Second Tainted Pet Food Ingredient Found

The horrors of life under the Bush Regime are unrelenting:

In the Chicago Trib:

Second Tainted Pet Food Ingredient Found

An industrial chemical that led to a nationwide recall of more than 100 brands of cat and dog foods has been found to contaminate a second pet food ingredient, expanding the recall further.

The chemical, melamine, is believed to have contaminated rice protein concentrate used to make a variety of Natural Balance Pet Foods products for both dogs and cats, the Food and Drug Administration said Wednesday. Previously, the chemical was found to contaminate another ingredient, wheat gluten, used by at least six other pet food and treat manufacturers.

Natural Balance said it was recalling all its Venison and Brown Rice canned and bagged dog foods, its Venison and Brown Rice dog treats and its Venison and Green Pea dry cat food.

The Pacoima, Calif., company said recent laboratory tests showed the products contain melamine. It believes the source of the contaminant was rice protein concentrate, which the company recently added to the dry venison formulas. Natural Balance does not use wheat gluten, which was associated with the previous melamine contamination, it said.
(more)

I know that many kossacks could assert that there are more imortant problems in the world right now. I, however, am worried about the food supply. First wheat gluten. Now rice.

It may not be people dying from this, but is this a tabby in the coalmine? Would Bush call a mass poisoning a senseless killing, too?

•  Time to check the ingredients again. nt

  by iconoclastic cat on Wed Apr 18, 2007 at 07:26:54 AM PDT

  •  I just switched

    to Canidae dry and Natural Balance Roll when this first started up.  I know the NB roll is not on the list YET.  But who knows. I rechecked the ingredients this morning on the NB roll. It has brown and white rice but no corn, wheat or any glutens. FYI-Natural Balance is the Dick Van Patten brand.

    by donnamarie on Wed Apr 18, 2007 at 07:40:53 AM PDT

    •  Please rec this diary

      jhritz's diary on this caught the evening people but not the morning/afternoon people. This news needs to get out.

      by donnamarie on Wed Apr 18, 2007 at 07:56:14 AM PDT

    •  It's starting to seem

      like it's almost pointless to switch to anything unless you literally make the ingredients on your own farm. This is infuriating.

      by anastasia p on Wed Apr 18, 2007 at 08:41:53 AM PDT

•  thanks for writing this,

  iconoclastic cat. Nicely done. Rec'd.

  by fareast on Wed Apr 18, 2007 at 07:29:58 AM PDT

  •  Hey! No problem.

    Thanks for more Linux goodness!

    by iconoclastic cat on Wed Apr 18, 2007 at 07:30:58 AM PDT

•  We're Probably Next

  It's not like the ingredients used in people-food are that different from a lot of what's used to make dog food, or that there's some firewalls between "pet food raw ingredients" and "people food raw ingredients".

  We've been warned.  Buy everything you can from local producers for a while until this thing blows over.. that's what we're trying to do.

  by bincbom on Wed Apr 18, 2007 at 07:35:44 AM PDT

•  Sigh

  When will people realize that the US importing staple foods is NOT a good idea.

  It doesn't help us; it doesn't help the exporting countries (much) all it does is make things more expensive and vulnerable.

  Imagine importing staple foods from - oh, pick one, how about Iran? Or Iraq? Or Afghanistan?

  We used to export food to help feed the rest of the world. Now we're importing food. Why?

  Wait, I have a clue.......$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$............

  by Unique Material on Wed Apr 18, 2007 at 07:36:09 AM PDT

•  Thank you

  for posting this.  jhritz posted this around 6 pm EDT yesterday but it fell off the rec list this morning. I'm all for having multiple diaries on this after one falls of the rec or recent list.
  You might want to link to jhritz's diary.  There was some GREAT commentary in there.

  by donnamarie on Wed Apr 18, 2007 at 07:36:56 AM PDT

•  I too worry about the food supply for all of us

  Here is some links to mass food poisonings in China recently that I bookmarked for a post I never wrote.

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

  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/...

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

  http://www.sptimes.com/...

  and pet food poisoning in South Africa:

  http://www.int.iol.co.za/...

  Just crazy and sad.

  by just another vet on Wed Apr 18, 2007 at 07:42:12 AM PDT

  •  Check out this from Walmart Watch

    Imagine your meat coming from China?  I only buy local and never eat fast food.  San Francisco Farmer's Market ROCK!

    http://walmartwatch.com/...

    by east bay on Wed Apr 18, 2007 at 07:47:52 AM PDT

    •  There is a great market

      in downtown Austin every weekend. The meat there is amazing, and you get to meet the folks who raised the animals. Same for everything else sold. Going to it makes we wonder why we have grocery stores at all.

      by just another vet on Wed Apr 18, 2007 at 09:21:06 AM PDT

  •  just another vet

    Maybe you should write that diary. It's very relevent what with the potential pet/human food connections.

    by donnamarie on Wed Apr 18, 2007 at 07:54:38 AM PDT

    •  Maybe I will.

