Exclusive: Lab Reports Melamine In Unrecalled Dry Pet Food Exported From US
A lab report provided by a reader indicates that a sample of Country Value Puppy formula exported from the US contained melamine. The report obtained and translated by Itchmo states that the sample was tested by a South Korean university’s veterinary research center. This report has not been verified in the US. Country Value is also sold in the US, but has not been recalled.
This is also the first report of a lab — besides Expertox in Texas — reporting on possible contamination of unrecalled pet food.
Jim Fallon, a spokesman for Diamond Pet Foods, said that the food with the best by date of March 2008 was made in September 2006 at their South Carolina plant.
The lab reported finding melamine concentrations of 346.21 parts per million, a number that is higher than the amounts typically found through cross contamination according to the manufacturer Diamond Pet Food. Fallon also said that they have received no calls regarding Country Value through their recall hotlines. Diamond is working on pulling the retained samples and will test them for melamine and says they will pursue this “aggressively and cautiously.”
Diamond has recalled several products in recent months due to melamine contamination. The Itchmo reader also wrote that the importer denied that the food was contaminated.
The FDA could not be reached in time for comment.
The ingredient list for Country Value Puppy formula is after the jump.
Top 10 ingredients in Country Value Puppy formula according to About.com
Meat meal
Whole grain ground corn
Rice bran
Corn gluten meal
Chicken fat (preserved with mixed toco-pherols)
Wheat flour
Beet pulp
Natural chicken flavor
Flaxseed
Potassium chloride
June 8th, 2007 at 10:49 pm
RE: Consumer Labs
Thanks everybody…
I think a talking point is that salvage pet foods go back into the human food supply via farms.
I did send them an email and totally forgot about that until I hit send :)
June 8th, 2007 at 10:58 pm
Here are 3 of the foods reported by owners to have tested positive for acetaminophen:
1. Pet Pride - Dons story: http://www.petfoodrecallfacts.com/chuckles.html
2. Science Diet Sensitive Stomach- My story( go to May 21 11:00 pm entry by Steve M. ):
http://www.itchmo.com/read/vol.....s_20070328
3. Science Diet Light Adult- submitted by Sharon
All 3 Toxicology Reports can be viewed here:
http://www.petfoodrecallfacts.com/lab.html
June 8th, 2007 at 11:01 pm
Hmm…I am also wondering about employees working for some of these companies. Serial Pet Food Poisonings…some wackos doing some of this for sport…terrorist plants…Pet Food Companies with an agenda…who hires these people? There needs to be some step-up in security, agree?
June 8th, 2007 at 11:02 pm
PegH Says:
June 8th, 2007 at 10:49 pm
Is there anyway to figure out if cyanuric acid mixed with acetaminophen results in the formation of aminopterin the rat poison that the NY state lab first found?????
good idea–so I did a google search and found this:
The compound (melamine)is known to be moderately toxic, which is why veterinary toxicologists question whether melamine metabolites (such as cyanuric acid hydrolase), which are created during melamine production may be causing pet deaths.
Comparing it to table salt, Steven Hansen, DVM, a board-certified toxicologist and executive with the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA), said melamine has twice the toxicity of acetaminophen.
http://209.85.165.104/search?q.....&gl=us
sorry for the long url–don’t know how to do tiny url!
June 8th, 2007 at 11:02 pm
Acetaminophen chemically is: C8H9O2N
The CAS# is 103-90-2
Also called: Paracetamol.
The CAS# is 9000-11-7
Made from the amide of acetic acid and p-Aminophenol.
{****NOT**** aminoptrine! fyi}
June 8th, 2007 at 11:06 pm
MEK,
I have suggested to both Hill’s and the FDA that we could be dealing with a criminal situation. If they don’t get their acts together shortly and give us some answers soon I may try to find someone in the FBI who likes animals and doesn’t think they should be poisoned on a regular basis.
