The OFFICIAL Unofficial Achewood Message Board
Trivial Pursuits => Science & Nature => Topic started by: linnea on March 19, 2007, 01:49:23 am
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If you live in the United States, please check the food that you are feeding your pets.
The company's website is here, and it lists the brands that are recalled under "Cat food" and "Dog food" http://www.menufoods.com/recall/
Recalled Cat and Dog Product Information 1-866-895-2708
UNION, N.J. - Pet owners were worried this weekend that the kibble in their cupboard may be deadly after the recall of millions of containers of dog and cat food sold at major retailers across North America.
Menu Foods, the Ontario-based company that produced the pet food, said Saturday it was recalling dog food sold under 46 brands and cat food sold under 37 brands including Iams, Nutro and Eukanuba. The food was distributed throughout the United States, Canada and Mexico by major retailers such as Wal-Mart, Kroger and Safeway.
An unknown number of cats and dogs had suffered kidney failure and about 10 died after eating the affected pet food, the company said.
Many stores that sold the affected brands frantically pulled packages off shelves.
At a Petsmart store in Union, Silviene Grzybowski became worried when the four types of Iams products she buys for her cat, Smokey, had vanished from shelves. The cat was very sick and had not been eating for days, she said.
"The vet told us to buy her her favorite food, but I'm going to call the vet right now," Grzybowski said, looking at an announcement Petsmart had taped to shelves announcing the recall.
A complete list of the recalled products along with product codes, descriptions and production dates was available from the Menu Foods Web site — http://www.menufoods.com/recall — and consumers also could call (866) 463-6738.
Menu Foods' chief executive and president Paul Henderson told the Associated Press on Friday that the company was still trying to figure out what happened.
He said that the company had received an undisclosed number of owner complaints that dogs and cats were vomiting and suffering kidney failure after eating its products.
The recall covers the company's "cuts and gravy" style food, which consists of chunks of meat in gravy, sold in cans and small foil pouches from Dec. 3 to March 6.
In Omaha, Neb., Susan Balvanz said she sometimes feeds her five cats packets of sliced meat and gravy sold by Nutro Products, one of the brands affected.
"I've done so much research on pet food. It didn't surprise me but it scared me all the same," said Balvanz.
She said her 9-year-old cat, Boots, was especially fond of the food but seemed to have lost its appetite in the last few days.
At the Missouri Valley Veterinary Clinic in Bismarck, N.D., veterinarian Jacob Carlson has been referring worried pet owners to the Menu Foods web site.
"We've had a lot of calls," Carlson said, although none of his patients were sick.
The company said it makes pet food for 17 of the top 20 North American retailers. It is also a contract manufacturer for the top branded pet food companies, including Procter & Gamble Co.
You can read the company's press release here: http://www.menufoods.com/recall/Press_Recall_03162007.pdf
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so, this only effects "wet" foods, correct?
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I totally freaked out and picked up all the food dishes and hid them in a cupboard.
I don't know. Of the brands that are affected, I feed my dudes Iams dry food and I just bought some Priority wet food last week. However, according to the website neither of my products are affected. I put the food dishes back down, but I am really shaken. I mean, I know that pet food is made from "slaughterhouse by-products" but I guess I always assumed that it was safe to feed them pet food. What did people feed their animals before pet food? Like, table scraps or something?
Anyway, even though the codes that I have on the Priority food isn't marked as "affected", I'm going to throw it away. I put their dishes of dry Iams back down at their food stations. Scary. Yargh.
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They say it's only one kind of wet food but if I had any product from any of those brands in my house they'd go straight in the trash.
What freaks me out about this is seeing how many brands are really made by the same company - so that any mistake they make is so widepsread. Like when there was that hamburger recall and they described how hamburger is made at these big plants so that any one burger might have bits of hundreds of cows in it or something.
I think I will be sticking to my little boutique brand of natural dog food. I felt kind of silly about it, but now I am hoping that at least at a small company someone is paying attention to what's going in the food.
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I wish that they sold boutique pet food up here. :( Mega sadface. Like I needed one more thing to worry about.
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All our animals only eat dry, so it's not an issue. But I was struck by the same thing as Wombat. Looks like one company makes every single generic, store or private label brand out there. And they're not using hosss anymore either.
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So out of the millions of dogs who ate this food 10 got sick and no one can find anything actually wrong with the food? Uh what?
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So out of the millions of dogs who ate this food 10 got sick and no one can find anything actually wrong with the food? Uh what?
Excellent point. This could easily be a statistical anomaly, or swamp gas, or something. The manufacturer does seem to have a guilty conscience, but that could just be an abundance of caution.
