Tainted animal feed: Why the government's approach isn't working

The pet food contamination scandal has been going on for so long that it's already passed into popular lore, becoming the butt of jokes on David Letterman and various YouTube videos. But the underlying problems are no joke. The issue involves products contaminated with wheat flour doped up on chemicals called melamine, and cyanuric acid. 

The chemical ingredients were apparently added to pass the wheat flour off as more expensive, high protein vegetable products.    

The tainted wheat has turned up in pet food, hog feed, chicken feed, and fish food, causing an avalanche of warnings, investigations, and some recalls. (Most recently, an American manufacturer of shrimp food issued a voluntary recall on some of its products, amid concern that it could contain melamine.) Pets who ate the contaminated food suffered kidney toxicity. Deaths of some 16 cats and dogs have been linked to the contamination, and many more are suspected. 

The recalls also raise serious questions about the quality of meat and other products sold for human consumption, as some animals that ate the tainted feed made it into the human food supply. The FDA says any residues in human food would be very unlikely to pose a human health risk, though their assessment, just released May 25, is based on limited toxicity and exposure information. 

The pet-food experience encompasses about every concern we've ever raised about the inadequacies of our government's approach to safeguarding our food supply: globalization, import surveillance, ingredient and product traceability, animal-feed quality, truth-in-labeling, and recall authority and disclosure. Here's a brief on some of them. 

Recall Authority 

Neither the FDA nor the USDA has the authority to require tainted food be pulled from the market; they can only request that companies voluntarily issue a recall. The FDA and USDA estimate that up to three million chickens that ate contaminated feed ended up on U.S. dinner tables. Fifty-six thousand hogs that ate the feed were released for slaughter and sale. In spite of that, the USDA, which is responsible for meat recalls, didn't ask the companies to recall the tainted meat. The agency did stop animals that hadn't yet gone out for sale by temporarily withholding the USDA mark of inspection until they were evaluated, but then released them.

But even if the feds had asked companies to issue a recall, consumers might never have heard of it. In an effort to ensure industry cooperation, USDA doesn't share with the public the lists of stores involved with recalls.

Product Traceability 

Tracing a food item that's caused illness back to the processing facility is crucial to limiting the scope of a food-contamination outbreak. Packaged meat products like chicken and beef produced in the U.S. are labeled with a butchering plant code, but the tracking system doesn't extend to all products, or further down the chain to farms and feed sources. 

Import Inspection 

In this case, FDA is requiring that all vegetable protein imports from China — including wheat gluten, rice protein concentrate, corn gluten, corn meal, soy protein and rice — be tested for melamine, cyanuric acid and related compounds. However, the protein product contamination is just the latest in a growing line of Chinese imports that threaten consumer health and safety. Lead in jewelry, counterfeit electronics products, and contaminated toothpaste are just a few of the problems that have come with the expansion of off-shore manufacturing. Much greater oversight is needed to identify the hidden costs that come with cheap imports.  On average, FDA inspects food processing facilities at an estimated rate of once every ten years. It inspects only about one percent of the food entering the country from abroad and virtually never inspects a foreign food plant. The FDA assumes companies all follow GMP — good manufacturing practices — unless they have reason to believe otherwise.   

Animal Feed Quality

Defrauding food producers by using cheaper ingredients as substitutes for pricier ones is just one of many ways that contaminants get into animal feed and enter the food supply. Feeding animals antibiotics, hormones, and animal proteins like feathers, remnants from the slaughterhouse, and even animal feces, are just a few of the ways that chemical contaminants and harmful bacteria can enter the food chain. Better safeguards to inspect and regulate food for creatures lower on the food chain are sorely needed to protect those of us further up that chain from deadly pathogens and harmful contaminants. We've been advocating against contaminated animal feed for years. To learn more, click here.

Comments

[Wolfgang P. May]

Good article, but what my cats, who depend on my judgment need, are specifics: Which brand names of their food depend on the poor judgment of a Chinese supplier of the ingredients in their food?

