pet connection

First, the laugh for the day. Nancy Peterson is drawing names for door prizes and one of the prizes is a 15-minute reading from a cat communicator. Amy Shojai, president of CWA, pipes up: “I don’t want to know what my cat thinks.” Laughter all around.

Marion starts by telling how she, a human nutritionist who studies food systems, came to write Pet Food Politics. She’s interested in obesity and food safety, which of course are important for animals as well as people. Today’s food safety threats include food quantity (too many calories and too few), microbes such as Salmonella and E. coli, etc. The argument of her book is that if we don’t clean up the safety of pet food, it’s going to affect human food. Her interest started with her book What To Eat, a book about the human food supply and how to think about food issues. Talks about looking at pet food during the writing of that book and not understanding what was on the labels. Her partner, who had a background in animal nutrition, would look at them and explain about the guaranteed analysis and so forth. She planned to do a chapter on pet food and decided it deserved its own book. She realized that the kinds of questions people were asking about pet food were the same questions people asked about human food.

Now she’s talking about the pet food recall. It became very apparent right from the beginning that the implications of the recall not only affected the pet food industry but also American government food safety regulations, foreign relations with countries like China, etc. I was having my first experience with investigative reporting. The surprises about this and there were a great many were the number of recalls. Explaining what wheat gluten is and how it’s made and that it’s expensive to make, which is why it was outsourced to China. Wheat gluten in health food stores is called seitan. Now she’s explaining that melamine is an industrial chemical that had also been outsourced to China. Used to make plastic dinnerware and Formica countertops. For years people have been trying to figure out what to do with the nitrogen in melamine. Unscrupulous people added melamine to protein so that any food it’s in will test as being higher in protein. Melamine by itself isn’t very toxic to the human or animal body, but it’s unstable and one of its breakdown products, cyanuric acid, formed crystals that blocked kidney function in cats.

Who knew that surplus pet food would be fed to farm animals, but pet food is highly nutritious…and animal feed makers feed surplus food to chicken, pigs and fish. Talks again about link between human and pet food supply. I got the feeling during the recalls that the FDA was floored by the response of pet owners being so upset about their pets eating tainted food. One of the problems was the complexity of the food distribution chain. Very difficult to trace where ingredients went. A lot of the facts of what had happened only came out when one of the distributors was indicted and the documentation was presented in the court case. It was never clear who manufactured the tainted wheat gluten.

People didn’t know that so many of our food ingredients were made in China like citric acid and vitamins and minerals. NYT reporter found out melamine had been added to pet food for years. 80 percent of China’s food production is done in very small scale decentralized companies, basically backyard factories. China has cracked down on those factories since. Asked a USA Today reporter who was in Beijing for the Olympics to tell her what she saw in Chinese pet food stores and their shelves were very similar to those seen in American pet supply stores.

Now talking about the discovery of melamine in infant formula in China in fall 2008. Evidence that problems began a year earlier.

Result: bad economic situation for Menu Foods, although they are now back in the black. Implications for FDA and Congress. New legislation calls for standardization of ingredients but so far not much has happened.

We have one food supply and if it doesn’t work for pets it’s not going to work for people. We have a global food system that needs some regulation. CDC says there are 76 million cases of food poisoning each year, not counting pets. Lots of reports about how U.S. food supply isn’t particularly safe, and Nestle thinks that’s an understatement. Just this year alone, recalls of peanutbutter, pistachios and cookie dough.

What I find disturbing is the number of recalls that still continue. Pet food companies are not doing the kind of testing they need to. Laws regarding food safety have not changed much since 1906, when they were instituted after publication of Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle. The food safety system is divided in regulation between the FDA and the USDA and there are aspects of the food safety system that are so antiquated that they would be absurd if lives weren’t at stake. Many of problems in food supply are due to animal waste.

Too much is proposed but not passed or is voluntary not mandatory. Notes that FDA does not have recall authority, although it may after next week. FDA poorly staffed and cannot keep up with burden of oversights with which it’s tasked. So government passes on food safety responsibility to consumers.

