List of recalled pet foods grows longer...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The recall of contaminated pet foods expanded Saturday to include a new brand, even as investigators puzzled over how a chemical called melamine would kill dogs and cats.

Nestlé Purina PetCare Co. said it was recalling all sizes and varieties of its Alpo Prime Cuts in Gravy wet dog food with specific date codes.

Purina said a limited amount of the food contained a contaminated wheat gluten from China. (Read details of Purina recall)

The same U.S. supplier also provided wheat gluten, a protein source, to a Canadian company, Menu Foods, which this month recalled 60 million containers of wet dog and cat food it produces for sale under nearly 100 brand labels. (Watch FDA official tell why pet food situation is so confusing )

Menu Foods and the Food and Drug Administration, which regulates the pet food industry, have refused to identify the company that supplied the contaminated wheat gluten.

Hill's Pet Nutrition said late Friday that its Prescription Diet m/d Feline dry cat food included the tainted wheat gluten. The FDA said the source was the same unidentified company.

Hill's, a division of Colgate-Palmolive Co., is so far the only company to recall any dry pet food. (Hill's recall information)

Federal testing of some recalled pet foods and the wheat gluten used in their production turned up the chemical melamine. Melamine is used to make kitchenware and other plastics. It is both a contaminant and byproduct of several pesticides, including cyromazine, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

Melamine is toxic only in very high doses and has been shown in rats to produce bladder tumors, according to the EPA.

The federal pet food testing failed to confirm the presence of aminopterin, a cancer drug also used as rat poison, the FDA said. Cornell University scientists also found melamine in the urine of sick cats, as well as in the kidney of one cat that died after eating some of the recalled food.

Earlier, the New York State Food Laboratory identified aminopterin as the likely culprit in the pet food. But the FDA said it could not confirm that finding, nor have researchers at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey when they looked at tissue samples taken from dead cats.

Experts at the University of Guelph in Canada detected aminopterin in some samples of the recalled pet food, but only in very small percentages.

"Biologically, that means nothing. It wouldn't do anything," said Grant Maxie, a veterinary pathologist at the university. "This is a puzzle."

The FDA was working to rule out the possibility that the contaminated wheat gluten could have made it into any human food.

Menu Foods announced the recall this month after animals died of kidney failure after eating the company's products. (Menu Foods recall information)

An FDA official allowed that it was not immediately clear whether the melamine was the culprit. The agency's investigation continues, said Stephen F. Sundlof, director of the FDA's Center for Veterinary Medicine.

Menu Foods said the only certainty was that imported wheat gluten was the likely source of the deadly contamination, even if the actual contaminant remained in doubt.

"The important point today is that the source of the adulteration has been identified and removed from our system," said Paul Henderson, Menu Foods chief executive officer and president. Henderson suggested his company would pursue legal action against the supplier. (Watch the Menu Foods CEO discuss the case) )

About 70 percent of the wheat gluten used in the United States for human and pet food is imported from the European Union and Asia, according to the Pet Food Institute, an industry group.

One veterinarian suggested the international sourcing of ingredients would force the U.S. "to come to grips with a reality we had not appreciated."

"When you change from getting an ingredient from the supplier down the road to a supplier from around the globe, maybe the methods and practices that were effective in one situation need to be changed," said Tony Buffington, a professor of veterinary clinical sciences at Ohio State University. (Watch pet owner talk about her beloved dog's death )

Sundlof said the agency may change how it regulates the pet food industry.

"In this case, we're going to have to look at this after the dust settles and determine if there is something from a regulatory standpoint that we could have done differently to prevent this incident from occurring," he said.

It is not clear how many pets may have been poisoned by the apparently contaminated food, although anecdotal reports suggest hundreds if not thousands have died. The FDA has received more than 8,000 complaints; the company, more than 300,000

Re: List of recalled pet foods grows longer...

Re: List of recalled pet foods grows longer...

I feel bad for all these pet owners.

Re: List of recalled pet foods grows longer...

I was at Petsmart last night and I met a woman with her dog. She was there returning the dog food. Our kitties were on r/d diet but not anymore. I just bought a different food.

Re: List of recalled pet foods grows longer...

one of my mom's closest friends just had to have her 11 year old dog put down because she was so incredibly sick from the food (i believe it was the alpo, but i'm not sure). she said it happened within a day or 2. it's so so so sad quinn's food hasn't been recalled but i'm starting to get scared of any dog food

Re: List of recalled pet foods grows longer...

This whole thing is just horrible

Re: List of recalled pet foods grows longer...

call me an overreacter- but last night I opened a new bag a cat food- Purina dry food

and this morning my cat was drinking a ton of water and it his litter box alot

my gut is telling me to throw it away!

Re: List of recalled pet foods grows longer...

for anyone with pets that have eaten this food

Re: List of recalled pet foods grows longer...

Re: List of recalled pet foods grows longer...

thanks for posting this!! this is what we give our dog! he threw up in his crate the other day when we were at work.... so we stopped giving him his canned food, and have only given him dry since then.... now i know to keep an eye on him, and we'll check the codes on his! thanks again!

Re: List of recalled pet foods grows longer...

I'm done buying pet food. I will start making own tomorrow. At least I will know what goes in it.

Re: List of recalled pet foods grows longer...

We've been feeding our dogs this. I just check the cans and they're not the ones listed but still I am going to keep an eye on them. I am also DONE buying dog food. I'm going to start making my own tonight.

Re: List of recalled pet foods grows longer...

These poor animals

Re: List of recalled pet foods grows longer...

Oh wow

Re: List of recalled pet foods grows longer...

mother f-er - I give Bailey Purina - and I checked the website to make sure it wasnt on the list - (this when it first started)- and they had a big thing on how none of their food was effected....im PIZZED

Re: List of recalled pet foods grows longer...

Does anyone know if Nutro dry dog food was affected or Meow Mix for cats?

Re: List of recalled pet foods grows longer...

Message edited 4/1/2007 9:15:56 PM.

Re: List of recalled pet foods grows longer...

geez! i have to get new food now! i thought the hills brand would be ok, but we have our pups on i/d. even though its dry i'm changing!

Re: List of recalled pet foods grows longer...

Here is the link for the Purina website. No dry food was affected.

Re: List of recalled pet foods grows longer...

Posted by Booklady1017

I feel bad for all these pet owners and pets.

Re: List of recalled pet foods grows longer...

This is jsut awful. Why can't they figure out where the toxin came from & how it got there...and a REAL gague of which foods were/are affected.

What a horrible thing to have to worry about

Re: List of recalled pet foods grows longer...

I'm almost at the point where I'm ready to give the whole crew table food until this crap is resolved

Re: List of recalled pet foods grows longer...

This is the first time since we've had Cooper that I'm so glad we have to give him special Holistic food because of his stomach... I pray that it stays OFF the list. Right before thsi all happened was when we switched him from a Hill's food to Eagle Pak food....

Re: List of recalled pet foods grows longer...

this is horrifying. i am almost out of the science diet that i feed my dogs, and don't plan on buying any more commercial dog food of any kind at this point.

Re: List of recalled pet foods grows longer...