[Marc Perton]

Thanks, everyone, for your comments. I hope you'll all take the time to read this entire post, as well as the linked articles from Consumer Reports. We share the concerns of pet owners everywhere, and acknowledge that the "16 cats and dogs" figure is the official count; as we say above, "many more are suspected." As you'll see from the article linked above, Consumer Reports has been advocating against contaminated animal feed for years. The linked article appeared in January 2005, long before the current crisis, and concluded that "our investigation raises concerns that the federal government isn't doing enough to protect the feed supply and that as a result, the food we eat may not be as safe as it could be." We will continue to report on this serious issue, and we look forward to a continued dialog with all of you.

Marc Perton
Executive Editor
ConsumerReports.org

[Alasandra]

I am so tired of hearing the lie that only 16 pets were murdered by the pet food recall.

Thousands died, my beloved Whiskers among them.

[Linda P.]

The number of pet deaths from this massive pet food recall is in the thousands, not 16. Even the FDA admits to that fact, though they haven't made it "official". They do report on their website and in teleconferences with the media that they have received over 20,000 calls from pet owners reporting deaths and illnesses. This is probably just the tip of the iceberg as far as the true number of pets affected by this poisoning. It is an insult to the thousands of pet owners grieving for their loss to continually see that "16" in news reports and articles. Perhaps David Letterman, etc. would not be treating the issue as such a "joke" if the true magnitude of this recall would be reported in all broadcast and print media. As a consumer advocate, Consumer's Reports should not be minimizing the impact this recall has had by using the vastly inaccurate number "16".

[Sherry Elmore]

The problem with the pet food is still going on. People are still having pets getting ill. They report it to the manufacturer and they tell them they can give them a refund or that they have not heard of any problems with their food. The problem now is with dry food and the possible contamination of acetaminophan in it. The FDA has been notified of this too. All of us that have pets get to wonder for weeks whether the FDA will recall any products while our pets may be eating tainted food. There were five tests done at a Texas lab and they all came back with acetaminophan in the dry ingredients, but only one man has stepped forward so far and told the itchmo.com sight and showed his paper work from the lab. He also called the pet food company and the FDA and notified them of the Texas lab findings. The rest of us wait and our pets may become ill or die because of it. The FDA knew this Texas lab did this test so why didn't they recall the product? So now we have to wait till they do their own testing. The manufacturers of the pet food have said nothing. Why? A person can go to jail for hurting a pet but a manufacturer can with hold the name of tainted pet food until they finally want to disclose it and only after several pets have died. I really feel that the FDA letting the manufacturers handle these problems is a big mistake and a dangerous one for our pets and all of us.

[Debbie4747]

16 deaths is old news. Please try thousands. It's time our government passed some real laws to protect us from the very foods we eat, feed our families and feed our pets. Whatever ingredients are in a food item, they should be listed in the ingredients section of the wrapping. That would include all ingredients, including those that really should not be there. I also think that the ingredients should be spelled out. A good portion of them most can't pronounce and surely have no idea what it really is.
There is such a push to do away with trans fats, but you never hear about a push to take the melamine out of our foods. Yes food designed for people, not just the pet food.
Also it would be nice if there was a law that would demand a manufacturer, once they have been notified they have poisons in their product, to come forward and identify the product, the poison and recall it off the shelf. A lab in Texas, ExperTox has found acetaminophen (Tylenol) in a certain brand of dog food. Neither the lab or FDA can anme the manufacturer due to confidentiality, so they say. Meanwhile this product sits on the shelf just waiting to poison more pets. This contaminant is lethal to pets, especially cats. We have known about this for a couple of days now, and still it's out there. The public isn't even warned which brand so they can at least avoid buying it. Shame on this government for allowing this to continue.

[Carol Vecchione]

The pet food contamination scandal is certainly not the butt of jokes in my home. I have spent the last 4 months trying to keep my very ill cats afflicted with acute renal failure 3 weeks apart (who were healthy in early February) alive. There has been very little laughing in this house since February 17 when my first cat became ill. What is even not funnier is how the FDA has handled this- even telling me on the emergency phone line this was not an FDA issue and I should call someone else...still not funny 3 months later. Even more upsetting is the number of pets "dead" is 16 by the FDA and if they truly posted the true number it sure would get more people involved in changing the times so this can never happen again. I guess they feel that an educated public is more dangerous than poisoned food.

