pet connection

It started out as a rumor, but one of Nutro’s “Ambassadors” just confirmed it on her Twitter feed: Nutro is “voluntarily withdrawing” — or, in plain English, recalling — some puppy food sold through PetSmart and Petco stores:

EdnaAtNutro @cvec Hi! I’m with Nutro. Re: plastic-During a maint. shutdown, a bump cap inadvertently made its way into our mfg. process equipment….

EdnaAtNutro @cvec Nutro audited 3000 bags of potentially affected finished product that never left our mfg site.

EdnaAtNutro @cvec Out of abundance of caution, Nutro voluntarily retrieved pot. affected product in a small number of PS/PC stores.

EdnaAtNutro @cvec Consumers who have purchased pot. affected product should return it to their retailer or contact Nutro’s Consumer Care @ 800- 833-5330

My favorite question for Edna, and one I’d like to see an answer to from the company:

kittymadgrrrr @EdnaAtNutro perhaps Nutro should post this at their website?

Indeed.

One of our readers emailed PetSmart about the recall, and received this reply:

Thank you for contacting PetSmart. Nutro has done a voluntary product withdrawal. This was done by the company for certain Nutro products and size. The affected items were Nutro Ultra Puppy 4.5 lb bags and Nutro Natural Choice Chicken, Rice and Oatmeal Puppy Small Bites in 5lb bags. While we have not been notified of any injury or illness related to these products, Pet Parents who have purchased these products should immediately stop feeding the food to their pets.

Because the withdrawal of these items only affects certain sized packages, you can return these to your nearest PetSmart to exchange the affected product for an alternate-sized package of the same food or a full refund.

If you have any more questions about this withdrawal, please contact Nutro customer service at 1-800-833-5330 or visit www.nutroproducts.com.

Again, we would like to reiterate that this is a voluntary Nutro product withdrawl.

I find the whole “voluntary.. withdrawal” thing so aggravating. Since FDA does not have the authority to order pet food recalls (or human ones, for that matter), all recalls are voluntary.

Including the ones that get spun into “withdrawals.”

Long story short: Companies, stop parsing words. Announce clearly and early, and don’t fantasize that you’ll be able to bring this in under the radar. You won’t. It just makes you look like you have something to hide, and erodes consumer confidence.

From VIN News, color us so not surprised:

More than two years after the largest pet-food recall in history, federal investigators maintain that the Food and Drug Administration did not do its job properly.

What’s more, FDA lacks the statutory authority to impose recalls and penalize companies for recall violations — a lack of power that worked against the agency in 2007, as officials attempted to crack down on melamine-laced pet food products now linked to the deaths and illnesses of thousands of dogs and cats.

The assessment comes from the Office of Inspector General’s (OIG) audit of FDA’s role in the 2007 pet food recall, a scandal that involved 60-million containers of pet food in the United States, most manufactured by Menu Foods Limited and sold under 95 brand names. The report, requested by Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin, chairman of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, makes a series of recommendations for strengthening FDA’s recall authority and improving its effectiveness in monitoring food recalls.

Read the rest.  Heckuva job, Brownie.

Two years after multiple food recalls, including the massive pet food recall, brought the safety– or lack thereof — of the U.S. food supply to people’s attention, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has launched an electronic food registry that will permit speedier reports by companies of potential food-borne illnesses. A story in today’s Wall Street Journal says food facilities must alert the FDA within 24 hours of finding that a product contains a contaminant that could severely sicken or kill people or animals. All food and animal feed companies must send the reports.

What I want to know? How could it possibly take this long to implement such a thing? Read the rest here.

And now, a plug for a project I’ve been working on: If you’ll be in the White Plains, New York, area on Friday, November 20, you may want to come hear food-safety expert Marion Nestle. She’ll be speaking at the Cat Writers Association conference on the pet food recall and its implications for general food safety. Registration is open to the public.

Lots of little stuff I’ve been meaning to mention, completely unrelated:

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No-kill flamethrower Nathan Winograd goes through some old boxes and finds a postcard from 1994:

Mr. Winograd:

1) We do not advocate “right to life” for animals.

2) There are always exceptions.

Ingrid Newkirk

More here, on Winograd’s blog.
Winograd said the exceptions Newkirk was referring to was in reference to her point that PETA policy supported the extermination of feral cats.

You just can’t make this stuff up! Points for consistency, if nothing else, from this gang of loons who are now grousing at President Obama for killing a fly but who think it’s just fine to kill more than 90 percent of the pets that come into their care.

Why is anyone still listening to PETA?

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Yes, VPI is one of our sponsors, but I’d mention this anyway. It’s a nice move:

Due to depleted funds from the increased number of pets helped this fiscal year, the AAHA Foundation had to temporarily suspend grants from the AAHA Helping Pets Fund in April. The generous gift from VPI Pet Insurance [$25, 000]  will enable the AAHA Helping Pets Fund to resume granting funds immediately.

