After more than six weeks, the story surrounding the nation's largest pet-food recall still doesn't have an ending.
Instead, the drama is intensifying, with new recalls pushing the total to well beyond 100 brands and developments occurring
on other fronts almost daily.
At press time, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced that melamine-tainted pet food, used as salvage, was fed to
hogs in California, New York, North Carolina, South Caroline, Utah and possibly Ohio. The impact to food safety was under
investigation by federal regulators.
Meanwhile, lawmakers in both houses of the U.S. Congress took an active role during two key hearings, performing their own
kind of necropsies on the situation to find out how events unfolded and how to improve safeguards. The FDA also was investigating the possibility that pet-food ingredients imported from China might intentionally have been
spiked with melamine (used in plastics and fertilizer) to make the foods' protein content appear greater.
For several weeks, wheat gluten was the only ingredient found to be tainted with melamine. Then it was learned that rice protein
concentrate also was affected, spurring the sixth in a continuing series of recalls of several top brand-name products, both
wet and dry varieties.
The FDA, the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) and the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
(ASPCA) all regularly update the lists of recalled products on their Web sites, and information also is posted on the manufacturers'
Web sites.
For a time, the fallout that spread rapidly after the initial March 16 recall seemed to have peaked – veterinarians were getting
fewer calls from anxious clients and the number of new cases of pet renal failure and deaths seemed to have leveled off.
The congressional sidebar: Sens. Richard Durbin (D-IL) (left) and Herbert Kohl (D-WI) confer during a Senate hearing on the
pet-food recall. (See related story.)
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But it soon became clear that the drama is far from over. Here are other reasons why:
- The string of recalls after the original recall of 95 products manufactured by Ontario-based Menu Foods Inc. leads many to
ask: How far will it go?
- News that tainted food was shipped to hog farms raises questions about whether the human food supply was affected. Dr. Stephen
Sundlof, director of the FDA's Center for Veterinary Medicine, told reporters at a teleconference that "hogs that have been
fed salvage pet food in North Carolina, South Carolina and California were tested, and levels of melamine were detected in
their urine." Sundlof said it wasn't yet known whether contaminated meat entered the food supply, but that all hogs at the
farms were quarantined.
- The FDA advised pet owners as late as mid-April that some of the tainted food might still be on store shelves despite its
best efforts to remove it. "We do believe we've got the vast, vast majority off the market," Sundlof told the Senate Agriculture
Appropriations subcommittee in a hearing April 12. Later, he said his office still couldn't issue an all-clear.
- In the wake of that hearing, a subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, at an April 24 hearing, expressed
concern about the safety of both human and animal foods. "What has the FDA done to prevent food-borne illnesses? It appears
the FDA has decided to centralize food-safety decision making in Washington, D.C., cut back on inspections, and hope that
food producers and manufacturers will self-police their industry based on voluntary guidelines," said U. S. Rep. Bart Stupak,
D-Mich., chairman of the of the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee. Other panelists raised concerns about imported
ingredients, especially from China, source of the melamine-tainted products.
- While melamine was identified as the main contaminant, the underlying causative toxin remains unknown, leaving some veterinarians
concerned that pets recovering from acute renal failure might suffer chronic problems with kidneys or other organs in the
future.
- Legal issues arising from pet deaths and possible regulatory changes in the pet-food industry to prevent future large-scale
recalls are certain to keep the crisis front and center for some time to come.
- The problem now extends outside the United States: At press time, 30 dogs reportedly died in South Africa, where a third ingredient,
corn gluten, was contaminated with melamine. (No tainted corn gluten was found in the United States.) Two food-related deaths
of dogs were reported in Puerto Rico. And the Canadian government asked the Canadian Food Inspection Agency to review whether
pet food in that country should be regulated. The agency will recommend various actions the government can take, including
regulation, to better monitor the safety of pet foods.
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