June 8th, 2007 at 11:11 pm
Cyanuric Acid on Wilkepedia site.
A portion from “Applications
“FDA permits a certain amount of cyanuric acid to be present in some non-protein nitrogen (NPN) additives used in animal feed and drinking water.[4] Cyanuric acid has been used as NPN. For example, Archer Daniels Midland manufactures a NPN supplement for cattle, which contains biuret, triuret, cyanuric acid and urea.[5]”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyanuric_acid
June 8th, 2007 at 11:12 pm
Regarding safe pet foods… I’m still pretty comfortable with Natura products (Innova, Evo, California Natural) and I’m very happy with the way their president responded to the initial recall (no Natura products were recalled, but they do use menu foods for production, and supply their OWN ingredients) and their quality control increases since the recall.
For my own pets, I have been using Orijen. It’s canadian, and it’s slowly becoming available worldwide. Grain free, human grade meats, all canadian sourced… and not horribly priced, either (not a deciding factor, but definitely a bonus). I’ve been in contact several times with their nutritionist and the company in general and I’ve been very pleased with their product and procedures.
That said, of course nothing is guaranteed these days. However, I’ve been pretty involved in pet food for the last ten years and these are the only two companies I still have full trust in.
It’s a very sad day when we have to pay for our own testing to ensure safety… and even then… you’d have to test every single bag. The entire industry has been untrustworthy for a very long time, but now it’s just gone right to hell in a handbasket. :O(
June 8th, 2007 at 11:16 pm
Very good Idea SteveM.
I also wonder about the proxcimity of one {or many} of the Chinese Factorys for FOOD stuffs, being near a
Chemical/drug Manufacturer who’s just up the road too. Considering the absolutely HORRID Water {and other} Pollutions in China, well where the Heck do they get the WATER to process All Foodstuffs???????????
Many of those *factories* are in close locations to each other over there.
I really don’t think they Ship in Clean water for things, but that’s MY opinion.
June 8th, 2007 at 11:17 pm
Ever wonder how acetaminophen could get in the food chain. Check out slide #3 here:
http://www.epa.gov/esd/chemist.....-drugs.pdf
June 8th, 2007 at 11:19 pm
What am I missing here with this picture?
1. The news gave hours and days to Imus being fired.
Brittany Spears hair being buzzed was on day after day until it was starting to grow again.
Washed up Rosie O’Donnell has major coverage about nothing but crap. Paris Hilton is on constant coverage as if it was a national crisis.
2. The pet food contamination had less coverage than the amount of time for a pet food commercial.
I don’t about anybody else, but I haven’t heard a word on the national news about the contaminations and recalls concerning people food or about the FDA.
I guess we are expected to prioritize individual celebrities crap or their lament about their self-inflicted disasters instead of prioritzing nationwide contaminants that seriously affects the rest of us.
The news coverage needs to get a grip on reality instead of covering like a cheap tabloid newspaper.
June 8th, 2007 at 11:24 pm
Heres another interesting article:
http://pubs.acs.org/subscribe/.....ophen.html
June 8th, 2007 at 11:31 pm
SteveM
Ever wonder how acetaminophen could get into the food chain………..
analgesic and used to control the Brown Tree snake. Which brings me bak to my original thought………If melamine and its related compounds were added to grains that were being protected from brown tree snakes, using acetaminophen……..could the mixture of those 2 compounds have formed a new compound of aminopterin?
Does anyone remember the NY sate lab that found it? Was it at Cornell?
June 8th, 2007 at 11:33 pm
Wow!! The internet is full of information. It’s in the water!!! Check out the first contaminent on the list here:
http://www.sfei.org/reports/SO.....shrunk.pdf
June 8th, 2007 at 11:34 pm
Steve you are the best.
Facinating article!!
June 8th, 2007 at 11:35 pm
Let’s all go back to pet food recall 101. What is on the label is not always what is, or is not, in the product.