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No, hundreds have gotten sick and at least ten have died so far. The point is that this is a brand new development, people still don't know the extent of the damage. It's distressing because the food supply is supposed to be SAFE - including pet food.
They're still running tests to find the culprit.
I got some Priority tinned food for the boys last week, and even though it's not on the list of recalled products, I got my receipt and it's going STRAIGHT BACK TO THE STORE.
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Hate to admit it, by A-CAP may be convincing me here. Let's say we can document that 1000 dogs got sick during the last week. 1000 out of 1,000,000 = 1/10 of 1 percent. How many dogs out of 1,000,000 get sick in a week? How many out of 1,000,000 die? How have they connected these illnesses/deaths to this particular food? Since it appears that the company is a huge producer of food, probably way more than 1,000,000 dogs/cats have eaten their food in this time period -- exactly how many pets ate the food? It could easily be 10,000,000 or even 100,000,000. If so, 1000 sickened animals becomes an even tinier percentage.
I'm not trying to be hard hearted here in the least. But I don't want to jump to conclusions either. It could be something entirely different that killed those animals. If we jump to conclusions, we could ignore the actual cause of the problem. Have we ever heard exactly what it is in the food that's supposed to be harmful? I haven't. How did they determine that the food is what killed the animals?
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On the other hand, if any of the listed food was in my house, my animals would not be eating it.
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I on the other hand will be buying it at firesale prices and stocking it to feed my cats and my aunt's dog. No joke.
I read the AP feed and at least 5 other stories on the google news feed and couldn't find any evidence of how this is all connected. My cats drink water from the toilet bowl and eat vomit among other things. I am completely confident that they will die from something other than suspicious wheat gluten in their cat food from a brand they've been eating all their lives.
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ChucklebotA-CAP's working some rough chuckles these days.
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Hate to admit it, by A-CAP may be convincing me here.
How many people DIED from the infected Spinach? Or the salmonella tainted peanut butter? or the unpasteurized Odwalla juice?
The point is that there are supposed to be safety mechanisms in place to protect consumers.
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I'm with L-Money on this one.
No way I'd introduce even the slightest extra risk to my pets just for the sake of proving a point.
I am not in the business of Proving Points, especially when it comes to the lives of my friends.
I don't have any pets out here, because the complex doesn't allow it, but my pets were my BUDDIES, man. Lily, Somebody nice, Spot, Poppy, Suzie, Bill... I would have sooner slightly risked poisoning people I knew in high school than my pets.
My pets were my buddies. You don't prove points with your buddies.
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And thats a can.
I worked at a vet for five years and have the coolest Great Pyrenees ever. People should not fuck with their pets.
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No way I'd introduce even the slightest extra risk to my pets just for the sake of proving a point.
He won't even buy a new keyboard though...
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Don't mess with this just because they haven't found the cause yet - there was another recall like this within the last year or two because a food was killing dogs - I can't find the link to the story right now but they found that some ingredient they were using was tainted. Also in that case they specifically mentioned that some dogs didn't want to eat the food and some owners thought they were just being fussy and persuaded them to eat it by putting gravy on and so on. You can imagine how awful those people felt. So, I don't really want my animals to know this, but I am never going to talk them into eating anything they find even slightly suspicious.
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He won't even buy a new keyboard though...
I actually have a 60dollar wireless keyboard. A dude such as myself has to be able to type papers that involve commas and 'r' s. Its just awkward to use when Im at home (not school) because I usually have the laptop on top of my lap. Buying a new keyboard to actually go into my laptop is "a thing".
And despite common belief around here - I'm not a heartless bastard. I love my cats too. Lizzy Jake Jinx and Molly the homeless cat that lives in my basement. I do not however love baseless hysteria and demonization of corporations that are just trying to do the right thing. refusing to buy food from this company in the future will only serve to make them more hesitant to issue a recall - They are already taking a huge wash on this based on only a few sick pets and had already stopped using the suspect gluten.
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man, it makes me so sad, my mom is basically hoping that my dog will die soon. I love that little guy, and she hates him so much. We never should have gotten a damn dog.
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man, it makes me so sad, my mom is basically hoping that my dog will die soon. I love that little guy, and she hates him so much. We never should have gotten a damn dog.
Jesus that fuck*ng sucks.
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ok, I was probably exaggerating. She is just so fed up with him. And he's just a stupid little dog, you know!? It's not like he knows "I can't bark at the people outside, mom gets real pissed about that." And due to Circumstances (he was the runt and had to fight for his food, I think) he gets completely freaked out and growls if anyone comes near him when he has food. This enrages my mom. He has bit her, twice. Both times, it was basically because she got mad and confronted him about the growling. I mean... I don't know. if he growls at me, I yell at him and he runs off and hides in his bed.