[purringfur]

Even the Oregon Veterinary Medical Association reported at least 49 deaths alone! And count my dog as a death on the East coast, and add my cat who is in Stage II or III kidney disease as also being affected.

from OVMA web site:

Of the 127 suspect cases, at least 49 pets have died:

20 dogs (Bend, Coos Bay, Dayton, 2 in Eugene, McMinnville, Newberg, Pleasant Hill, Portland, Redmond, 2 in Salem, 5 in Springfield, Sutherlin, Tigard, West Linn)
29 cats (Aloha, Coos Bay, 4 in Eugene, 2 in Grants Pass, Hermiston, 2 in Hillsboro, Medford, Newberg, Pleasant Hill, 8 in Portland, Sherwood, Sisters, Springfield, St. Helens, Sunriver, Wilsonville, Winston)
.....................

Did you know that within the last few days that acetaminophen (generic Tylenol) was found in pet food brands that are still unrecalled? Acetaminophen is deadly to cats and highly toxic to dogs. Pet owners themselves asked laboratories to test their foods because they knew their pets died or became seriously ill from the food, despite the food's not being recalled. And they were correct. You can see scans of actual lab test results at petfoodrecallfacts . com. The mentioned site has no solicitation for funding, nor does it have any advertising. It was set up by a person whose pet was affected by the poisoned food.

[Faith]

I a terribly disappointed in Consumer Reports and will probably drop my subscription after 30 years. This article is a tragedy for people with companion pets everywhere. The downright misrepresentation of the widespread effect of the tainted food is a travesty and has none PERMANENT HARM to the efforts of many.

There just aren't words to express my disbelief in reading this today!

[Kelly]

We know that there is pet food on the market TODAY that has tested positive for acetaminophen and at least one manufacturer has known this for a month. Supposedly the FDA is 'investigating' this. But no recalls. Meanwhile no one will release the names of these foods ... meanwhile more pets are ingesting it. Sickening!!!

I have learned from this tho - I have learned I will never trust my govt to ensure we have safe food. It has been abundantly clear the FDA is much more interested in protecting large corporations than our pets or even us!

[SALLY B SHAFFER]

Where do you get the "16 pets die" figure? I think you need to do more investigating if you think that number even comes close!!!Thousands of dogs and cats were affected and although some lucky ones pulled through, like mine, I believe that thousands have died and we probrably will never know for sure how many were affected.Many elderly people on fixed incomes could not afford to take their animals in for treatment, I am sure many died without really knowing why.

[Debra]

I appreciate your putting up information about this issue because it is very important. However, please, please do not repeat the lie of "16 dead pets". This minimizes the situation in some people's eyes, allows those in denial to continue their denial about what has happened, and is a slap in the face to all those who have lost pets due to tainted food. Sixteen is the "official" number only because the FDA hasn't bothered to confirm any more. Please make it clear to consumers that thousands of pet deaths due to poisoned food have been reported.

[Jo-Ann Murphy]

I appreciate the fact that you are at least giving some voice to this issue that is not getting nearly enough serious attention. However, you really don't get the scope of this problem. When you say there are 16 dead animals, people don't really care because that is not even a drop in the bucket of our population. The real point is that the FDA received over 17,000 reports of illness or death from this debacle. They just didn't follow up on it. There are many thousands more that occurred before the recalls were issued that cannot be linked because the poor animals were long gone and unable to be tested. This is a SERIOUS issue that is endangering us all. This should be the top news story on TV because we cannot go without eating. It is not just the animals who are in danger, it is every being in this country. The FDA's assessment that poisoning food animals and then consuming them is not a danger is ludicrous! People should be screaming in the streets at such absurdity!! WE NEED AND DESERVE SAFE FOOD FOR ALL!

[Speechless]

Unbelievable. Abso-stinkin'-lutely unbelievable.