June 8th, 2007 at 11:44 pm
Last link tonight. It’s all over our environment. I suspect it’s just working it’s way up the food chain along with a thousand other contaminents. Here it is:
http://www.wcp.net/column.cfm?T=T&ID=2199
June 8th, 2007 at 11:50 pm
elliott Says:
June 8th, 2007 at 11:35 pm
Let’s all go back to pet food recall 101. What is on the label is not always what is, or is not, in the product.
Hey Elliott! Wouldn’t that be nice? Then we could all just avoid those foods listing ingredients such as melamine, cyanuric acid, acetaminophen. etc, although, I might pick up a few cans to feed to a pesky ex-boyfriend or two. :)
Honestly, though, how friggin hard is it to put some simple, safe ingredients together and sell them? I don’t understand the need to manipulate ingredients, except, of course, to gain profit. Jerks
June 8th, 2007 at 11:57 pm
Nice tidbit-
According to an industry group, China makes 70 percent of the world’s penicillin, 50 percent of its aspirin and 35 percent of its acetaminophen (often sold under the brand name Tylenol), as well as the bulk of vitamins A, B12, C and E.
http://www.miamiherald.com/103/story/128699.html
June 9th, 2007 at 12:02 am
Was it not Diamond Pet Food that had shards of glass at one time???
June 9th, 2007 at 12:06 am
3 letter word !! WAR !! They don’t have to fire a missle. These countries own us in the U.S.A. But lets keep sending all the jobs and products over seas. We don’ t need work here in the U.S.A. We is “Stipid” people dahhh… wake U.S.
June 9th, 2007 at 12:08 am
Get a load of this:
LAB REPORT ON ACETAMIONPHEN AND CYANURIC ACID
“Test results conducted by ExperTox, a fully accredited lab, confirmed the presence of acetamionphen and cyanuric acid in a mixture of Pet Pride “Turkey and Giblets Dinner” lot number APR 24 09, and Pet Pride “Mixed Grill” lot number SEP07 09. Additional tests have been requested to determine which variety, or if both, are adulterated with the substances. It is significant that melamine was not detected in the samples, as melamine is the marker for the Chinese grain products.
>>> “The obvious conclusion is pet deaths were caused by Menu Foods illegally adding cyanuric acid which was adulterated with acetamionphen, rather than Chinese gluten which was adulterated with melamine.”
June 9th, 2007 at 12:09 am
The above LAB REPORT is found at www.petfoodrecallfacts.com/lab.html
June 9th, 2007 at 12:17 am
Note to Chuck - I purchased Instinctive Choice canned cat food from Healthypetnet and it is the one product they make that is manufactured at the menu food plant in South Dakota. I had purchased a case, but didn’t purchase another one.
Question: What happened with pets being fed Artemis? I have been feeding the Artemis canned cat food, but if there is a problem, please let me know. I am so paranoid with feeding now and I have 3 cats. Maggie is healthy (now, after a UTI, that just so happened to occur while I was feeding her the recalled Nutro). Peaches has kidney stones and Hacoona has IBD. None of them eat dry food and they are eating Halo Spot’s Stew, Merrick, Evangers and Artemis.
Thanks for any Artemis info.
June 9th, 2007 at 12:24 am
menusux: Futian Biology attempted an import May 29th. It’s on the current ORA/OASIS:
http://www.fda.gov/ora/oasis/5/ora_oasis_c_cn.html
BINZHOU FUTIAN BIOLOGY TECHNOLOGY CO LTD., CHINA
SHANDONG CN-NOTA, CN 251900 SEA-DO 336-7635775-2/1/1
70YY-99 RICE PROTEIN CONCENTRATE PACKED IN BAGS
31-MAY-2007 POISONOUS
????? I’VE BEEN WONDERING ~WHO~ ORDERED THIS ?????
