[SEE TWO IMPORTANT UPDATES -- EXPANDED RECALL! -- AT END OF DIARY]
But it's just a "coincidence":
Pet food insider sold shares before recall (Globe and Mail, Canada)
The chief financial officer of Menu Foods Income Fund says it's a "horrible coincidence" that he sold nearly half his units in the troubled pet food maker less than three weeks before a massive recall of tainted pet food.
Insider trading reports show that Mark Wiens sold 14,000 units for $102,900 on Feb. 26 and Feb. 27. Those shares would be worth $62,440 today, based on yesterday's close of $4.46 a unit.
That represented 45 per cent of Mr. Wiens's units. ...
MORE BREAKING NEWS BELOW:
BELOW:
- a family, on its own, requests a test that adds three more non-recalled pet foods to the list of those containing melamine -- but which the company, Nutro, had NOT had on its list of recalled foods
- on April 12, Sen. Dick Durbin is holding a Senate hearing on the pet food recall
BUT FIRST, the extremely low numbers typically reported -- 12, 15 pets killed -- are grossly inaccurate and will dangerously lull people into thinking the illnesses and deaths are isolated events:
MSNBC/AP today report that a large veterinary chain -- one of the only resources for statistics on the massive pet poisonings because there is NO national database to which ALL veterinarians can report illnessess and deaths -- has had its "franchise" veterinarians report in:
Pet food contaminated with an industrial chemical may have sickened or killed 39,000 cats and dogs nationwide, based on an extrapolation from data released Monday by one of the nation’s largest chains of veterinary hospitals.
Banfield, The Pet Hospital, said an analysis of its database, compiled from records collected by its more than 615 veterinary hospitals, suggests that three out of every 10,000 cats and dogs that ate the pet food contaminated with melamine developed kidney failure. There are an estimated 60 million dogs and 70 million cats in the United States, according to the American Veterinary Medical Association.
The hospital chain saw 1 million dogs and cats during the three months when the more than 100 brands of now-recalled contaminated pet food were sold. It saw 284 extra cases of kidney failure among cats during that period, or a roughly 30 percent increase, when compared with background rates. ...
Because a Marin County family suspected a food that was NOT on the recall list, their veterinarian requested that the food be tested by the the California Animal Health and Food Safety Laboratory System at the University of California Davis School of Veterinary Medicine (which happens to have one of the top testing facilities in the nation, if not the world).
The family's cat, Cleo, was brought to the Mill Valley Pet Clinic last month after she stopped eating:
She was rushed to the Pet Emergency and Specialty Center of Marin in San Rafael.
Since then, Cleo has been under constant veterinary care -- costing untold thousands of dollars -- and is slowly recovering.
Cleo's owners tried to contact the manufacturer of the pet foods, three varieties of Nutro Max Cat Gourmet Classics, that they suspected may have sickened Cleo:
Kellie Little, Cleo's owner, said she purchased the food from Pet Club in Corte Madera on March 19. She said she has been in contact with Nutro officials about six times over the past two weeks, but she was told that only the cat food in pouches had been recalled, not the canned cat food. She provided two samples to the company's office in addition to the samples sent to UC Davis.
Do read the full story -- "Marin case confirms new tainted pet food" at the Marin Independent Journal.
LESSON: We cannot trust the companies and manufacturers to give us the full story.
Menu Foods' CFO may or may not have sold his stock because he had early word on the coming recall. But his bottom line is that he is in this for the money. And so are almost all of the manufacturers of pet food in this country and across the world.
Yesterday, I "googled" Dr. Elizabeth Hodgkins, one of the veterinarians who will be a witness at the hearing to be led by Sen. Dick Durbin on April 12. I hadn't heard of her, and wondered why Durbin's office had selected her to give testimony. As I read her articles, I learned that Dr. Hodgkins is a staunch advocate for feeding cats properly and a recognized expert on diabetes in cats.
Since melamine primarily affects cats, it is crucial that all of us cat pet parents learn more about the essential dietary requirements of cats. If we learn, we can not only prevent poisonings, we can also ensure our cats' longterm health.
Dr. Hodgkins believes that diabetes, and obesity, in cats stem from the high levels of carbohydrates (grains) in commercially prepared DRY and a lot of wet cat food.
[As the cat species evolved] some of the pathways for carbohydrate metabolism that were developing to a high degree in herbivorous and omnivorous species in more carbohydrate-rich environments were discarded by the primitive cat. ...
[T]he cat will use dietary protein for routine energy production at a high level EVEN in situations where dietary protein is very limited. Because of these evolutionary “choices” made long ago, the cat rapidly begins to consume its structural proteins for energy during starvation or protein deprivation of any other kind (e.g., protein-restricted diets). In short, the cat is a “carbohydrate cripple” with a huge protein dependency!
