USA Today: Sharp-eyed researchers noticed link between 2007 and 2004 pet deaths
By Gina Spadafori
March 11, 2008
USA Today’s Elizabeth Weise and Julie Schmit expand on the journal study reported here last week, revealing that thousand of pets died in Asia from adulterated pet-food ingredients three years before thousands died here last year:
It was a comment by a Korean graduate student amid the 2007 outbreak that led Cathy Brown, a specialist in renal pathology at Georgia’s Athens Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory, to suspect this had happened before. Brown eventually tracked down tissue samples from the pets that died in 2004 at the Kyungpook National University in Korea.
The sample contained the same type of insoluble crystals found in U.S. pets in the 2007 outbreak, which killed at least 347 cats and dogs, according to preliminary data gathered by Wilson Rumbeiha at Michigan State University-Lansing. The exact number is believed to be much higher but in the absence of a structured reporting system has not been determined.
The Georgia paper was published last fall in the Journal of Veterinary Diagnostic Investigation but largely went unnoticed until it was picked up by the [Pet Connection] blog.
Here’s the rest from USA Today. And here’s Christie’s earlier post about the journal article, which came to us thanks to a tip from sharp-eyed reader Carol. I love how folks look out for each other here. And a tip of the hat to Dr. Cathy Brown for following her nose, and to the Korean grad student for asking the question.
Lot of questions remain, of course, including why the pet food industry acted so bloody surprised when it happened again? (Or never stopped happening, to a less deadly extent, as the Veterinary Information Network’s Dr. Paul Pion has speculated.)
Hello, Pet Food Institute? Any thoughts on that?
You guys are great —- thank you as you are the reason this is now in the mainstream media!!!
Comment by Carol V — March 11, 2008 @ 6:49 am
I HOPE that you guys have started this ball rolling in a major way. It would be great to see more of the MSM pick up on this, particularly as a lead in to the one year anniversary of the recalls. Good going!
Comment by slt — March 11, 2008 @ 7:08 am
I am very grateful to you two, Gina & Christie, for staying with the stories and generating interest with your astute reporting and lead that other media follow..
and my cats thank you too!!
Comment by Ann H — March 11, 2008 @ 7:29 am
Thanks for writing about this. The point that scares me is that the Pet Food Industry knew that this was an issue yet acted surprised when it happened again. I truly believe that there is a cover up here. It comes down to odds and profitability.
Comment by Wendell — March 11, 2008 @ 7:30 am
I have been busily e-mailing this post to news services. I hope they can let go of the “Luv Gov” story long enough to do some other reporting.
Comment by slt — March 11, 2008 @ 7:37 am
Is this 2004 incident how IAMS knew what it was in 2007 and told Menu??????
The FDA knew and acknowledged they were told by MARS and they didn’t say one thing… :(
Comment by Ann H — March 11, 2008 @ 8:30 am
After reading the USA Today article, I’m even more outraged. Apparently either Mars is lying when they said they shared the info about the link in March 2007 OR the other agencies are lying when they say they didn’t hear from Mars. But the FDA, who does admit they were told by Mars, chose not to share the info. And it’s all being written off as “it wouldn’t have made any difference anyway”. Well I don’t know how anyone could be sure of that but one way to be certain it won’t make a difference is to lie and/or conceal the info.
Comment by slt — March 11, 2008 @ 8:54 am
I don’t think the “pet food industry” is a monolythic entity that knows anything much, certain not what is published in journals. Their within-industry communication is slim to nil as they are competitors. And I doubt they knew this in any meaningful way—it’s not like the want to kill pets.
As usual, stupidity and ignorance is a more convincing explanation than malice.
Comment by emily — March 11, 2008 @ 8:59 am
Emily … I’m not suggesting malice. of COURSE pet food companies aren’t out to kill pets, and we’ve never said anything of the kind. If nothing else, healthy pets are good for business. And most people who work for pet-food companies have pets of their own, just as most Americans do. They want their own pets to be healthy, because they love them.
But, as Christie’s earlier blog post points out, this 2004 incident killed thousands of pets in Asia and was covered in public media outlets in the region. It certainly should have been looked at, and considered as a possibility, at the very least, when the 2007 deaths began.
Somebody besides a researcher in Athens, GA, should have been asking the questions.
Who knew what and when?
Comment by Gina Spadafori — March 11, 2008 @ 9:08 am
I was responding to: “The point that scares me is that the Pet Food Industry knew that this was an issue yet acted surprised when it happened again”
I think they were surprised. I read the veterinary literature every day for hours and I was surprised, I’d never heard of it before.
Comment by emily — March 11, 2008 @ 9:16 am
“Who knew what and when?”
By their own admissions, Mars and the FDA knew of the link.
If we are to believe Mars, they say they shared the info “with the veterinary community and regulators in Asia and the United States”.
If we are to believe the USA Today article, it states “Major veterinary organizations, however, including the American Veterinary Medical Association, the American Association of Veterinary Laboratory Diagnosticians, the Pet Food Institute and the American Feed Control Officials, say they were never told by Mars of any link between two outbreaks.”