June 9th, 2007 at 12:35 am
Congresswoman DeLauro Press Release
http://www.house.gov/delauro/p.....08_07.html
June 9th, 2007 at 12:48 am
to Chuck and Betty:
I’ve posted before re: HealthyPetNet’s Life’s Abundance cat food. If anyone has ever bothered to listen to the live chat every week with the vet, you will see that she refuses to answer questions about the manufacturing of the food: she insists that’s the “business” part of the organization and she doesn’t know about it. When I e-mailed some straightforward questions to them, I got a form marketing letter in return. When I wrote again, I got no answer–until I cancelled my autoship: miraculously, an “answer” the next day!
I think their manufacturer of dry food, Ohio Pet Foods, is pretty good: USDA inspected. But I don’t kid myself that they are doing any better checking than anyone else. And their canned food is still manufactured by Menu. The formula of dry is OK, but I think Innova or Innova Evo is better.
June 9th, 2007 at 12:57 am
Kat,
Take a look at the timing here–this is a “sell” offer by one of Binzhou Futian’s other business aliases–Wudi Jinliang Corn Development Co., Ltd:
http://www.bizn.com.cn/n1/113/
Rice Protein Concentrate 4/24/2007 10:33:13 AM
http://www.bizn.com.cn/n1/113/18531.asp
Rice protein concentrate (feed grade)
Protein: >65% Coarse ash:
June 9th, 2007 at 1:00 am
Whoops! this got cut off:
Fat:
June 9th, 2007 at 1:01 am
Sorry, Kat but the rest of this isn’t going through for some reason.
June 9th, 2007 at 1:03 am
Thanks for all the info everyone. Oh Yes Steve M?
I wondered what state you lived in and did you purchase your pet food in a vets office or a pet store. The reason I am asking is because my Vet called Hills and spoke to their Vet and they said they were investigating it but that they did not think it was a problem in our area. I am from Kansas. But It might be good for others to know what part of the country you are from so that they may want to check out their Hills pet food too. I really wondered where your Hills was made. Does Hills only have one plant? In Kansas? My cat eats the Hills and will not eat home made or fresh food at all. I have been slowly trying to get her off it and mixing it with other dry. She is nine and getting skinny too. I am scared at this point for her.
June 9th, 2007 at 1:07 am
To Chuck:
Are you, by chance, a HPN distributor? Innova’s wet food is, indeed, manufactured by Menu–that’s why I don’t buy it. The dry food they manufacture themselves. If you don’t want anyone to support Natura because they have a contract with Menu for some of their product lines, how do you justify your support of HPN, as their canned foods are manufactured by Menu, too?
June 9th, 2007 at 1:08 am
Home grown really good article on the organic dairies. I thought it was wild that they said they could not find a high protein feed in the U.S. so they were getting it from China. WEll I guess so.. China really knows how to make wheat flour into a high protein mix. And yes I seen the Wilbur-Ellis imports soybeans fro China each month.
Heaven knows where it is going. My daughter and grand child drink soy milk and that scares me to death now!
June 9th, 2007 at 1:09 am
ie Life’s Abundance–remember farmed catfish is fed pelleted fish food (but then chicken & pork have melamine, beef has e. coli…………)
June 9th, 2007 at 1:13 am
No wonder we’ve not been bothered so much by terrorists lately—we’re hell bent for doing our own selves in! If acetaminophen is in water, it’s everywhere! Our pets are the canaries in the coal mine–we need to pay real close attention. We need to make more changes in addition to the pet food! And I don’t mean stop taking Tylenol, I mean stop having headaches!
June 9th, 2007 at 1:17 am
as the W-E rep says about feeding those organic cows:
“I have customers that are looking for six railcars a month of corn, and I can’t get that quantity coming from anywhere in the U.S.,†she said, adding that the harder-to-find, high-protein feed is coming from China and other countries because “it’s where you can get it.â€
love that high quality high protein feed from China–much better than our poor quality cra…..