Basically my dog has issues, and that is one thing. But my mom basically hates things that he does that are just... dog things. He doesn't know he can't eat things! He doesn't know that he is in the way if he stands in the kitchen! He is just a stupid little dog, jesus!
PS regarding the barking thing. What is the general opinion on bark collars? I cannot decide what I think about them... but I know that it would help regarding the whole "my mom hates every thing which the dog does" issue.
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Has your dog had any obedience training? Has your mom or anyone in your house read any books about dog training? I would recommend a book called Outwitting Dogs. Barking is a hard thing to train a dog not to do, but the chapter in that book is good about how to identify particular triggers for barking and try to eliminate the behavior.
One thing to consider is that excessive barking is often just a result of boredom. If your mom doesn't like the dog, is there anyone else who likes the dog enough to be walking it and playing with it on a regular basis? If the dog is left to entertain himself, barking and chewing on things is all he's going to be able to come up with. It's not like he knows how to work the remote or read the newspaper.
Another thing that book will probably help with is to explain more constructive ways to deal with undesirable behavior in general. Getting mad at the dog, for growling or anything else, is really never going to help the situation.
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Wombat for the win. Dogs need shit to do. That's why I have cats. They don't care, and would just as soon you don't bother them so they can catch up on their sleep.
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PS regarding the barking thing. What is the general opinion on bark collars? I cannot decide what I think about them... but I know that it would help regarding the whole "my mom hates every thing which the dog does" issue.
Well, they're not a magic bullet. I've never used one (haven't had to; dogs just haven't been barkers), but I hear that they can be an effective part of a behavior modification program. As in - there's other stuff you're doing to get your dog to bark less, and the collar is there to help stop a barking cycle before your dog gets into his groove. I hear they're completely useless if the collar is all you do.
And if you have one of these guys, you'd better just move to the boondocks
(http://www.dog.com/breed/docgrafx/finspitz.jpg) (http://www.yourpurebredpuppy.com/reviews/finnishspitz.html)
"Finnish Spitz are extremely vocal dogs, quick to sound the alarm at every new sight and sound. You have to be equally quick to stop them. If you work all day and have close neighbors, Finnish Spitz are not a good choice for you. For the same reason, Finnish Spitz should NEVER be left outside in your yard, unsupervised. To make matters worse, many Finnish Spitz have intense, rapid, high-pitched barks that can set your teeth on edge."
Up to 120 barks per minute, plus "yodeling".
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yeah, basically I had heard about one kind that didn't just straight-up shock the little guy? It was a smell or something, I think.
When I was home, there certainly was someone at home who would take him for walks and stuff. Now... I don't know. I think my brother and sister have been taking him on walks a lot. I don't know that it's so much that the barking is excessive, as that my mom just hates the concept of Barking. HATES IT TO HELL.
she's generally a very reasonable person, I swear.
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They put it on the Dalmation before putting her in the run for the day while they ran about. When they came back later they found out the dog had managed to peel that sucker off and basically eatify the sumbitch. Like to the extent of plastic fragments and collar shreds everywhere.
I believe she managed to pee over the largest remaining fragments in a final comment.
We took her over shortly thereafter.
Good Dog.
That's a dog I could like.
Here's my addition vis-a-vis shock collars. My dad & step-mom raised llamas. Some of them can exhibit a wide range of behaviors, not all of which are desirable. They had shock collars for the llamas. Now, llamas weight up to 350 pounds, so these collars are a bit different then the ones you get for dogs. I don't know how much juice they put out, but they got plugged into the wall to charge them up, and when the button was pushed their front legs would come about a foot off the ground, kind of like those low-riders a person might see in Southern California. That's all I got.
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she's generally a very reasonable person, I swear.
Then get her that book. When she sees that there are logical and reasonable ways to approach the problems that annoy her, it might be a completely different story.
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I'm with L-Money on this one.
No way I'd introduce even the slightest extra risk to my pets just for the sake of proving a point.
I am not in the business of Proving Points, especially when it comes to the lives of my friends.
I don't have any pets out here, because the complex doesn't allow it, but my pets were my BUDDIES, man. Lily, Somebody nice, Spot, Poppy, Suzie, Bill... I would have sooner slightly risked poisoning people I knew in high school than my pets.
My pets were my buddies. You don't prove points with your buddies.
Hells yes, lfm. I totally agree. I emailed it to all the pet owners that I know, and I got replies back from almost all of them saying, "thanks for the email...OMG, are your little dudes okay??" Everyone makes jokes at how much I love the Mi-wan and Lennybruce, but everyone who's met them knows that they are the raddest little guys ever, and that they are irreplaceable.
