Newsweek | Recall: Is Pet Food Properly Regulated? (inspections only done 'for-cause' basis

[Shallah Kali]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17728426/site/newsweek

"There are limited resources," said David Elder, director of the Office of Surveillance and Compliance in the FDA's Center for Veterinary Medicine in Rockville, Md. Elder added that inspections of companion animals' food products are "based on risk." Which means that the processing plant in Emporia, Kans., where the tainted food was manufactured, had never been inspected by government officials until after consumers started complaining about pets dying of kidney failure. The Emporia plant remains open and continues to produce new food, according to a Menu Foods spokesperson, who adds that safety tests are being done around the clock.


The FDA says Ontario-based Menu Foods began to receive complaints about renal failure on Feb. 20 and began on Feb. 27 to conduct a series of taste tests on 40 to 50 dogs and cats, leading to the eventual death of at least nine cats. On March 16, the company issued its North American recall of pet food sold under 95 different brand names manufactured between Dec. 3 and March 6, including popular brands such as Iams and Eukanuba, plus many store brands sold at large retailers such as Wal-Mart, Winn-Dixie and Publix.

{snip}

But without regular inspections, the pet-food industry is largely self-regulated. In the United States, the Association of American Feed Control Officials sets guidelines and definitions for pet foods, and there are other government standards and regulations that companies are expected to heed through their own quality-assurance programs.

"It's wide open. As far as ingredients go, there is no regulation," says Ann Martin, a Canadian pet-health advocate and author of three pet-food-related books, including 1997's "Food Pets Die For: Shocking Facts About Pet Food." While the raw materials used in commercial pet food often contain animal protein derived largely from slaughterhouse offal—unused animal parts—Martin contends that there are other sources of that material, including road kill, zoo animal carcasses and fecal matter.

Considering how weak inspections of human food is I am not surprised pet food has so little. Right after the lastest spinach contamination the bush administration announced it was to cut the FDA inspections in half and shut down labs. business can't be trusted to self regulate or else we get companies who wait a month to recall poisoned pet food or ignore exploding suv tires just paying the bills of the injured because it is cheaper than a recall.

[Kagemusha]

1. I didn't think it was a secret standards were more lax

It's a bad way for the issue to rocket up the charts but, the issue's been there, just more quietly... I sincerely hope actual action takes place from here on.

[Shallah Kali]

2. I too hope for change. It is terrible that it takes something like this for it to happen tho

I thought I was feeding my cats a bit better to use nutro but then I see they are made just like almost every other pet food by Menu. There is no way I can afford to feed them one of the organic brands which at least gets some attention from the gov. I wonder if I could manage to cook something the picky little 'my ancestors were worshiped in ancient egypt' precious twerps would deign to consume.

[rumpel]

3. posted on another thread also

but I do not trust any agency period.
bush installed incompetent people to run these agencies -purged career officials in the last 6 years. The GOP don't want regulation their view; small government is good - no regulation and outsource government responsibilities to your fund raising friends

Former FDA chief fined, sentenced to three years' probation

Former Food and Drug Administration commissioner Lester M. Crawford received three years' supervised probation and was fined nearly $90,000 Feb. 27 after pleading guilty to misdemeanor charges of failing to inform government ethics officers he owned stock in companies with products regulated by his agency.

Dr. Crawford was spared jail time, but the sentence imposed by Magistrate Judge Deborah A. Robinson was tougher than the $50,000 fine agreed to by federal prosecutors and Dr. Crawford's attorney, Barbara Van Gelder.

"While the total fine exceeds what the parties agreed to, the fine is well below the maximum under the statute," Robinson said during the sentencing hearing. She also ordered Dr. Crawford to complete 50 hours of community service and to pay the costs of his supervised probation.

Two months after the Senate had approved his nomination to head the agency, Dr. Crawford, the first veterinarian to hold the position, abruptly resigned in September 2005, touching off speculation and calls for an investigation.

snip

Dr. Crawford joined the FDA in 2002 as deputy commissioner. The charges stem back to 2004 when Dr. Crawford was the agency's acting commissioner. According to prosecutors, he did not tell government officials that he and his wife owned stocks in food, beverage, and medical device companies, specifically, PepsiCo, Sysco, Kimberly-Clark, and Embrex Inc.

Prosecutors did not accuse Dr. Crawford of using his influence at the FDA to inflate the value of his stocks.

http://www.avma.org/onlnews/javma/apr07/070401d.asp

[nicknameless]

4. Do you know what's in most pet foods? It's appalling.

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0FKA/is_3_61/ai_54017841

The "animal protein" in many pet foods is made up of: diseased meat, road kill, contaminated "material" from slaughterhouses, fecal matter, pets which have been euthanized with sodium pentobarbital, chicken and turkey feathers, and the waste from milling room floors.

Sources of these "animal proteins" are diseased, drugged, and euthanized animals (including other cats and dogs). These carcasses go to receiving plants, where the hide (sold to a tannery), skin, fats, and meat are removed. The "meat" from these animals can be sold for pet food (sometimes along with tags and flea collars in place), after being marked as "unfit for human consumption."

If this "meat" arrives at the receiving plant already decomposing, it's sent to a rendering plant, along with road kill. Also "fine" for pet food is condemned material from slaughterhouses -- animals that died on their way to slaughter, diseased animals or parts, diseased blood, hair, hooves and paws, horns, stomach contents, heads, mammary glands, unborn calf carcasses, processed animal waste from the floor of the slaughterhouses along with litter material from the floor, and, again, euthanized companion pets.

And http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=443453&mesg_id=450071

... How do you "regulate" ingredients like these?
That these "by-products" were EVER allowed into pet food, is the real problem.
Can they be prohibited now, after all these years?

Can we get the pet food companies to clean up their act and stop poisoning our animals?

:shrug:

[Shallah Kali]

5. it is profitable for pet food makers to dispose of waste from their parent companies other businesse

and people wonder why so many pets are sick these days.

[nicknameless]

6. I know what you mean.

Maybe we should be shocked by the survival rate instead of the illness and death rates.

Even food intended for humans seems to be a dumping ground for waste.
I read a cake mix package a few months back and was repulsed.

Paraphrasing dimson: "Sometimes ALWAYS, money trumps public health."

[Shallah Kali]

7. chemcial flavorings, food colorings, highly refined extracts. there is too little food in food

I have food allergies that have made me much more aware of what I dare eat. I probably should be grateful it prevents me from eating junk. I used to eat TV dinners like lean cusine even though I cringed at all the gobbledegook on the ingredients. not any more.

[nicknameless]

8. That's great you were able to stop the chemistry-set processed foods.

What got me about the cake mix especially was the propylene glycol used as a moistener.
I remember when cake mixes used to call for the addition of an egg for the same purpose.

Doesn't this sound good?:

"Sugar, Enriched Bleached Wheat Flour (Flour, Niacin, Iron, Thiamin Mononitrate, Riboflavin, Folic Acid), Partially Hydrogenated Soybean Oil, Cocoa Processed With Alkali, Leavening (Baking Soda, Dicalcium Phosphate, Sodium Aluminum Phosphate, Monocalcium Phosphate), Propylene Glycol Mono- And Diesters Of Fats, Wheat Starch, Salt, Polyglycerol Esters Of Fatty Acids, Dextrose, Red 40 (Color), Mono- And Diglycerides, Cellulose Gum, Invert Sugar, Xanthan Gum."

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