Given the forgoing, it is not at all surprising that we now find many of our feline patients fat, sluggish, and eventually, diabetic. For all of our good intentions in bringing the cat into our homes as a pampered pet, we have done the species a tremendous disservice in providing its members a diet far more appropriate for a cow in a feedlot than an obligatory carnivore. Because of the food technology of dry food production, dry cat foods are loaded with carbohydrate from cereal. This carbohydrate is absolutely required in the extrusion process; dry pet foods are essentially breakfast cereal for pets with a little added meat meal for palatability. Further, because this cereal undergoes processing at high heat and pressure during extrusion, it becomes pre-digested and enters the pet’s bloodstream essentially as “sugar.” Nothing in the cat’s evolutionary development could possibly have prepared it for a steady diet of this sugar laden “junk food.”
Read all at Cat Nutrition.
On another site, Diabeticcat.com, that features Dr. Hodgkin's writings, she notes about DRY FOOD:
Diabetes in the cat is a man-made disease, which is completely preventable by avoiding the "kitty junk-food" that is dry kibbled cat food. Without question, it is the continuous, day-in, day-out consumption of this poor-quality, highly processed, carbohydrate rich "breakfast cereal for cats" that causes so many felines to become diabetic.
BRAVO TO SEN. DICK DURBIN FOR CALLING DR. HODGKINS AS A WITNESS ON THURSDAY!
This is another superb article by a veterinarian: "FEEDING YOUR CAT: KNOW THE BASICS OF FELINE NUTRITION." (This article gets into the dehydration that all cats suffer if they're on a dry food diet -- their thirst urges, because of their unique make-up, aren't sufficient to keep them hydrated unless they eat wet food.)
I've been doing so much reading since the news of the recall, and have learned that I was feeding my cats improperly. These are some of the new feeding practices I've adopted:
- I will never -- ever -- buy any pet food, dry or wet, from a supermarket again. There isn't a single supermarket-sold pet food that isn't loaded with cheap-additive carbohydrates. And that most certainly includes all brand names of Purina, Iams, and even "eco-friendly" supermarket-sold products like Pet Promise, which I've learned is actually manufactured by Purina.
- I now buy only from a very reputable local, small pet food store where the owners are highly informed and take care to label every wet cat food that contains NO grains. Some of the wet food brands I'm buying include Wellness, Innova, and Felidae.
- I am transitioning my cats from an almost all dry food diet to an almost all wet food diet. It's taking time. I'm experimenting with the wet foods they like or won't eat. And I'm supplementing their diet with two dry foods that I trust more than most: Orijen and Wellness.
If you have a dog, I recommend you follow the same protocol. Dogs, of course, tolerate carbohydrates and so their dry foods are safer, but ONLY if one buys the best brands, including Orijen, Wellness, Timber Wolf, and a few others.
Without the constant updating by Ben, the terrific and highly informed blogger at Itchmo!, I'd have never found the above stories. Ben is expanding his site constantly, and moving to new servers to accommodate the huge uptick in traffic.
Visit Itchmo!, and bookmark it. I find that I visit three to four times daily because Ben is always updating the site. He also adds fun, light stories to balance the heavier news on the recall.
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I hope you'll all tune in to Dick Durbin's hearing on Thursday. Itchmo! reports:
The Senate Pet Food Safety Hearing is scheduled to be shown live here (under Webcasts) on Thursday 2pm Eastern, Thursday, April 12. They are also checking into a C-SPAN broadcast.
And, you'll want to be sure to read Dick Durbin's press release: "DURBIN ANNOUNCES SENATE HEARING ON PET FOOD CONTAMINATION." Sen. Durbin makes a number of disturbing allegations about Menu Foods' lack of responsiveness in this largest-ever pet poisoning. Sen. Durbin also issued a press release on the date and location of the hearing, and the list of witnesses.
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NOW THERE ARE TWO UPDATES ON PRODUCT RECALLS ANNOUNCED THIS AFTERNOON:
Update [2007-4-10 19:30:39 by SusanHu]: From Itchmo's Recall Alert, which you can sign up for:
Menu Foods Candian Plant Also Contaminated
Menu Foods transfered some of the tainted wheat gluten to their Canadian facility and has issued yet another recall.
Menu Foods has identified a single interplant transfer of the ChemNutra supplied wheat gluten, shipped from Menu Foods’ plant in Emporia, Kansas, to its plant in Streetsville, Ontario. This wheat gluten was subsequently used in the production of pet food in December, 2006 and January, 2007, which is being recalled by Menu Foods.
This may explain the melamine found in Nutro’s cans in California. Thank goodness for pet parents who care. You were right to suspect all Menu Foods products.
The revised recall includes cat food brands from Nutro, Publix, America’s Choice, Pet Pride, Winn Dixie and more.
In our discussions below, you'll find many better food choices for your pets. Personally, I recommend Wellness, Innova, Prairie, Merrick's, Orijen, Serengeti/Timber Wolf, and AvoDerm. These brands make grain-free, high-quality-protein foods.
Update [2007-4-10 19:57:42 by SusanHu]: Royal Canin issues a recall of its prescription canned food due to melamine contamination.
-- Via Itchmo.