Common ideas: single food safety agency for all food, pet or human; recall authority to FDA.

I think we’re in the middle of a food revolution. Slow food, organic, animal welfare, locavore.

Her mantra: “one food supply.”

Ends with slide of her “grandcat”

I am not holding my breath, but some cautious and skeptical semi-quasi-optimism about the safety of our food supply is not entirely irrational at this moment, pending the further analysis and developments that will undoubtedly make this all entirely meaningless — and of course, no mention of the pet food recall or pet food at all:

A Senate committee passed legislation on Wednesday that would increase government oversight of the U.S. food supply, which has been battered by a series of high-profile recalls that have soured consumer confidence in the food safety system.

The bill would expand U.S. Food and Drug Administration oversight of the food supply by giving it the power to order recalls, increase inspection rates and require all facilities to have a food safety plan in place.

[....]It has been almost 50 years since oversight of the food supply was significantly overhauled, but momentum to reform the system has grown following high-profile outbreaks involving lettuce, peppers, peanuts and spinach since 2006.

An estimated 76 million people in the United States get sick every year with foodborne illness and 5,000 die, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The Senate legislation would require FDA to inspect all food facilities at least once every four years and high-risk plants no less than once a year. Currently, many facilities can go several years without being inspected.

It also would implement traceability for fruits and vegetables, and require the FDA to conduct a pilot study for processed foods.

Read the whole thing here. Tell us whatcha think.

In case you’ve been under an Internet rock, you might have missed the news that the FDA has issued an alert about Vetsulin, an insulin product for diabetic dogs and cats, warning that is formulation may be incorrect and it might thus fail to act correctly in patients who are using it — which in the case of diabetes is not a minor problem.

The short version: If you’re using it, call your vet. She might not actually know about the alert yet, so if you’re the first to tell her, you might want to have the alert handy, as well as this FAQ from the drug’s manufacturer, BigPharma giant Intervet/Schering-Plough.

So, I was mulling over the wording of the alert when an email popped into my inbox, cc’d to Marion Nestle. It was a reader, asking if either of us had any thoughts on the fact that Wysong Pet Food is saying that they didn’t issue an press release about their ongoing pet food recall because “the matter was of small enough consequence that we have even been told by the FDA that a news release is not necessary.”

Huh, I thought. Good question.

That was on Saturday, and I figured that Monday morning I’d talk to the FDA and see if that’s true. And then reality, in the guise of a “wake up and smell the coffee!” note from Marion, reminded me that getting comments from the FDA is getting to be right up there with getting them from, well… industry.

Worse, actually, because sometimes industry will actually talk to you. FDA? Not so much.

It’s not just us pet food junkies getting the cold shoulder. From the Society of Professional Journalists:

The Association of Health Care Journalists and SPJ are fed up with federal agencies’ use of public information officers to chill the flow of information. The two groups sent a letter this week to the FDA urging the agency to stop requiring interviews between reporters and government employees to be approved by PIOs and attended by PIOs.

This practice has become widespread throughout all levels of government, and it needs to stop. While PIOs play an important role in answering questions and facilitating interviews, they are hampering the flow of information when acting as delaying middle-men or go-betweens. Having information transmitted through a middle person is hearsay and fraught with accuracy problems – a disservice to the public.

If you cover an agency that practices this form of information control, don’t put up with it. Request that the higher-ups put an end to it. And if they don’t see the importance of direct communication, then circumvent the Big Brother channels and talk to people directly, as journalists must do to ensure accuracy. It’s our duty to get it right.

So wish me luck as I call a government agency and attempt to pry information out of it without having to file a Freedom of Information Act request.

Although, on the other hand, that’s not actually a terrible idea…

After hearing about a recent PetSmart recall of beef hoove chews contaminated with salmonella from the indefatigable Therese Kopiwoda at PetSitUSA, I found myself launching into one of my regularly scheduled rants about “voluntary” recalls.

Every freaking press release, from industry or from FDA, uses that same meaningless phrase: a “voluntary recall” — as if there’s any other kind, considering that the FDA doesn’t have mandatory recall authority.

