Menu Foods Pet Food Recall


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Website created March 17, 2007		Last update: April 7, 2007

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▼ EXPERT OPINION: ROBERT JAY RUSSELL, Ph.D. ▼

The AKC and the Mass Pet Poisonings | What Action Can We Take? | The Gluten Story, Pt. 1

THE AKC AND THE MASS PET POISONINGS

by Robert Jay Russell, Ph.D., President, Coton de Tulear Club of America
CotonNews@aol.com
www.CotonClub.com

As of 1PM on April 6th, 2007, here is the sum total of AKC writings (copied directly from http://www.akc.org/news/index.cfm?article_id=3163) about the nation's worst dog and cat poisonings in history:

Dog Food Recall - New Update!

[Monday, April 02, 2007]
Menu Foods announced on March 16 the precautionary recall of a portion of the dog and cat food it manufactured between December 3, 2006 and March 6, 2007. The recall is limited to wet food or "cuts and gravy" in cans and pouches manufactured at two of Menu Foods United States facilities. These products are both manufactured and sold under private-label and are contract-manufactured for some national brands. New information is being disseminated daily and we recommend that consumers continually check for the latest information on the Menu Foods and American Veterinary Medical Association web sites.

In light of the recent pet food recall, two more companies have voluntarily recalled products.

On March 30, 2007, Nestlé Purina PetCare Company announced it is voluntarily recalling all sizes and varieties of its ALPO Prime Cuts in Gravy wet dog food with specific date codes. For more information go to: Nestle Purina Pet Care/ALPO Press Release [link to that corporate web site; not active here]

On April 2, as a precautionary measure, Del Monte Pet Products is voluntarily recalling select product codes of its pet treat products sold under the Jerky Treats®, Gravy Train® Beef Sticks and Pounce Meaty Morsels® brands as well as select dog snack and wet dog food products sold under private label brands. For more information go to: Del Monte Pet Products Press Release [link to that corporate web site; not active here]

Other links that may be helpful include:

Press Release from the US Food and Drug Administration [link to that government web site]

P&G/Iams/Eukanuba Press Release [link to that corporate web site; not active here]
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THAT's IT. THAT's ALL! Worse, that tiny bit of information is actually buried in the AKC web site, far, far less prominent than dozens of other news stories about dog shows. AKC judges and the like. A visitor to the AKC's web site can easily miss that there's even a pet food problem, let alone a disaster that is killing AKC registered dogs.

The AKC bills itself as "America's dog club." If so, why so little information? Why hasn't the AKC advised its constituents what to do if their dogs becomes ill? what to feed their dog? what foods may be safe or dangerous?

The answers are readily seen on that first page of the AKC web site: prominent advertisements for the AKC's largest corporate sponsor: IAMs/Eukanuba and their many joint dog shows, e.g., "The AKC/Eukanuba National Championship." All that's necessary to complete the puzzle is the knowledge that IAMS/EUKANUBA sold their pet food manufacturing plants to Menu Foods, Inc., several years ago and that IAMS/Eukanuba has a long term contract with Menu Foods to produce all its canned pet foods for them.

Through the CotonClub internet magazine (e-ZINE), the Coton de Tulear Club of America, a rare dog breed club with fewer than 3,000 registered Coton owners, no corporate affiliations of any kind, and extremely limited resources, has published hundreds of times more information and advice more quickly and to better use than the entire multimillion dollar AKC enterprise has given to the public since the mass pet poisonings began.

It is, of course, in the best interest of the AKC that America forgets quickly about the deaths of their pets and continues to buy IAMs and Eukanuba products that are so heavily advertised by the AKC and its other business partners.

In my opinion, the senate investigation being launched into this mass poisoning affair should also investigate the corporate ties between the AKC and the pet food industry that has helped (and is continuing to help) keep the public in the dark about the deaths of their beloved pets.
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(c)2007 Dr. R. J. Russell & the CTCA

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WHAT ACTION CAN WE TAKE ABOUT
THE MASS POISONING OF AMERICA'S PETS?

by Robert Jay Russell, Ph.D., President, Coton de Tulear Club of America
      CotonNews@aol.com
      www.CotonClub.com

April 6th, 2007. Marjorie Opgenorth of Las Vegas, Nevada, writes:

I am in the process of writing emails to my state elected officials demanding that they step up to the plate and do something. I would like permission to quote you verbatim regarding your past comments as well as this new information regarding the AKC. Please let me know if I may reference you personally and the CTCA.

Please also encourage your readers to flood the inboxes of their individual state elected officials as well as any other organizations and/or individuals you feel need to hear our pleas for help.

As always, thank you for your tireless efforts. I continue to be amazed at how much I would not have known but for your articles and editorials. Regards.