ALSO...Why is it that the only people I meet with my name are people's PETS??
That's a dog I could like.
Here's my addition vis-a-vis shock collars. My dad & step-mom raised llamas. Some of them can exhibit a wide range of behaviors, not all of which are desirable. They had shock collars for the llamas. Now, llamas weight up to 350 pounds, so these collars are a bit different then the ones you get for dogs. I don't know how much juice they put out, but they got plugged into the wall to charge them up, and when the button was pushed their front legs would come about a foot off the ground, kind of like those low-riders a person might see in Southern California. That's all I got.
I almost pee'd myself laughing from your little simile there.
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Okay, bitches who are rushing to defend Menu Foods.
The FDA was doing tests when Menu Foods was claiming "NONE of our tests have indicated the problem...we have no idea what it could be." One in six lab animals (cruel tests, I wish they didn't have to do it) died immediately from being fed the suspect food from Menu Foods. Even according to Menu Foods' tests (see New York Times article here (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/20/us/20petfood.html?em&ex=1174622400&en=2164574283e94dce&ei=5087%0A)) seven animals died before they finally sparked the recall. AND THEY KNEW THERE WAS A PROBLEM BACK IN DECEMBER, when the food was manufactured in Emporia, KS.
Whatever, I'd like to see you buy that shit and eat it yourself. Yeah, the government sucks and forcing companies to comply with safety controls are totally bogus cuz the free market would regulate itself! Because that worked so well as evidenced by Upton Sinclair.
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The free market is a crap dude and must be smacked around to be kept honest on a continuous basis, dear L-Money, I am with you on this train. Less laisse-faire, more tiny animal buddies!
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Regardless of your opinions on the free market, I think this is just a case of having to make a decision as a responsible pet owner to minimize risk to your pet. Sure, you could buy this, and probably nothing would happen -- but there are all sorts of risks to pets' health that are probably okay, and yet generally you do everything in your power to prevent or minimize the effect of those. Owning a pet is essentially a covenant with an animal, and that comes with a real responsibility towards its health, a responsibility that far outweighs some kind of perceived responsibility towards the free-market system that might require you to buy recalled pet food.
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The company took a huge monetary hit and dropped the producer of the wheat gluten, voluntarily, in the interest of safety to your animals without any government intervention. How is this not the market regulating itself?
The problem is too much protein so yea, I'd eat it without any concern to my safety.
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Well, it sounds like we can all agree to be happy that A-CAP would eat the pet food in question himself. Can we leave it at that? I would hate to see TOUAMB become kind of place where I have to keep checking a thread about pet food to see if has descended into such a flame war that it needs to be locked.
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What is with the board lately? I'm with Wombles on this one (as I usually am on most subjects). If we can't have civil discussions about cat food, maybe we should stick to less contentious subjects.
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What is with the board lately?
I don't think it's just the board, Nab. I think our... entire society is completely fucked up about politics. We've tried our best to swallow down hard the clusterfuck in Iraq and it's... bubbling up at inappropriate moments, like corrosive acid reflux of the collective subconsciousness. Lefties driving themselves mad that they don't have the power to end it, righties driving themselves mad trying to stay in lockstep with the people who'll let them have their guns and enforce their morality laws even as they realize how far south everything else has actually gone.
Everything political has gone nutzoid and there comes a point where the only response to unchanging madness is to go mad yourself, at least in fits and starts and spells. There is hot death a million miles away, unending war, killing the kids from next door, nothing accomplished, no end in sight.
All across the spectrum we're... going mad trying to reconcile the truth of that reality with the other things we think we know about this reality. So some of us go into denial, some of us go into polemics, some of us shift the anxiety to smaller piddling points, some of us go stark raving mad in the streets. And I'm not immune either.
All things considered, it's amazing how little of it has spilled over here.
I think it's a testament to this place and these people how little has spilled onto the TOUAMB.
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also: on the internet, no one knows whether you're being a dick on purpose. So things escalate quickly if someone takes something you say the wrong way. I always find myself getting confused at how quickly these conversations devolve into someone getting so mad. Of course, you know, I've probably done it myself.
remember when we were complaining about no one being here on the weekends? maybe it comes in cycles.
personally, I agree with LFM on the whole issue regarding the food. Yeah, at first we weren't 100% sure on the details, and for all we knew it could have been the typical media scare-job. But is it worth risking it? [Cornelius: no] This is why I can never own a pet on my own. I have enough trouble worrying about myself, much less a little animal that can't tell me what's wrong.
