Comments on: Mainstream Media Reports Vets Only Able To Confirm 224 Pets Died In Pet Food Recalls

By: patskitties

patskitties — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 15:45:32 +0000

all I want to know is who will pay for the pain and suffering of my kitty Smokey he passed away last week of kidney damage, 7yrs old, he was patr of the famil I miss he so much……….

By: Jenny Bark

Jenny Bark — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 06:21:49 +0000

Besides pr & to fool people this stupid lie of a study would not have anything to do with helping the pfi with all their law suits that have not come to court yet?

Would this lie of a study help the FDA that people are now seeing them in such a bad light?

After all isn’t the FDA & PFI really honest with the American people?

Just me thinking.

By: Don Earl

Don Earl — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 05:03:45 +0000

RE: “Don, I still think either there are a variety of toxins or the toxin was in a common additive to all cat and dog foods. Maybe the condition of the animal, age or immune system was a factor in how sick the pet was. I keep hearing that acetaminophen is not toxic to dogs? Than what made the dogs sick?”

It isn’t that acetaminophen is nontoxic to dogs, it’s more that a dose that would make a dog sick will kill a cat outright. I also agree there may have been a number of substances involved. It’s also possible melamine, or cyanuric acid, or both made the acetaminophen more toxic.

Where the Banfield data comes in is the increase of cases that showed up as full blown renal failure was for all practical purposes limited exclusively to cats. I’m not saying dogs were completely unaffected, or even ruling out that some dogs may have died, but that a study skewed to the point of including a third dog deaths has to be completely bogus when viewed in the light of the Banfield data.

The criteria for the study was goofy right out of the gate. It was specifically targeted at collecting poor, incomplete, easily manipulated data - then got worse from there.

By: Katie

Katie — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 03:56:26 +0000

Cats may have been affected in larger numbers but I know my dog had problems with her food. I know when I mentioned this on a few breed lists that I’m a member of - others had problems with the same food. Dogs were sick. Dogs were drinking excessive amounts of water, bloated, and in pain. Dog owners switched food or put dogs on bland diets. I think that dog owners had more options available for switching foods than what cat owners had available to them. It seems that Menu foods was making the bulk of the cat foods. But my dogs food and several others were not Menu food produced.

Don, I still think either there are a variety of toxins or the toxin was in a common additive to all cat and dog foods. Maybe the condition of the animal, age or immune system was a factor in how sick the pet was. I keep hearing that acetaminophen is not toxic to dogs? Than what made the dogs sick?

I keep “kicking myself” thinking - why didn’t I suspect the food the end of March and keep it for testing.

Katie

By: Don Earl

Don Earl — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 09:05:18 +0000

RE: “And by the way,,, I still have some of the food that was recalled, so it was not a case of maybeâ€¦. It was a case of â€˜we tested the food and it was bad!â€™”

Just curious, was any of the food ever tested for acetaminophen?

If it wasn’t, and if you have any unopened cans of Nutro available, I’d be interested in working with you to get some run through the lab at ExperTox.

By: Lynn

Lynn — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 01:16:17 +0000

Hmmmm, wouldn’t it be something if the study was paid for by a USG grant?

By: Kate

Kate — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 00:49:20 +0000

And by the way,,, I still have some of the food that was recalled, so it was not a case of maybe…. It was a case of ‘we tested the food and it was bad!’

By: Don Earl

Don Earl — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 00:48:07 +0000

From:

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireS.....SFeeds0312

“From its findings, Banfield officials calculated an incidence rate of .03 percent for pets, although there was no discernible uptick among
dogs. That suggests the contamination was overwhelming toxic to cats, Lewis said. That is in line with what other experts have said
previously.”

The Banfield data is the most statistically meaningful information available, and calculated 39,000 “cats” were affected by poisoned food. It is especially interesting to note that Banfield saw “no discernible uptick among
dogs” - this is from a 1 million pet statistical universe. For those familiar with statistics theory, a sample that large would make the margin of error so small as to be conclusively zero.