      I don't want to come across as a tin foil kind of guy, but one does have to wonder about the safety of the public food supply and the affects a mass poisoning would have on the population at large.

      by just another vet on Wed Apr 18, 2007 at 09:30:12 AM PDT

      •  Tin foil hat

        Well with the breakdown of the Blackberry network today and everything else that's been happening lately, I wouldn't put anything past these crooks.

        by donnamarie on Wed Apr 18, 2007 at 11:00:39 AM PDT

  •  Rick Perlstein has a good piece

    on US food scares (including the pet food situation).

    by Abby Kelleyite on Wed Apr 18, 2007 at 08:30:08 AM PDT

    •  Excellent article!

      Not a bad blog either.

      by Catte Nappe on Wed Apr 18, 2007 at 09:00:38 AM PDT

•  Despite the scare, feed all cats WET food!

  We have two cats, one of whom is diabetic.  With the scare I started doing research on pet foods and discovered that all dry foods are wrong for cats and almost toxic to cats.  So then I tried to flip them to wet food which was low in carbohydrates.  They both love Trade Joe's tuna but they're completely out of stock and have been so since the Menu foods problem so in desperation I was at a specialty pet food store.  I've got the non-diabetic on Wellness canned which he seems to like and the diabetic turns her nose up at.  She's on Fromm's tuna(of course the most expensive there is).  Both foods are low-carb high protein.

  The best part...The diabetic was taken off insulin after 3 weeks (recheck next Monday but she seems to be doing great).  She's also lost weight and seems sooooo happy.

  The sad thing about this scare is that many people are moving their cats to dry food which is going to cause long term problems.  There are no low carbohydrate dry cat foods that I am aware of and cats need diets high in protein, not carbs.

  by Sharon from OH on Wed Apr 18, 2007 at 07:52:42 AM PDT

  •  All tuna diets are not healthy for cats either

    and they will get so they won't eat anything else.  A super resource on cats can be found at Messybeast.com--no, I didnt make the name up.

    by barbwires on Wed Apr 18, 2007 at 07:56:28 AM PDT

  •  I slightly disagree.

    While I agree that male cats should only be fed wet, I have had many female cats in my life who lived healthy, long lives being fed high-quality dry food. Protein is definitely the key; cats are almost pure carnivores, usually getting any vegitable matter from eating the stomachs of their prey.

    by iconoclastic cat on Wed Apr 18, 2007 at 07:56:50 AM PDT

    •  me too

      I've raised two cats, one male and one female, almost entirely on dry food.  The female lived to be 20 before succumbing to cancer, and was perfectly healthy her entire life until then.  The male lived to 17 despite kidney problems when he was young - caused by feeding him tuna, according to the vet.  No more tuna, no more kidney problems.

      by Leggy Starlitz on Wed Apr 18, 2007 at 08:08:17 AM PDT

      •  tuna and salmon

        don't want to feed too much from that end of the food chain.  

        by mollyd on Wed Apr 18, 2007 at 08:45:16 AM PDT

    •  I don't think there's a magic answer

      I have always fed my cats a mixture of wet and dry, and except for short periods where I was dealing with a special medical need, almost always a regular brand like Friskies or Nine Lives or Meow Mix. Most of my cats have lived to be 16-18; my longtime Siamese companion Brat did three months short of her 20th birthday and was healthy almost until the end.

      Unlike some here, I can't dramatically alter my five cats' diets to feature high-priced premium foods that will probably be on the tainted list next week anyway, because it would mean giving up eating myself. But it's become clear that spending money is no guarantee of safety and I don't understand why ANY food -- no matter how cheap -- that is sold in stores as presumably safe for pets, isn't.

      I blame Bush and his cronies too. Everything is for sale, even our health and that of our pets.

      by anastasia p on Wed Apr 18, 2007 at 08:46:45 AM PDT

•  This was diaried last night

  but it bears repeating.

  Something brought out in the earlier diary is that Natural Balance uses human grade ingredients.  

  Waiting for the other shoe to drop - when will we start reading about human illness because of this contamination?  What does melamine poisoning look like in children?  Adults?  The elderly?  

  I may be over reacting, but I'm afraid this is going to get as ugly for humans as it has been for our fur-babies.

  by lcork on Wed Apr 18, 2007 at 08:02:56 AM PDT

  •  the poison(s)

    I continue to doubt that melamine is the primary cause of the poisonings. It's acute toxicity is low, lower than some of the natural compounds in spices and herbs we use for flavoring. From all the data I can find the real concern is chronic poisoning, formation of kidney stones and damage associated with that.

    The FDA says that they now are testing all (wheat?) gluten coming from China for melamine. I'd stay away from imported gluten products, if there were problems recovering products from shelves in small Asian stores is problematic.  I'd also steer clear of vegetarian foods that use gluten of unverifiable source.

    But melamine isn't a good fit for the poisonings. It takes too much, although cats are likely to be more sensitive, it's too slow, and the symptoms are somewhat different.  The original report a finding aminopterin in the gluten is a more likely cause. The FDA says they didn't detect it, I wonder if it wasn't a case of a primary adulteration with melamine to make the gluten appear to have more protein and some of that gluten also having been contaminated with something else that is the actual cause of the pet illnesses. The FDA simply didn't get samples made from the portion of the gluten that had the more toxic material.

