets’ tissue and blood samples, which the FDA doesn’t have in most cases” they can’t scientifically (and probably legally) state a known number of deaths from contaminated food. And without an agency set up to do this kind of testing (or to evaluate test results sent in from outside vets and labs)then they can’t generate the needed evidence to make legally verifiable statements. …”
Pat, You hit one nail on the head. For anyone also following the story about the toxic FEMA trailers, this is EXACTLY what FEMA did (i.e., avoid taking and testing air samples when complaints were filed) after it was discovered that at least one trailer that was home to a pregnant mom of a 4-month-old had formaldehyde levels 75x higher than levels considered “safe” by OSHA. At that point, FEMA stopped all testing and then denied any culpability for sickness and worse by saying last week to Congress that “it wasn’t aware of any problem” at the time of the reports.
Read it and weep (the House hearing is probably also still up for viewing at c-span):
FEMA suppressed health warnings after Katrina. A House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing revealed that FEMA “has suppressed warnings from its own Gulf coast field workers since the middle of 2006 about suspected health problems that may be linked to elevated levels of formaldehyde gas released in FEMA-provided trailers.”
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/.....r-katrina/
and
http://www.speaker.gov/blog/?p=605 (clips available)
Comment by Sandy — July 23, 2007 @ 11:24 pm
Well, I wrote about FEMA’s denial and lack of responsibility re: toxic trailers in response to ‘The Other Pat’s’ comments but it looks like it didn’t get posted … here are a couple of links to read more … more evidence … FEMA stopped testing air samples, despite repeated complaints and concerns among those living in the trailers, after the agency found levels of formaldehyde that were 75x higher than the allowable limits in a trailer occupied by a pregnant mom and her 4-month-old. These “people” (and I use that term loosely)—the political appointees of this administration—are disgusting entities.
‘FEMA suppressed health warnings after Katrina. A House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing revealed that FEMA “has suppressed warnings from its own Gulf coast field workers since the middle of 2006 about suspected health problems that may be linked to elevated levels of formaldehyde gas released in FEMA-provided trailers.”
Read more and view clips of the House oversight committee mtg at http://www.speaker.gov/blog/?p=605
Comment by Sandy — July 23, 2007 @ 11:31 pm
Went to our local farmers’ market Saturday and it was so busy. Especially the organics. People are getting pretty smart in this town about food quality.
Comment by Evelyn — July 24, 2007 @ 5:30 am
No, I don’t feel big. I feel very small. My family and friends are lazy. They want only to have the convenience of opening a bag once a day. Attack someone else.
Comment by Concha Castaneda — July 24, 2007 @ 6:27 am
We’ve said all along:
We have people on the Pet Connection staff who completely prepare pet food from scratch, always have, people who feed a mix of a small manufacturer’s product and raw, people who feed a store brand and people who feed a name brand.
What we are all agreed on: What’s in the bag, box, pouch or can shouldn’t be contaminated — and of course, it usually isn’t. But we need to be protected from contamination, and we need our government to be honest with us about deaths and illness.
The system fell apart (or its problems caught up with it, more likely) late in 2006. It needs to be fixed, so that the consumer — not the industry — is protected.
When we know the food isn’t contaminated, people can make their choices as they feel best.
Comment by Gina Spadafori — July 24, 2007 @ 7:03 am
Comment by The OTHER Pat — July 23, 2007 @ 2:03 pm
In asking for the reports and counting them they DO KNOW MORE - not that they can confirm many of the reports, but they know the gap between what probably is related and what can be proven. It is an enormous gap, one they have some data to measure by collecting those reports.
If they had not received the thousands of reports they would have no idea how to even speculate at the gap between known cases and a very large number would be basically unknown.
They also know that their own numbers match fairly well, really astonishingly well, with the reports right here. There’s certainly duplication - people who reported in both locations - probably the majority - maybe nearly all.
But maybe you are right, they should not bother having anyone report anything. Then they could show they are doing a superb job.
Comment by steve a — July 24, 2007 @ 11:15 am
You’re right Gina…
if this had not hit our pets first…it would have hit us, even harder. We got the fallout later, with the contaminated seafood, toothpaste, etc.
Our country must, of necessity, now institute whatever safeguards which must be in place to protect both us and our pets. It’s not just about our pets now…it’s consumer safety in general.
Times change…and our government must change their systems to protect the people (and their pets).
We should have the right and freedom to choose whatever we want to feed our pets…without fear of contamination.
Comment by Marcy — July 24, 2007 @ 11:22 am
Comment by steve a — July 24, 2007 @ 11:15 am
“But maybe you are right, they should not bother having anyone report anything. Then they could show they are doing a superb job.”