June 9th, 2007 at 1:23 am
High Note–I just found a good soy milk: Edensoy organic, the one without anything but North American organic beans & water (hope that water isn’t from China!). No flavorings, no supplements added. From their website:
“Edensoy Unsweetened, Organic
EDENSOY Unsweetened is made of only the finest organic USA soybeans and reverse osmosis purified water. No sodium added. Smooth, delicious, and nutritious it contains 12 grams of heart healthy whole soy protein, essential fatty acids (EFAs - omega 3, 6, & 9), and is in low sodium. Gluten Free. Promotes Cardiovascular Health*.
Ingredients:
Purified Water, Organic Soybeans”
Kids may not like it without all the sweetner & vanilla. Organic Valley also gets its beans from the US, but it has the vitamins added, which of course are probably from China.
June 9th, 2007 at 1:27 am
When I was a child my father had a milk cow. He sure didn’t feed her soybeans, in fact there’s an old family story about the year the hay crops failed and the cow had to eat potatoes. I think the rest of the time she just ate hay.
June 9th, 2007 at 1:34 am
I’d like to know what US companies have had their food and drug products rejected for import due to contamination or toxins. We don’t hear much about that.
This secret handshake mentality c*** has to end.
If the S. Korea lab is on target, good for them. About time someone else
named names.
June 9th, 2007 at 2:02 am
thomas Says:
June 8th, 2007 at 10:26 pm
I wonder if the melamine and other additives to gluten has anything to do with corn being grown to turn into ethanol? There have been predictions of shortages for food . Who would benefit from doing this deliberately? Everyone is growing corn and much less of other grains.
===========
I just keep going back in my mind about the GMO crops with cryomazine, which breaks down into melamine, etc. Dr. Steve Fox, you may have seen it posted on different blogs. We know there is the potential for cross-contamination of GMO crops and over expression of genes. I hate to be a Sci-fi paranoid, but I can’t get the possibility out of my head. Unintentional cross-contamination could indeed cause a food shortage, or leave us no choice but to eat gmo crops.
June 9th, 2007 at 2:04 am
PegH Says:
June 8th, 2007 at 10:49 pm
Is there anyway to figure out if cyanuric acid mixed with acetaminophen results in the formation of aminopterin the rat poison that the NY state lab first found?????
==================
I think a good way to find this out is for someone who has had food tested at Expertox to ask the chemsists.
June 9th, 2007 at 2:10 am
Steve M. Says:
June 8th, 2007 at 11:24 pm
Heres another interesting article:
http://pubs.acs.org/subscribe/…..ophen.html
================
I wonder what happens when acetaminophen mixes with cyanuric acid?
June 9th, 2007 at 2:27 am
DMS what an awful thought - being forced to eat GMO crops. That just brings to mind Soylent Green with Charlton Heston.
June 9th, 2007 at 2:53 am
Chuck two things ….First: Evo, Innova and Ca Natural DRY are made in their own plants they will be opening their own canning plant soon see their site..they test too and certify no melamine next as to your ..beef. comment….well, my dog is allergic to chicken and turkey so some foods do need to use fish..lamb.. beef or Buffalo for dogs like mine….
To all I am waiting to see if Natura updates their site to include cyanuric acid and pain killers…so far I did get 1 letter saying they are and have tested on the cyanuric acid but I do not SEE it on an update on their site…Can someone else check? sometimes my browser messes up and the info I see is not updated
thanks
June 9th, 2007 at 4:10 am
[…] NEW: Lab report says melamine detected in a sample of unrecalled Country Value Puppy formula. […]
June 9th, 2007 at 5:56 am
is special kitty dry food safe?
is purina dog dry dog food safe?
June 9th, 2007 at 6:01 am
“The FDA could not be reached for comment.”
what a surprise.
June 9th, 2007 at 7:40 am
Has anyone here taken even one economics course?