As hard as it may be to believe, by even the better informed pet owners, dogs were virtually unaffected by the recall. Any numbers that include a large percentage of dogs should automatically be considered flawed.

The AAVLD “study” is so hopelessly skewed as to amount to nothing more than pet food company propaganda. It started out as shameless cherry picking of cases, which were then hopelessly manipulated to support this bogus excuse for a study.

It’s also interesting to note the fraudsters at UCD didn’t include any dogs in their bogus study. My guess is such a study would show dogs are equally affected by the melamine/cyanuric acid cocktails they cooked up, which would have blown the melamine from China hoax out of the water, since dogs were virtually unaffected by the recall.

In other words, a substance equally toxic to cats and dogs can’t account for what we know happened. A substance toxic to cats, but not to dogs, such as acetaminophen, is required to fit the evidence.

By: Kate

Kate — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 00:47:22 +0000

I had a small cat rescue during this tragedy. I had 3 die from the their food. I just had to euthanize two on Wednesday that were battling kidney failure and fluids and meds were no longer working. I have 8 cats left that are suffering from kidney issues and now have to live in two rooms of the house because they cannot control their kidneys or pee outside of the box when prior to this, they had no issues. It was not only the money spent to vet these cats but what about ongoing care for fluid replacement, special foods and removing carpeting or remodeling rooms so that I do not have to euthanize all of them. I have been in rescue since the 80s and as far as I am concerned, I will never feed Iams or Nutro again. You think you are doing what is right and providing a ‘quality’ food source. I might as well have been feeding special kitty for all the good that it did. What about cats that prior to this did not have crystals or frequent blockage and now they suffer from this ailment. It is a case of the government once again twisting things to their advantage and down playing the truth.

By: Sandi K

Sandi K — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 22:08:12 +0000

Carol, I just PM’d you!

By: Carol

Carol — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 21:37:43 +0000

Sandi K—-
if you’re the sandi at the forums could you PM me. I would like to get in touch with you!

By: Sandi K

Sandi K — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 21:14:28 +0000

Also, I proposed that he involve pet parents in this long term study and that perhaps Itchmo and Pet Connection could help get him in touch with those people. He said he will consult with his colleagues and get back to me.

By: Sandi K

Sandi K — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 21:00:41 +0000

I received a reply to my chewing out e:mail from Mr. Rumbeiha. While I dont agree with how they portrayed the numbers, (which he said was not his intention) told him that is how it was portrayed to the media and that this has been an on-going problem with the recall, the media lessening the severity of the tragedy. One thing he is considering is doing a long-term study of the affects of the poison ingestion and how its affecting pets that are still alive. This is something we all here have wanted done. I told him I could direct him to many people here that have pets that are alive and dealing with the effects of the poisoning. So we will see if anything happens but to me, it would be one positive thing in this whole nightmare. If it could possibly help even one pet that is still alive, it would be great.

By: Katie

Katie — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 20:59:59 +0000

I agree with you all and Pukanuba you hit the nail on the head -who paid for the study.

I believe there were pets dying and getting sick long before March 2007 due to poisoned food. And, we all know how the FDA handeled the recalls from April onwards. Most vets to this day, do not have all the information re: recalls. I know of one vet practice here where 3 kitties died in two days and three more were IV’d, and none of these were reported cases.

This study sounds like more PR spin to make the pet food companies look good and complaining pet parents look bad. And since NBC (MSNBC) and P&G have gone together on starting and maintaining a new website for more PR spin…..
why doesn’t it surprise me that MSNBC would not endorse or promote the real numbers; instead they listen to some half baked incomplete, full of loop holes study.

It is still all about money.

Katie

By: Abby Kelleyite

Abby Kelleyite — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 20:47:48 +0000

For anyone who is interested, the Wikipedia article has some info on various estimates of the affected number of animals including links to the AVMA’s report on the AAVLD survey and the AAVLD’s own proceedings.