The federal agencies charged with the *duty* of ensuring the safety of our food supply have failed miserably and continue to fail miserably in fulfilling that duty. Adding to that intentional negligence are the facts that those same federal agencies refuse to disclose the names and/or manufacturers of products the agencies *know* to be contaminated with lethal toxins, and the companies and manufacturers refuse to inform the public that their product(s) are contaminated. The Feds cannot force these manufacturers to do recalls or disclose, and the manufacturers are not required to recall and/or disclose. It appears the Feds have abdicated their duty of ensuring food safety and assigned it to the public, but have withheld from the public any and all knowledge of what is and is not safe. Thus, how can the Feds protect the public? Moreover, how can the public even protect itself? Answer: It can't.

In an apparent effort to minimize the breadth and severity of the contaminations, the Feds steadfastly perpetuate the corporate protection myth of "deaths of some 16 cats and dogs" (which represents solely the lab/test animals that died in 3/07 as a result of Menu Foods feeding suspect foods to those animals), while continuing to ignore the **18,000+ deaths and severe illnesses that have been reported directly to the FDA** by private citizens. A simple Google search will reveal that: (1) approximately 6000 dogs and cats have died as a result of eating one of more than 150 different brands of pet food; (2) many thousands more are critically and/or terminally ill with renal failure; (3) new contaminations are being uncovered weekly; and,(4) independent laboratory testings paid for by worried citizens with sick and/or dead pets have reported toxins including acetaminophen, melamine, cyanuric acid, and others. And if all that isn't bad enough, the media has not addressed the 2007 pet food recalls other than a few infrequent quick lines in between the latest "breaking news" of Paris Hilton, et al.

Neither the Feds nor the media have informed the public of the ongoing nature of the food supply contamination, nor of the wide variety of toxins thus far found in numerous components of foods and feed supplies, nor of the multi-continent reach of these contaminations, nor of the long-standing unsafe and illegal business practices widespread in a certain country of origin. Apparently the media and the Feds do not see the pet food contamination crisis and all the ramifications associated therewith as ones of serious importance. Thus, the public is in "Stepford Wife" ignorance.

The question arises again: How can the public even protect itself? The answer is the same: It can't. Unbelievable. Abso-stinkin'-lutely unbelievable.

[Nancy L.]

Let's get this straight. Those 16 deaths, so long quoted and requoted, are animals that died during a feeding trial by the food manufacturers. Despite this clear evidence that something was seriously wrong, the tainted food remained on the shelves and was sold to unsuspecting pet owners. I am one of those owners, whose first dog became sick before a recall was finally announced, and whose second dog died before even having a chance to get to the vet. My dogs are not included in that misleading "16", nor or many many pets now missed by their grieving families. If you really want to serve the public by addressing this issue - tell it like it is. And mention that ten weeks later, food is still being recalled and animals are still suffering. I know. I live with it in my home and my heart.

[Helen Brown]

I also am really tired of seeing "16" animal deaths related to the pet food poisonings. Those 16 animals died in the lab tests performed by Menu Foods, and none of the more than 17,000 complaints to the FDA from pet owners are being counted. Thousands more animals have not been reported to the FDA, and the miserably poor reporting on this issue has caused countless more unnecessary deaths and illnesses that neither vets nor pet owners have linked to poisoned food. The continued parroting of the "16 deaths" has caused even more pet owners to regard the food recalls as being isolated and therefore not alarming. Pets have been reported as dying from supsected poison food since January and even earlier, and recalls have continued weekly since they began in March. Months later the poisoned food has not all been located or even named. Stop using the number 16. You are misleading pet owners who may have to bury their pets because of poor and inaccurate reporting.

[MaKo]

The lessons from this (pet) food scandal are that the FDA - a government agency paid for by the public - is not willing to go public with their information. Instead, they 'remind' companies that they should, please, recall.

To say the least, that is insulting.

By now, the still-ongoing pet food scandal has grown into a food scandal.

Still not a reason for the FDA to name 'offenders'.

