Associated Press
03-25-07
Pet food may have killed scores more
By Anita Manning, USA TODAY
By Elizabeth Weise and Julie Schmit, USA TODAY
The Food and Drug Administration has received more than 4,400 calls from pet
owners about the recalled, contaminated dog and cat food that has reportedly
sickened and injured animals across the USA.
But the agency has yet to follow up on the calls, so it doesn't know how many
represent sick animals or simply concerned owners, says Stephen Sundlof,
director of FDA's Center for Veterinary Medicine.
Many pet owners are questioning the reported number of animals that have died
from consuming contaminated pet food found in some of the more than 60 million
recalled cans and pouches.
Menu Foods, which produced the food, has listed 16 deaths: 15 cats and one
dog. The FDA is listing only 14 confirmed dead.
"That's such hogwash," says Jeff Burnton, 49, of Phoenix. He says his two dogs
became sick on March 12 after eating kibble mixed with one of the recalled cans
of food. Nikki was euthanized March 17; the other dog, Damion, just returned
home from the vet on Sunday. "Not that they're covering up, but I think they're
being corporate-like in what they're releasing."
An announcement Friday by authorities in New York state that their testing
confirmed the presence of a rat poison, aminopterin, in samples of the recalled
products explained some of the mystery.
While not legal for use in the USA, it is used overseas, officials at the
Environmental Protection Agency say. The New York State Food Laboratory
found the poison in the tested cat food samples. Dog food samples were not
tested. Humans touching the food are not at any risk, officials say. Only eating
the food is dangerous.
Aminopterin (am-in-OP-tah-rin) was originally used to inhibit the growth of tumor
cells in the 1940s in the USA but was replaced with less toxic drugs later.
At high doses, aminopterin causes crystals to be created in the tiny tubes of the
kidneys, plugging and damaging them and causing kidney failure, says Sandy
Willis, a small-animal internist with the American College of Veterinary Internal
Medicine.
ACVIM is recommending that veterinarians force fluids or use IVs to help flush
the crystals out of the kidneys. But Willis cautions this is not something owners
should try at home. Owners with sick pets should take them to a veterinarian, she
says.
The Iowa State University Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory and the Animal
Health Diagnostic Center at Cornell University are collecting tissue samples from
dead animals and kidney biopsies from living ones.
While some on the Web have wondered if aminopterin was in fact the culprit, a
necropsy performed on Burnton's dog had exactly those characteristics. His
dog's kidney tubules were destroyed by "abundant crystalline material,"
according to the veterinary pathologist who signed the postmortem report.
There are still questions about how many animals have died. With no national
reporting system for animal injury or death, official numbers are impossible to
come by.
However, data from the nation's largest chain of pet hospitals, Banfield, suggest
it is as high as hundreds a week during the three months the food was on the
market.
During that time, the more than 600 Banfield hospitals in 43 states saw 200 to
250 cases of kidney failure in cats above the usual number that would have been
expected, says Hugh Lewis, president of Data Savant, Banfield's data collection
arm.
During that period, Banfield vets saw 100,000 cats. Extrapolating to the entire cat
population of the USA, that could mean "we're probably talking several hundred
cats a week across the country being affected," Lewis says.
Another possible indicator is a database compiled by PetConnection.com. As of
Sunday, owners reported 1,626 deceased pets — 941 cats and 685 dogs, says
Gina Spadafori, one of the website's writers.
She cautions that those figures were self-reported by pet owners and had not
been confirmed by veterinarians. Menu Foods said on Friday it would
compensate owners for their pets' medical bills.
"To the extent that we identify that the cause of any expenses incurred are
related to the food, Menu will take responsibility for that," said Menu Foods chief
executive Paul Henderson.
Despite some complaints by pet owners that animals have been sickened or died
after eating dry food, FDA does not believe any dry food was involved in the
contamination. Menu does not make dry pet food.
How the aminopterin got into the food is still an open question. FDA is looking
into wheat gluten used in the food as "a likely suspect," but is "looking at each of
the raw materials" in the food for contaminants, Sundlof says.
FDA has traced the wheat gluten shipments and says "the only place it has gone
is into pet food," not the human food supply chain, Sundlof says.
While sabotage has not been ruled out, there are no leads in that direction,
Sundlof says.
The entire incident merely underscores a need for more funding of the agencies
that protect the U.S. food supply, says Jean Halloran, director of food policy
initiatives for Consumers Union.
"The entire food-safety system is understaffed and underfunded," she says. Of
particular concern is the FDA's inspection of imported food, she says.
Contributing: Dennis Wagner of The Arizona Republic; The Associated Press
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