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I don't think it's just the board, Nab. . .
All things considered, it's amazing how little of it has spilled over here.
I think it's a testament to this place and these people how little has spilled onto the TOUAMB.
So, I reiterate, what is it with the board, lately? Very little used to spill over, and now a lot does.
Also, it is Nabu, dammit. I may have nothing but my name, but there has always been a Nabubrush in the Houses of Parliament, and the only accepted nickname for it is Nabu, so I'll thank you to remember it.
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It's . . . the tuuuuuurd . . . in the box . . . .
See what I did? I combined the song parody with the turd in the box! We're through the looking-glass now!
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First, you take the lid off the box
Then, you take a crap in the box...
Oh, God, what a terrible idea. A terrible, delightful idea.
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Just in case anyone missed it (because of too few words) mine was as sung by Layne Staley. Or Layne Staley's resurrected shambling corpse, as it were.
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That particular song is already hip deep in shit. Your parody would bury the head.
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That particular song is already hip deep in shit. Your parody would bury the head.
It's kind of like a chocolate dip cone.
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Oh my god! It turns out it's rat poisen in the food! (http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/health_pet_food_recall) Rats are finally having their revenge on cats! Ahhhh!
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[hypothesis]
1. Factory has rat problem.
2. Hiram the mailroom boy gets promoted to assistant rat catcher and places poison on top of wheat gluten processor.
3. Vibration from equipment jitters the block of rat poison into the wheat hopper
4. Tragedy ensues
[/hypothesis]
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[hypothesis]
1. Factory has rat problem.
2. Hiram the mailroom boy gets promoted to assistant rat catcher and places poison on top of wheat gluten processor.
3. Vibration from equipment jitters the block of rat poison into the wheat hopper
4. Tragedy ensues
[/hypothesis]
The tainted food came from Emporia, KANSAS. Aminopterin is not registered for killing rodents in the United States, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, though it is used as a cancer drug.
Also, the "wheat gluten" was a shite defense. They were looking for a straw man, and the "new gluten supplier" was it. For all we know, this could have been an intentional poisoning. Nobody knows yet.
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Longest undefended border in the Western Hemisphere...
(Russia or China have to have longer ones, right?)
(Borders)
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So yea, rat poison in the pet food...
I was wrong.
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So yea, rat poison in the pet food...
I was wrong.
Way to be a man about it - you get a can.
I'll respond to your question when I have more time.
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Note that we still don't know how the rat poison got into the pet food. Was it a freak accident, negligence by the manufacturer or intentional tampering by some evil-doer. If the latter then there's still reason to be nervous...
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I read somewheres that they think the poisoned element came from China and I'm thinking that if this is proven, we are going to hear a lot of racism from Fox News about Asian culture and poisoned pets.
They will think it is funny but they will pretty much just be assholes.
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I read somewheres that they think the poisoned element came from China and I'm thinking that if this is proven, we are going to hear a lot of racism from Fox News about Asian culture and poisoned pets.
They will think it is funny but they will pretty much just be assholes.
Plus, they eat rats over there!
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I thought it was cats.
Or is that just the take-out places?
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Scientific American's online site has a nice summary (http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa003&articleID=2B10D1F6-E7F2-99DF-34DAAAC1622FE3CE&pageNumber=1&catID=1) about the state of the investigation. A couple interesting points:
- The contaminant(s) may have been deliberately introduced into the gluten to boost the apparent protein levels (fraudulently)
- It looks like someone took the recalled pet food and sold it as hog-feed. Clearly, they missed the point of the recall...
- European and African cases of poisoning have also turned up, linked back to the Chinese suppliers of gluten
- The Chinese government is finally, reluctantly, beginning to cooperate - no longer actively impeding the investigation
I wonder how long it'll be before one of the Law-and-Order shows does a story based on this.
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Good article, thanks for the link.
Nervewracking related piece in the Washington Post (might require registration):
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/22/AR2007042201163.html (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/22/AR2007042201163.html)
Here's the nervousmaking part:
Currently, most of the world's vitamins are manufactured in China. Unable to compete, the last U.S. plant making vitamin C closed a year ago. One of Europe's largest citric acid plants shut last winter, and only one vitamin C manufacturer operates in the West. Given China's cheap labor, artificially low prices and the unfair competitive climate it has foisted on the industry, few Western producers of food ingredients can survive much longer.
Western companies have had to invest heavily in Chinese facilities. These Western-owned plants follow strict standards and are generally better managed than their locally owned counterparts. Nevertheless, 80 percent of the world's vitamin C is now manufactured in China -- much of it unregulated and some of it of questionable quality.