Dr. Russell replies:

I have no objection whatsoever if articles here on the CTCA CotonClub's e-ZINE are published elsewhere for the benefit of pets and their humans. When doing so, you should keep all attributions (author, etc.) intact.

I think we all long for a day when we can return, however briefly, to articles about the birth of puppies, the training of Cotons de Tulear, the unique and endearing behavioral suite that our breed brings to us, the anatomy of their exisquisite motion, the history of their population, and so much more that generates smiles rather than frowns. But these articles, useful as they may well be, pale in significance as long as people are opening cans, bags and packages of dog or cat food and inadvertently killing their precious pets.

WHAT CAN WE DO?
I think that what you are doing -- "writing emails to [your] state elected officials demanding that they step up to the plate and do something" -- is exactly the right thing to do. There are approximately 145+ million dogs and cats that share households with voters in the United States. That's a hell of a constituency, especially if the aforesaid representatives can be brought to realize that a lot of people will be voting and donating (the magic words) based upon how they, our Federal and State representatives, investigate and solve this tragedy and protect the U.S. food supply from similar incidents in the future.

Although not proven as yet, it does not appear that anyone anywhere set out to deliberately poison America's food supply, albeit we'd never be able to know this given the Department of Homeland Security's utterly mute approach to the largest mass food poisoning in U.S. history. So the "axis of evil" that has led and is leading to the mass death of our nation's pets probably lies strictly in our own court.

There are many things I think the Senate (or House) of the US should publicly investigate:

+ The Katrina-like paralyzation of the Bush/Chertoff's Department
    of Homeland Security. Since when is a mass poisoning of
    the US food supply not considered worthy of an ongoing review and
    daily advice to the citizenry?

+ The Katrina-like paralyzation of Dr. Eschenbach's
     FDA -- both before the poisonings (no inspections) and
     after the poisonings (failure to disclose the full extent
     of the poisonings; misleading statements about food safety;
     failure to demand inspections of all Chinese gluten shipments;
     failure to disclose that the poison food ingredient was sold
     as "human grade" and is potentially now in human foods;
     failure to disclose the corporations responsible for the
     sale, importation and distribution of the poison foods;
     failure to yet provide a credible estimate of this disaster
     i.e., reporting "15 deaths" at this time is black comedy
     at its most censurable, and so forth.

     This list is seemingly not exhaustible since the FDA
     under Dr. Andrew C. von Eschenbach's misdirection
     makes a major faux pas (or is it faux paw?) against
     public health almost daily.

+ The criminally negligent failure of pet food companies to
     recall their products from the shelves until a month or more
     after their own tests revealed that their products were
     deadly. We are not talking about some amorphous blob here:
     we're talking about real people with names who were informed
     and who may have said "let the pets die; we need 1st Quarter
     dividends."

+ The collusion of major pet organizations like the AKC and
    the pet food industry has led to an obvious withholding of
    pet-saving information from the "club members" who
    are allegedly served by these clubs. That means
    that congress should, in my opinion, at a minimum,
    investigate the 501-3c tax status of corporations like the
    AKC. If the AKC is serving companies (like Menu Foods
    and say, puppymill brokers like the Hunte Corporation)
    over their charter's stated purpose of serving their members and
    the dogs they represent, then they should lose their tax
    exempt status and be fully exposed for what they are.

+ The actions of each and every major producer of pet foods
    so far named (Menu Foods, P & G, Nestle-Purina, Delmonte)
    should be scrutinized for criminal intent and criminal acts.
    All failed to act upon information that their products were
    toxic until after that information was made public.

The first call for action should be to our representatives. The second, but equally important action, should be directed at the pet food industry -- to each and every pet food producer. They must realize that until they put in place genuine, ongoing inspections of their products, we the buyers will turn elsewhere to feed our pets. A nationwide and unrelenting boycott of each and every food label produced by the megalithic producers Menu Foods, Nestle-Purina, P & G and Del Monte would garner results because it speaks the one language that both politicians and corporate scions understand: money.

Finally, in my opinion the AKC would not be an immovable, venal object IF those legions of AKC dog show people would collectively develop gonads or Nuticles(tm) and tender their resignations en masse and not show up for shows. The probability of that actually happening, though, is perhaps as unlikely as the prospect of peace in the Middle East.

And yet again, a reminder:

If you see the word "WHEAT,"
You must retreat!

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(c)2007 Dr. R. J. Russell & the CTCA

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THE GLUTEN STORY, PART 1

by Robert Jay Russell, Ph.D., President, Coton de Tulear Club of America
CotonNews@aol.com
www.CotonClub.com

April 2nd, 2007.