The companies are profit driven, sure. But they are also under huge pressure to provide a CHEAP product. It’s called free market. And we all know that in a relatively short time, maybe a couple years, people will have forgotten the lessons here and will once again be driven by trying to find a cheap pet food.
Look how many people still insist on buying their pets from pet stores or backyard breeders, even though the only way to put them out of business is to STOP buying from them. People just don’t want to put their money where their mouths are.
I hate what’s happened with the pet food. I think it’s a huge wake up call to the entire country that we need to be more careful about quality rather than just price. But….
Look at the big picture. If we stop sourcing foreign materials, prices go up. That’s called INFLATION. Then the economy goes down. The answer isn’t as easy as we would like it to be. Look at your food budget. Can you shell out 15% more every week? Are you willing to?
Better controls cost money. More cost means higher prices. Period. Yes, I’m all for better controls. How about this? Let’s raise/add on a food and drug tax on EVERYTHING across the board just for the purpose of better testing and controls. I’d vote for that one instantly. But how many other people would? The bottom line is, and has always been, money. Sorry, that’s not going to change.
If anyone has followed the decline of the US dollar, they will find it’s strongly tied to China and the HUGE amount of money they have invested in the US. Surprised? Not many people are aware of that. The situation is not as simple as those of us who live in our own little worlds would like to think it is. It’s easy for us to sit and dictate what can/should be done with our limited knowledge of the big picture.
But I also want to say, and this won’t be popular, a lot of the people who are screaming the loudest (not necessarily on this board, because I think people who are even visiting Itchmo care a lot about their pets) are those who are feeding bottom of the barrel, grocery store brands that they buy for $10 for a 40 pound bag. They are the ones who are forcing the industry to source the cheapest cra* ingredients they can find. Yes, some of the big brands were part of this whole mess, but to a VERY small degree compared to the cheaper brands. Look at the recall list. It’s STILL almost all grocery store and “private label” brands. If someone is feeding their “love more than anything” pet the cheapest food they can find, I think that’s a statement of their true priorities.
If people REALLY want to make a difference, they need to stop buying the cheapest sh** they can find and think about quality. Come on, do you think that anyone who is buying one of the generic pet foods is really trying to do the best thing for their pet?
Ok, off the soap box. No, I don’t work for a dog food company. Yes, I’m sick over what’s happened. But the answers aren’t as easy as a lot of people seem to think they are.
June 9th, 2007 at 8:27 am
Nice post Barb. To go along with the points you make I would like to add the following to this uphill battle for change:
First we have the FDA, a United States Government funded organization under the umbrella of the Department of Health and Human Services. Their mission, most would assume, is to insure our domestic foods and drugs are safe. But because of their position in our government they are beholden to the special interests that permeate and corrupt the very entity set up to protect our citizens. Corporate influence is at epidemic levels in our government IMO.
Second, the interests of our mainstream news outlets, and what’s in the best interest of the citizens to be informed of don’t always mesh. Just as the FDA is influenced by lobbyists, our mainstream news outlets become beholden to advertisers. Are they really going to put themselves out there too much to report on contaminents in pet food when they are making $$$ from the manufactures. How many pet food commercials do you see on CNN, ABC, CBS, ABC, etc. ? Corporate influence in our mainstream media and news outlets is rampent.
Best of days to all!
June 9th, 2007 at 8:30 am
Steve, I agree with your post too.
and I’d like to point out that the FDA’s total annual budget is only 1.9 billion dollars. US Fish and Wildlife’s budget is 1.6 billion. The presidential campaign budget for 2004 election was over 1 billion. Defense industry, let’s not even go there. Frankly I think I’m under more threat from tainted food than from foreign invaders.
The American public spent 141 BILLION DOLLARS on FAST FOOD last year. Put that next to the FDA’s budget, which is supposed to cover ALL foods, ALL drugs, ALL medical devices, Pet food……
I think some priorities are very skewed.