If the FDA is not going to protect the public, then what do we need them for?

[Richard]

Don't forget that the "16 pet deaths" are basically the pets that Menu killed by feeding them their own pet food during testing.

[K. Murray]

This is mass poisoning of the food supply. Now samples of pet food have shown contamination with acetaminophen. If Consumer Reports wants the real story, study the articles and blogs on petconnection.com and Itchmo.com. There are stories by pet owners (and former, grieving pet owners) that will break your heart and curl your toes. There must be accountability here. And then a big bonfire to completely destroy all contaminated product to keep it from being recycled back into the food supply.

[Susan]

The FDA has been claiming over 4,200 unconfirmed deaths for a considerable period of time. The media apparently prefer the Menu Foods claim of 16 confirmed deaths which the FDA picked up at the beginning. You are working with the FDA and pet food industry to minimize the threat to the average citizen and his/her pets. You are not helping the consumer you claim to serve.

[Heather Benjamin]

THOUSANDS of pets are dead. Even the FDA admitted to more than 4,000 in a media briefing, and then said they wouldn't offer any more. (Except that half of their reports were of deaths, and they had more than 18,000 reports to be entered in all. Do the math.)

The respected Veterinary Information Network (VIN.com) put VETERINARY-reported deaths at between 2,000 and 10,000, with veterinary costs up to $20 million.

the "some 16" were animals in feeding trial at the company.

We can't trust the industry to tell the truth. The government doesn't want to. Why don't you give it a try?

Do you honestly think this would have been a big deal for 16 animals in a company lab?

[E. Hamilton]

It is an insult to both the thousands of pets who have died and are suffering and their owners to keep repeating the "16" deaths and so inaccurate that it casts doubt on the journalist who continues to use it.
There are thousands dead and many more very ill.
The vet bills are a staggering expense. And is continuing.
More correct information on this scandal is readily available and I urge the reporters to do some research before repeating a flagrant untruth as a fact.
Menu Foods killed "16" test animals after getting reports of pets dropping like flies from eating their product and sure enough, the product was a wonderfully efficient poison. Then Menu Foods waited three weeks before issuing a recall.
There is plenty of shameful action to go around in this pet food poisoning and I am sorry to say that the substandard reporting by the mainstream media is part of it.

[e wem]

I too am dismayed by the press repeating the 16 dog and cat death count.

I personally know of three animals that died. None were tested. None were reported to the FDA. People are not exactly informed to report to the FDA.

In fact, they are being informed that it is a small problem involving 16 animals across the whole nation

The FDA has received a huge volume of reports of animal deaths. One vet hospital chain alone has many exceeded the official FDA count.

Several states have counts that exceed the FDA count.

Just how dead does a cat have to be to be counted?

When a news organization refuses to use any number but the one number we all know to be false, that press organization loses its credibility too

[Tom Paine]

"Deaths of some 16 cats and dogs." Just parroting of the official line does nothing to really help citizens of the U.S. to understand the magnitude of this problem, and only serves to obfuscate and minimize a deadly serious mass poisoning.

The FDA itself has reported that they have received reports of OVER 4,200 pet deaths. (Research for yourself in the FDA's own press conference statements.) Many more pets are extremely ill and will likely add to that number.

To use the FDA's initial number first sited ten weeks ago, is to imply that they are somehow trustworthy and honest. They have not been in the past, nor are they now. They are structured to favor the suppliers, producers and corporations over the basic human need for a safe and healthy food supply.

We are adults, we can handle truth. Those who decry "the Nanny state" should close their mouths and watch the experts as they try to put the public to sleep.

[pat richard]

I am sick to death of seeing the "16 dead animals" myth repeated in print. The only reason that the official number is not in the thousands is because FDA has not bothered to confirm any more pet deaths. Rather than perpetuating the falsehood that less than two dozen animals died as a result of this debacle, you might want to print that FDA received more than 17,000 reports of death or illness as a result of the contaminated food. When highly regarded media outlets like consumer reports continues to trivialize the numbers of pets involved in this monstrous event, they do a disservice to the public.