That’s *not* what I said.
I said that they collected reports knowing full well they had no intention of actually *doing* anything with the information. But by collecting reports, they create the *illusion* of activity, thereby deflecting a good share of the criticism they might have receive for their inactivity.
Why are you so averse to admitting that the FDA has utilized these kinds of obfuscation tactics?
Comment by The OTHER Pat — July 24, 2007 @ 2:04 pm
I said that they collected reports knowing full well they had no intention of actually doing anything with the information. But by collecting reports, they create the illusion of activity, thereby deflecting a good share of the criticism they might have receive for their inactivity.
At the very least they can use it for obfuscation, and you will not likely ever hear how those numbers get used, but they will actually get used. Not for press releases, but for projections in future issues. Oh, and there will be future issues because the system will not change significantly or rapidly. But the impact is more clearly understood for the effort of having the data.
As someone who actually works with technical statistics to evaluate whether it is worth fixing a problem or not, I can clearly see that they HAVE TO COLLECT THE DATA in order to identify and attempt to fill the gaps in the future.
My last statements on this: Why are you so adverse to the concept that they HAVE TO GET THE NUMBERS before they can do anything at all. No, they won’t contribute to a final tally, and that is not the point, and it never really was.
If this event had happened to humans there would still be a lot of unconfirmed cases suspected but not proven to be related. That gap would be smaller than the one we have, and harder to fill because we already have a pretty solid system with the CDC and its connection to hospitals and their requirement to report issues.
Those numbers they will never use for anything to your satisfaction do, in fact, matter. It may well be that there is no practical way to significantly reduce the reporting gaps for pets. There have to have enough people who care enough to actually spend money to create a system like we have for humans, and we don’t enough of them today, not even now, not even after all of this.
Those numbers will, however, go into studies and contribute to a more clear understanding of the number of real cases to be estimated in future issues.
By the way, you really will probably never ever hear the ‘real numbers estimates’ projected during a crisis from this sort of agency. Those projections are used to guide their policy and actions, and are not usually in their press releases.
What WE do know is that the reporting made here at this site was very strongly correlated with the numbers reported to the FDA…
The power that provides is that outside the official channels that guide government policy and action we can create datasets during a crisis that are probably also strongly correlated to the numbers we will never see. Self reported numbers are unreliable, but in this case they were pretty good…
That information allows the people with access to it a clearer understanding of what is happening and to apply the influence they can bring to bear where they can reach. In this case those with access are everyone who can reach the website and know to do so…
The fact, and WE ALL know this here, is that those ‘over the top’ bloggers had a pretty strong grasp of the scope of the situation. They, well we, had a pretty clear picture of not only what was going on, but through the collective had a pretty systematic approach to working around the problems and also analysis of the broader implications.
So, even if THEY really do never use the data, that does not mean WE cannot… Since we have already written our representatives in government, all we have to do is keep it up and don’t let them forget it or kill the potential gains from the incident. That is your power, that is our power.
Comment by steve a — July 25, 2007 @ 11:29 am
REPORT ON THE INVESTIGATION OF THE TENTH CASE OF BOVINE SPONGIFORM ENCEPHALOPATHY (BSE; ie Mad Cow) IN CANADA
Read article here: http://www.inspection.gc.ca/en.....este.shtml
Comment by Barb — July 25, 2007 @ 12:58 pm
Ofcourse the numbers of pets affected by the tainted petfood will never be known. Many pet owners did not take their pets to a veterinarian. Heck, they cannot even afford their own medical care with so many sans health insurance.
Many animals did survive but with diminished kidney functionality, probably even unknown to their pet parent.
For the FDA to research all the reports would be a waste of money anyway. What would it accomplish.
Did anything positive came out of it though.
Is there a central network now for vets to report cases of sudden renal failure or other ailments that could go off the normal statistical established charts.
As an extrinsic factor, was there a slight increase in adoption during the melamine period.
Does the PFI have a central location collection point for consumer complaints.
Or is everything back to business as usual.
Comment by Serijna — July 25, 2007 @ 2:36 pm
Go to the FDA web site and read the latest report on food from China (statement by Murray Lumpkin MD) to Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transporattion. The report is called “Safety of Chinese imports: Oversight and Analysis of the Federal Response” dated 7/18/07. The extent of contamination (not only in pet food but in drugs, human food and non-food items) is startling. We need to keep the pressure on Congress for change. Don’t give up.
Comment by perkysmom — July 26, 2007 @ 11:02 am