As you know, I've been publishing many warnings about wheat gluten in dog and human foods since this pet poisoning crises burst on the scene. I have also been sharply critical of our government's inaction, and their obvious protection of guilty corporate parties. A story released by Elise Weise and Julie Schmit yesterday ("Pet Foods Recall Spreads, and So Does Confusion," USA Today, 4/1/07) affirms much in my previous reports. Weise and Schmit report that:

The FDA has not publicly identified the firm that supplied the contaminated wheat gluten to the USA. But on Friday, the agency issued an import alert " found on its website" saying wheat gluten from the Xuzhou Anying Biologic Technology Development Co. of Peixian, China, could be detained without inspection until it produced results from "the firm's investigation(s) into the problem of melamine contamination" and documents showing that corrective action had been taken.

Dr. Russell continues:

Let's examine that shocking news:

(1) The FDA -- an agency we the taxpayer pays for -- will not tell us where the wheat gluten poisoning the US food supply is coming from, and;

(2) The FDA will rely on the Chinese company that made and sold the poisoned wheat gluten to tell us that it's product is safe, and we can all eat it.

As it happens, I was grabbing information off the net about the Xuzhou Anying Biologic Technology Development Co. of Peixian, China, about a week ago and found that they export wheat gluten to both human food and pet food makers. They do not, in their commodities sales literature, classify this gluten -- which they market as "Wheat Vital Protein" -- as specifically for pets only. Here is their product statement (it's in broken English, to be sure, but I appreciate their effort since my Chinese would be impossible): Wheat gluten meal is also named wheat vital protein. The flour is used as its raw material, and from which extracts a light brown natural Grain powder through intensively processing. It is a good solubles protein, containing fifteen amino acid essencial for human body. After all, it can yet be regarded as a plant protein food looking good, smelling good and tasting good.

Qualification:

Protein: 75% min
Moisture: 8% max
Ash (lime) : 1% max
The rate of absorbing water: 160% min
The degree of thickness: 99% through 200um tough silk sieve
Taste smell: normal, with grain delicious
Outward ap: light yellow powder

The product description is innocuous, but additional referencing elsewhere on the web has lead me to hypothesize that an as yet undisclosed Chinese experimental gluten additive may have been added to this export gluten product as early as last summer (July, 2006 or even earlier) and that this additive, if I am correct, could have produced the diverse findings of byproducts such as the plastic melamine (which the FDA says may have been represented a whopping and very visible 6% of the total Chinese gluten package!) and the compound aminopterin (which Cornell labs state unequivocally is present in their samples today). At present, the etiology of kidney disease caused by either of these two compounds is vaguely understood at best, although both are known to be nephrotoxic under proper conditions. If my hypothesis is correct, another compound altogether, which is definitely causative of acute renal tubule failure and which is a newly announced Chinese wheat gluten additive, is at fault and the previously discovered compounds are secondary and contributory.

Further, if I am correct, other Chinese gluten producers may be using this additive and supplying markets other than those already identified in the pet poisoning debacle. Stay tuned.

As soon as I work out the biochemistry on this, I'll write an article here and contact Cornell. I think its a lead worth looking into. Hopefully their collective, extremely intelligent heads will beat me to the punch on this. But even if I am dead wrong about the causative molecule, these observations stand today:

1. The human food supply subject to wheat gluten is suspect.
Bread, pizza dough, candy, crackers, pasta, cereal and so much more may contain suspect Chinese wheat gluten;

2. The US pet food industry gets 80% of its wheat glutens from China.
No pet food, dry or wet or treats, can be considered in any way safe if it contains wheat gluten. Period;

3. The date which toxic wheat gluten was first used in US food products (human or pet) is NOT KNOWN.
Only Menu foods has stated tangentially that it "changed gluten suppliers in November" and that the tainted Chinese gluten was used in its food from that time onwards. None of the other companies who have been outed (Purina and Delmonte to date) have stated when Chinese gluten first appeared in their products.

4. There is a possibility that is not denied by the FDA that a great many of America 's pets are now suffering progressive assymptomatic kidney disease.
There is also a possibility that many people are in that same boat, albeit with an absolutely larger kidney festooned with geometrically more tubules, they could remain assymptomatic for quite a bit longer than either Fido or Fluffy.

From the onset, I have urged everyone to avoid wheat and wheat gluten in their pet's diet. I would also suggest that this is an excellent time for the bipeds in your household to start a wheat gluten-free dietary program. I know that that is difficult, and that gluten, which was never good for us, sure makes so many things taste good. But look at it this way: none of us want to compete for donor kidneys down the road. And our poor pets don't even get kidney transplants, they just sicken and die painfully.

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(c)2007 Dr. R. J. Russell & the CTCA

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