Comment by slt — March 11, 2008 @ 9:16 am
That end press release by Nature’s Variety really says it all. What’s in the bag this month is not necessarily what was in the bag the last time you bought it, nor does it have to be.
Comment by C.L.H. — March 11, 2008 @ 9:22 am
My direct experience suggests you should believe the article. It might pay to be specific about what was shared and between whom. I doubt it was that both ingrediants were in the food and the combination was deadly.
Yes, some people did know all about melamine in isolation in pet and stock feeds, it was considered didhonest but not dangerous in the doses getting through. It was considered a problem but nit a high priority problem compared, for example, with the e coli in the American food chain—something other countries manage to keep at far, far lower levels—IMHO each country has hazards the don’t handle well in food they export. One of these days US e coli will kill children in a foreign nation and the shit (literally) will really hit the fan.
The melaine poisonging was an atrocity but it happened for the very reason that information si not shared and dots are not connected.
Comment by emily — March 11, 2008 @ 9:28 am
“The melaine poisonging was an atrocity but it happened for the very reason that information si not shared and dots are not connected.”
But the information *could have* been shared and the dots *could have* been connected. At minimum, Mars and the FDA had the info. Did they handle this info responsibly?
Comment by slt — March 11, 2008 @ 9:35 am
I don’t think the FDA had ‘the info’. I don;t think the presence of melamine alone was enough to expect massive action because the level of risk it was understood to be wouldn;t even put it in the top 50 problems they have with adulterants. i.e. it was not believed capable of causing animal death.
Comment by emily — March 11, 2008 @ 9:37 am
It would be great now to learn something about the “long term effects” by the pets that survived the 2004 disaster. For those of us “lucky enough” to still have a survivor from 2007 poisonings, it would be a great help for our vets and to us.
Comment by Carol V — March 11, 2008 @ 9:47 am
This does cause me to wonder, we know 100s of people have died from E coli O157:H7 over the years since is arose in 1990. Has anyone even counted pet deaths? They must exist? No one seems to demand the suppliers do more than inspect more—whereas other countries raise and process meat in a way that stops faeces getting in the meat and juice or stops E coli O157:H7 from being in the faeces.
Other than understanding what went wrong with melamine and preventing that specific event recurring, perhaps it could be applied to other adulterants that continue to kill here in the US?
Comment by emily — March 11, 2008 @ 9:47 am
I would posit that, had the FDA and/or Mars made public whatever info they had regarding the link between the massive pet deaths in Asia and the 2007 recall deaths in the US, some individual (or company or *whoever*) could have delved deeper into that link. It’s plausible to my mind that had this link been exposed in March 2007, the whole recall might have been taken more seriously by the pet owning community at large. I know if I would have heard at the outset something like “Hey, this has similarities to that food toxicity issue in 2004 where *thousands of dogs died* in Asia”, I would have been more aggressive in trying to spread the word far and wide to the best of my ability. MSM might have picked up on the story more, a cause/treatment protocol might have been established faster, etc. I can’t see how it could have caused any harm. I do see how withholding the link could have helped pet food sales though, which troubles me.
Comment by slt — March 11, 2008 @ 11:21 am
I’m not sure how the Nature’s Variety issue is connected. Yes, it deals with animal food. Yes, there are manufacturing issues. However, this is not an issue of adulterated ingredients, but of specifications. Anyone who’s ever done any baking at all knows that variations in ingredient ratios results in *very* different products. If you read the further information linked from the Nature’s Variety page, you’ll see that it was a problem with adding a manufacturing facility. The previous facility ran at the low end of spec, the new was at the high end. Animals won’t die from this. At the extreme outside, it *might* trigger a pancreatic reaction in an animal prone to that sort of thing, but if you have a dog like that, they shouldn’t be eating Instinct (high protein, high fat) in the first place.
So, that’s the long version of saying, “I don’t get it.” It’s like saying someone dying from eating a rat poison-spiked cookie is related to someone getting diarrhea from eating too many cookies. Sure, they both have to do with eating cookies, but…
Comment by Tom — March 11, 2008 @ 11:30 am
It is very related … both point to continuing concerns over the problems with food manufacturing.
However … I made the Nature’s Variety information a separate post, to be as fair as possible.
Comment by Gina Spadafori — March 11, 2008 @ 12:33 pm
I think Nature’s Variety issue is connected. After what happened in March, the pet food companies told us how they were going to do more testing of product and have better quality assurance programs in place through out the supply chain.
In this case customers called, finally the company acknowledged the problem. A facility change? from the low end of spec. to the high end? with QC they should have caught immeadiately.
Tom, while it maybe bad food for a dog prone to pancreatitis - very lose stool and vomit can dehydrate an animal. What if an animals immune system is not quite right and now the food is causing a problem too.
With the first few calls, why didn’t the manuf immeadiately alert it’s dealers to put a hold on those particular lots?
Re: 2004/2007
Thank you Gina,Chrisie and Carol(at Itchmo) for getting attention for this. How many lives could have been saved if the FDA and PFI were alert.. Hopefully some answers will come for those of us who have survivors.
Katie
Comment by Katie — March 11, 2008 @ 3:07 pm