MenuFoods Recall Info/History/Etc.

Note: This was originally a "breaking" diary, but jhritz beat me by a few minutes. =)  I am glad that a diary about this issue has finally made the recommended list.  I have been covering this for a while, so I'm leaving this up in case anyone wants to read any previous coverage.End Note.

MSNBC has just issued a breaking news alert regarding the MenuFoods scandal.

FDA testing has confirmed that a type of rat poison - which is BANNED in the USA - was found during testing of products effected by the MenuFoods recall.  Earlier, MenuFoods attempted to zero in on the wheat gluten additive as the source of the contamination.  As it turns out, the batch of wheat used to make the gluten was imported from China.

This leads to a few questions:

1.  We are a net exporter of wheat - WHY is wheat being imported for use in animal food products?  If we have a wheat surplus, shouldn't we be using domestic sources to manufacture these products?

2.  Why didn't MenuFoods catch this contamination during their initial quality control testing of the products?

The FDA will hold a press conference at 1pm.  I don't know if I'll be around to cover this as I have errands to run. I'll update this post at TexasKaos when there is more info, and of course, yall are welcome to diary the press conference.  In fact, please do, because this important news still isn't getting the coverage it deserves.

Previous TexasKaos coverage of the MenuFoods recall:

1. Bring the Hammer Down: More Pet Deaths and Class Action Lawsuits Filed Against MenuFoods
2. PSA: Massive Pet Food Recall - Please Check Your Pet Food!
   
3. More Deaths Expected in MenuFoods Pet Food Recall
   
4. MenuFoods KNEW Their Product Was Deadly; Lawsuit Filed (IMPORTANT UPDATE)
   

UPDATE:  jhritz wrote posted a diary on this a few minutes before i did.  normally i'd delete this for being duplicative, but i'm leaving it because this is an issue of interest for me and i've been covering it from the get-go.  i hope that the information in the previous diaries will be helpful, and that's the main reason i'm leaving this up.

•  I posted this already

  link is here.

  by jhritz on Fri Mar 23, 2007 at 08:33:24 AM PDT

  •  thank you for helping to push the story

    i posted over here because i've been covering this from the get go.  hope you don't think it's duplicative.  i'll put a link to your diary in my kaos post.

    by anna on Fri Mar 23, 2007 at 08:37:12 AM PDT

    •  I wonder if some of this wheat got into...

      ... other Eukanuba products.  Eukanuba just changed its formula for its prescription low-pH formula, and one of our (otherwise healthy) cats developed a urinary problem, but the vet could find no reason for it.  After IV hydration and a day in the vet hospital, she was home and fine;  However, she wouldn't eat the Eukanuba any more.  Once we changed to Royal Canin S/O, no more problems.

      by tbetz on Fri Mar 23, 2007 at 09:44:20 AM PDT

•  Who is "We?"

  Isn't the plant in Canada?

  Do any of these companies actually exist in quantifiable places any more?

  by Gooserock on Fri Mar 23, 2007 at 08:38:07 AM PDT

  •  I think the company is Candadian

    But the affected plant(s) are in the US

    by Catte Nappe on Fri Mar 23, 2007 at 08:55:04 AM PDT

  •  Emporia, Kansas

    The plant which produced the deadly food is in Kansas.

    http://www.fda.gov/...

    by ortcutt on Fri Mar 23, 2007 at 08:56:01 AM PDT

•  Glad you did this, Anna ...

  and it's great you linked to the earlier diaries that had such good, helpful discussions!

  I'm very disturbed that this poison was on the wheat imported from China ... ABC News has a very good story on it:

  http://abcnews.go.com/...

  Someone close to the investigation tells ABC News that rodenticide, a chemical which the source says is illegal to use in the United States, was on wheat that was imported from China and used by Menu Foods in nearly 100 brands of dog and cat food.

  If China is using these ILLEGAL, harmful chemicals on their foods, what about other foods we're now importing from China?

