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Pet-food recall: The scope of the tragedy

If you have a sick pet or a question on your pet’s health, call your veterinarian. We have also put together a basic primer on kidney disease for your information, here.
If you’re new to the site, please check out our general recall information page (includes links to recalled foods).
If you want to read all our recall-related blog posts, click here.

Our database is now closed to more entries.

While many in the media continue to report "at least 16 deaths" from the pet-food recall, we have from the first realized that number was not an accurate reflection of the number of pet deaths. So we decided to try to find out for ourselves, and on March 18 -- two days after the recalls were announced -- we opened a database for people to report pet illness and death related to a recalled food product.

As of May 16 -- two months since the first recall on March 16 -- 4,867 pets (2,527 cats and 2,365 dogs) were reported as deceased to our PetConnection database. Total number of affected pets reported: 14,750. These are self-reported numbers, and should be in no way be considered confirmed or "official." But if even a fraction could be confirmed, they show deaths far exceeding the FDA's count of 17 or 18 "confirmed" pet deaths, most of whom died in a manufacturer's feeding trial.

The FDA itself is now suggesting higher numbers. In an alert posted to the FDA's Web site on April 27 (but one we couldn't find until April 30), the FDA says:

As of April 26, 2007, FDA had received over 17,000 consumer complaints relating to this outbreak, and those complaints included reports of approximately 1950 deaths of cats and 2200 deaths of dogs.

The FDA on May 10 said it had more than 18,000 calls, and of those, about half of the 8,000 entered into the system had been reporting a dead pet. FDA officials stressed the reports were unconfirmed, and said a report on the deaths and illnesses of pets would not be available until fall. of 2007.

Other sources also support higher numbers, including state numbers from the Oregon State Public Health Veterinarian (45 dead, April 18) and the Michigan State Veterinary Association (52 dead, April 16), as well as a sampling of all U.S. and Canadian veterinarians from the independent Veterinary Information Network. (4/10: our post or the Sacramento Bee story; need a log-in?). The Veterinary Information Network sets a range for probable deaths at 2,000 to 7,000, based on survey of VIN member veterinarians. VIN puts the cost of veterinary care for these animals at between $2 million and $20 million.