    Aminopterin is fairly toxic, and causes symptoms matching those of the pets. It has been used as a rodentcide in China, as have TETS and fluoroacetate - both nasty poisons quickly causing convulsions. TETS is very toxic, and there are a number of cases of accidental and intensional poisonings with it in Chine, and elsewhere from illegally imported rat poison.

    by wondering if on Wed Apr 18, 2007 at 08:33:42 AM PDT

    •  One link I have on this

      from a while back is to a case study involving Aminopterin. It goes way over my head, but thought you might get it.

      http://www.jbc.org/...

      by just another vet on Wed Apr 18, 2007 at 09:36:00 AM PDT

      •  This one too

        http://poopcity.typepad.com/...

        by just another vet on Wed Apr 18, 2007 at 10:04:30 AM PDT

      •  interesting

        I had to do some background digging to understand (I hope) the paper.  This looks to be some of the research that determined the exact pathways affected by aminopterin.

        Wiki's entries on folic and folinic acids are decent, the one on choline is useful as it shows how choline is used.

        Choline is converted by choline oxidase/dehydrogenase to betaine aldehyde, and that by betaine aldehyde dehydrogenase to betine. One function of betine is "an organic osmolyte that accumulates in renal medullary cells and some other tissues to balance extracellular hypertonicity". Aminopterin blocks production of folinic acid, which then interferes with the activity of choline oxidase/dehydrogenase, meaning betain production drops, which is going to stress renal medullary cells - they have work harder and can be damaged and suffer cell death - kidney failure.

        Melamine could contribute to the stress not as a toxin as such, but because it and its hydrolysis product urea both are excreted by the kidneys it could be placing an extra load on them at the very time the lack of betain is making it harder for the renal medullary cells to function.

        little overview of renal cells functioning and osmotic balance
        http://findarticles.com/...

        From the following Wiki entry it appears that the FDA is now saying what I was - melamine is not the primary cause, it can be used as a marker aiding in tracking the problem gluten.

        http://en.wikipedia.org/...

        by wondering if on Wed Apr 18, 2007 at 02:34:18 PM PDT

•  Diary'd yesterday but needs to stay up in

  ...the level of consciousness.  There is also a front page article in the Sacramento Bee dead tree version this morning.

  See http://www.dailykos.com/...  for jhritz's recommended diary.

  See http://www.itchmo.com/...  for itchmo.com information and blog comments on this latest recall. In fact, anyone with pets should bookmark ichmo's blog at this point.

  by AmericanRiverCanyon on Wed Apr 18, 2007 at 08:04:17 AM PDT

  •  dead tree version. I like that. n/t

    by donnamarie on Wed Apr 18, 2007 at 08:11:45 AM PDT

  •  Howl911

    Another good link to keep up with the latest.

    http://www.howl911.com/...

    Fascinating recent post showing an apparent ingredient change

    Just a few short days ago, the suspect ingredient was not included among the ingredients listed on the Natural Balance website but, today, after the FDA announcement that melamine was found in the rice protein concentrate, the website was changed to add this ingredient.

    by Catte Nappe on Wed Apr 18, 2007 at 08:25:16 AM PDT

    •  oh for crying out loud

      I JUST checked this morning and rice gluten was not on the Natural Balance roll.  Back to the website...
      Update...the Home portion of the site is down but you may be able to get there via this link Natural Balance

      by donnamarie on Wed Apr 18, 2007 at 08:48:58 AM PDT

•  so what's with all the melamine?

  why is it popping up in another gluten product? I heard something that made sense yesterday. Rice and Wheat gluten are sold and priced to some extent by their protein content: the more protein per ton, the higher the price. The theory is that they are adding melamine to make it look like there is more protein in the gluten.
  This made sense to me because some of the easiest and oldest ways to quantitate protein are through chemical reactions with free amines. If you've watched a CSI show, you've probably seen something based on the chemistry. Proteins are generally big molecules with a few free amines: low amine:weight ratio. Melamine is a much smaller molecule, but it has three free amines: high amine:weight ratio. Adding some to gluten would make the sample have more primary amines, and so up the price of the product. Add too much and you'd have a problem - it would look like there's more protein in the sample than is possible by weight.

  Makes as much sense to me as accidental contamination. Especially if by amine tests the contaminated gluten looks like it is high grade, but by other tests (coomassie binding, etc) it shows up as so-so.

  And in the search for safer foods last week, I bought a few cans of Natural Balance cat food (with rice flour in it) to see if our cats liked it. Those cans aren't on the recall, and rice flour may be just fine, but @#!$$@ all the same.

  by HiBob on Wed Apr 18, 2007 at 08:24:49 AM PDT

  •  Thanks and WTFGDSOB nt

    by iconoclastic cat on Wed Apr 18, 2007 at 08:29:29 AM PDT

•  My critters will be eating homemade

  cuisine made from whole foods until this is resolved.

  by BluejayRN on Wed Apr 18, 2007 at 08:31:28 AM PDT