  Is it safe?  Is it tested?

  by SusanHu on Fri Mar 23, 2007 at 08:38:12 AM PDT

  •  wonderful questions

    yes, doesn't this news just make you wonder?  i mean, we can't even verify that imported products fed to pets are safe.  why would we trust foods for human consumption?

    yes, there are tighter restrictions on foods for human consumption, but you'd think that after this, the FDA will get some resources allocated to inspecting the animal food supply.

    beyond that, how the heck didn't menufoods catch this during initial testing?  now, i ask this assuming that they do regular taste testing before releasing a product into the marketplace.  but so far, we only know that they did testing AFTER receiving a complaint.  if there is a real quality control gap in the pre-marketplace time period, that's even worse.

    by anna on Fri Mar 23, 2007 at 08:46:30 AM PDT

  •  Implications are scary.

    by mattes on Fri Mar 23, 2007 at 08:49:00 AM PDT

•  This story just gets worse and worse.

  Selling poison to people to feed to their pets.

  by citizenx on Fri Mar 23, 2007 at 08:41:37 AM PDT

•  Thanks for keeping us informed.

  by mattes on Fri Mar 23, 2007 at 08:48:02 AM PDT

•  A good example why China's "Capitlaism" is such

  crap, even moreso than ours!!

  They are so intent on allowing the dynamics, the "whirlwind", of capitalism to work it's "magic" that they forgot the regulation part.  As we are doing here more and more.  So, here we are!!  Today, dead pets, tomorrow, dead people.

  Slave labor;  inmates killed for body parts; rampant pollution; peasants getting displaced and pissed... yeah, the tainted fruits of economic success!  

  For China, whether they wear the cloak of "socialism" or "capitalism", underneath, they are sill Emperors.  For Russia, it was Czar's.  Fools, one an all.  We need to learn from their history.

  This is why I believe socialism, with heavily regulated capitalism, can work here in the US, as it has in much of Europe, and in some other parts of the world (e.g. Venezuela).  Because underneath, we are Democratic in our outlook, WE THE PEOPLE!  That is critical.  What the populace used too having as their individual rights and ownership of their government, their country.  I'm not talking private property ownership, but rather control and accountability for their own lives.

  A little thing like this really highlights the results that different combinations of economics and politics can produce that are for or against the people and life.

  There is a much deeper lesson here.

  by FightTheFuture on Fri Mar 23, 2007 at 08:48:23 AM PDT

  •  I agree with much of the sentiment

    BUT... it isn't as if we have never had our own scares here on food we produce for our own consumption.

    by roseba on Fri Mar 23, 2007 at 09:51:21 AM PDT

    •  Yes, and with increasing deregulation and

      cronies appointed to run the agencies intended to protect the public, they are on the rise!!  Part of the plan, I suspect to destroy all faith in the government, our government which is us, but most can no longer even comprehend that.

      by FightTheFuture on Fri Mar 23, 2007 at 10:58:19 AM PDT

•  tort system

  I am so glad that this case is getting people's attention. The right to access the court system when your (or your pet's) life is in dangered by a corporation is a right that has been under attack from the Wingers for decades. And they've been winning the fight. Cyrus Dugger has been posting on this stuff - both the menufoods case and its larger implications to   the fight for civil justice here on Dailykos and on his site tortdeform.com

  by DMIer on Fri Mar 23, 2007 at 08:49:19 AM PDT

  •  tortdeform is a great resource

    their posts have been very helpful in understanding the legal implications.  thank you for linking them!

    by anna on Fri Mar 23, 2007 at 08:54:40 AM PDT

•  So far, it is only wet foods?

  I just sent the recall list for Canada to my two sons but they don't buy "wet food."

  I buy Royal Canin dry food for my dog. For wet food he gets chicken and salmon scraps mixed with either rice or potatoes, sometimes a little vegetables. The ratio is more meat than starch.

  by Agathena on Fri Mar 23, 2007 at 09:16:32 AM PDT

  •  yes, thus far n/t

    by anna on Fri Mar 23, 2007 at 09:26:50 AM PDT

•  Some back history

  I found some history of rat poisonings in China in recent years:

  http://archives.cnn.com/...

  http://english.people.com.cn/...

  by just another vet on Fri Mar 23, 2007 at 09:43:32 AM PDT