And then I was caught mid-rant when something completely different popped into the old email inbox: a warning from the FDA that no one should buy other treats made by the same company that manufactured the treats in the PetSmart recall, because they, too, were probably contaminated with salmonella:

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is issuing this health alert to warn consumers not to use Pig Ears and Beef Hooves pet treats manufactured by Pet Carousel because the products may be contaminated with Salmonella. The products were distributed nationwide in both bulk and retail packaging for sale in pet food and retail chain stores. Pet Carousel is based in Sanger, Calif.

The products were manufactured under conditions that facilitate cross-contamination within batches or lots. Although no illnesses associated with these products have been reported, the FDA is advising consumers in possession of these products to not handle or feed them to their pets.

The affected pig ear products were packaged under the brand names Doggie Delight and Pet Carousel. The affected beef hooves were packaged under the brand names Choo Hooves, Dentley’s, Doggie Delight, and Pet Carousel. All sizes and all lots of these products made by Pet Carousel are included in this alert.

During September 2009, the FDA conducted routine testing of pig ears made by Pet Carousel. The test results detected a positive reading for Salmonella. This prompted an FDA inspection of Pet Carousel’s manufacturing facilities. During the inspection, the agency collected additional pet treat samples. Further analysis found Salmonella present in beef hooves, pig ears and in the manufacturing environment.

I guess a “health alert” is about as strong an action as our current FDA can take. Which raises the question: When will Pet Carousel issue a “voluntary” recall of its own?

However much the “voluntary” thing makes my head explode, at least PetSmart sent out a press release and recalled the treats. Good for them. Of course I’d rather they weren’t selling contaminated treats in the first place (and I bet they do, too), but bad things do happen, and the way you tell the good businesses from the bad is how they react when they do.

A lesson everyone in the pet food industry should take to heart. The sooner the better.

Although I’m not exactly holding my breath.

The recalls keep rolling. A notice sent by Wysong to its distributors and retailers today, identifying additional foods that are being recalled:

To: Wysong Distributors and Retailers
10.27.2009

Dear Valued Wysong Distributors and Retailers,

In light of our recent recall, we have been conducting thorough retesting on all dry products.

Some additional products have been found to be suspect in terms of moisture and water activity and we wish to recall them just to be on the safe side. These lots include:

Maintenance™ (lot#090817)
Senior™ (lot#090811)
Synorgon™ (lot#090629)

The in-house examination of many bags from these batches has turned up no sign of mold. But we believe there is that potential and so we would like you to help us recall these as a precaution.

As with our previous recalled batches of product, we have no reason to believe that these products present an imminent hazard to animals.

Nevertheless, please do not sell any of these products that you have in stock, and withdraw the products from store shelves as soon as possible.

A credit for all such product that you have in stock and withdrawn from stores will be issued. As possible, customers should be told not to feed the product.

We ask that you please act promptly. Let us know if we may be of any assistance contacting stores. The number one complaint we have received thus far is from customers who were not notified.

It is important to note that although the issuance of further recalls may give the impression that this is a current or going to be an ongoing problem, please understand that the subject of all of these recalls are past Wysong batches of product from a defined time period. And although we cannot be certain, we are confident that this will be the last of our recalls pursuant to this past summer’s mold problem. With the measures we have put in place we have no reason to believe there will be problems moving forward, just as there have not been for the past 25 years at our facility.

We know this is a great inconvenience and certainly not something you need with the current economic state of affairs. We are devastated in the thought that we have troubled and disappointed you. As we move forward and this is behind us, we will figure out a way to make it up to you.

Thank you for your continued efforts.

Sincerely,

Linda Sue and staff,
Wysong Corporation

Looks like they took down their original recall notice, but never fear… on the Internets, everything is forever. The update to that page is still there, but I couldn’t find this new one even with a lot of poking around the site. It might be there, but if a recall notice is posted in the woods and there are no bears there to see it… does it make a sound?

[UPDATE:] There is a link to info on the new recall on the front page of their site now — it goes to an expanded version of their last update.