As the benevolent arm of the AAHA Foundation, the Helping Pets Fund helps those in need access quality veterinary care for their sick or injured pets. The Foundation awards grants supporting veterinary care for pets that have been abandoned or whose owners are experiencing financial hardship.

Thanks to the generous support of AAHA members, individuals and corporate donations since its inception in 2005, the AAHA Helping Pets Fund has awarded more than $800,000 in grants to help more than 3,000 pets receive much needed veterinary care.

You can donate, too. Information here.

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Plea details revealed for Chem Nutra pair linked to pet-food recall: probation and a fine that’s less than a nice new car. VIN News, here. Also from VIN News, Evanger’s says their problem with the FDA is a matter of paperwork, and food irraditation is suspected in neurological problems in Australian cats. … Funny piece on the people you see at a dog show on Frogdog. … Houlie’s husband dishes the dirt on “Did a Cat Shit in Here?” (be sure to read the comments) … Fugly reports on wacky made-up horse registries, just like in dogs! … YesBiscuit! on pet snobbery and the poor. … The UK’s Dogs Trust launches an eZine. …  Wayne Pacelle of the HSUS notes that Gourmet magazine (of all things!) is calling for changes in the food industry with regards to meat.  Michael Pollan  got there first, and so did Slow Food. And so, too, did I.  Compassion, sustainability and support of small family farms: It’s not just for vegans anymore. … I once spent part of a day in the company of a roomful of sun conures. Honestly, I’m surprised I still have my hearing. This are really fun, lively and stunningly beautiful parrots, but I’ll stick with my relatively quiet Caique, thanks. Here’s why, funny story courtesy of Best in Flock. … Saturday addition: Pet Connection BFF Dr. Patty Khuly on how veterinarians feel about Merial using Cesar Millan as the company pitchman for Frontline. Short take: They’re not happy. … Got anything interesting? Aggravating? Head-exploding? Toss it in the comments.

NPR calls them “driveway moments” — those pieces you have to hear the end of so you stay in the car even after you get home and keep listening. Usually this is because the piece is especially interesting or compelling, but in the case of the interview with the new FDA boss, I stayed in my car just hoping she’d say something, anything with some substance.

It was not to be.

The interview had been teased with a mention of the pet-food recall, which NPR characterized as having “sickened” pets, which is true only if you grant that most organisms “sicken” before, you know, actually dying, which is what thousands of pets did, NPR’s glossing over aside.

New FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg batted away the question about the pet-food recall’s core issue — the fraudulent substitution of melamine by foreign companies in order to game the protein readings — by acknowledging the challenges the agency faces with globalization and her intent to modernize.

To be fair, Dr. Hamburg has a good reputation and she just started the job. And of course, this is just one interview. But frankly, I would have liked to have seen a little more  determination, a little more acknowledgment that the FDA as it exists today is a shadow of the consumer-protection firebrand it once was — if not an outright servant of the industries it’s supposed to regulate — and how she was going to change that.

After all, we know tobacco kills, and that shouldn’t be news to the anyone including the FDA, which just got handed the task of regulating tobacco products. What we shouldn’t have to worry about killing us or our pets is the food we buy.

Here’s the interview.

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Dr. Marion Nestle always stresses what we have said on this blog from the first day of the pet-food recall: This isn’t about “pet food” vs. “people food”: It’s about safe food, and it all comes from the same places.

On her “Food Politics” blog, Dr. Nestle talks about the problems with multi-nutrient supplements:

It’s hard not to think of multivitamin supplements (which also include minerals) as perfectly safe, since the amounts of specific nutrients rarely exceed recommended levels.  But according to recent reports, formulation mistakes get made and these don’t always get caught by quality controls.  Here are two examples.

According to FoodProductionDaily.com, 25% of Adverse Event Reports (AERs) sent into the FDA last year concerned multivitamin supplements. This, says one supplement trade association, should not be interpreted to mean that there is anything wrong with the supplements.  Maybe not, but how about checking?

She then puts these findings in context of the recent recalls of Nutro. More here.

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Finally and also food-related, Pet Connection BFF Dr. Patty Khuy writes about prescription pet diets on her Dolittler blog:

The concept of a “prescription only” diet has merely been a marketing success for pet food companies who label their products as such and somehow manage to have engendered a belief that a product labeled as a “Prescription Diet”… requires a prescription.

But this is NOT TRUE! There is no legal basis for requiring a prescription for a product that is NOT regulated by the FDA as a drug. Shall I repeat that or was it sufficiently clear?

Nonetheless, it IS true that any private retail establishment has the right to require a veterinarian’s say-so before you can buy ANYTHING from them. Sure, PetSmart is not about to require a written script for leashes and kitty litter, but if it wants to do business with pet food behemoths like Hills and Iams, then they’re darn well not going to tick them off by failing to follow manufacturer requirements for sale of Prescription Diets.

More here.