Rat poison doesn't seem like a recommended ingredient for pet food .
Nothing like free trade with a communist fascist country
to get you those cheap prices and make you feel secure
Guess you get what you pay for after all .
Hell of a thing isn't it , to hurt these innocent , trusting and loving creatures , because somebody was too worried about
the bottom line .....to do the REAL math and quality control .
Somebody's ass needs to be put in a sling for this one ,
wearing a necklace of cans of dog food , and then launched
about three hundred feet in the air by that tender chunks and kibbles Trebuchet .
Last year in USA tere was a huge recall of pet food after a large number of animals died horribly.
Turned out the pet food was chock full of aflatoxins. This was North American probably American grain mind you not imported. No communists/fascists
involved.
In China they have a peculiar problem with a particular rat poison that is a BAGA antagonist. It's long been banned globally including in China but
the country is so large and the government's reach in the far countryside so limited that old stocks linger. The stuff has been used as a mass murder
weapon by resetraunt owners trying to destroy rival businesses. There's no antidotes. It's a consulsant.
Made from sulfamide and formaldehyde, a very pretty cage structure. LD50 down in single digit milligrams.
Probably they fumigated the grainery and accidentally contaminated some grain. Chinese rats like to eat too.joeflsts - 23-3-2007 at 13:01
It seems the culprit was Aminopterin which actually is being tested to treat leukemia.
It seems that some countries do in fact use it as a rodenticide (China being one of them).
JoeLevi - 23-3-2007 at 16:18
Unfortunately food quality control isn't what it's supposed to be these days. At least the human food doesn't have rat poison in it... just E. Coli.joeflsts - 23-3-2007 at 18:36
Quote:
Originally posted by Levi
Unfortunately food quality control isn't what it's supposed to be these days. At least the human food doesn't have rat poison in it... just E. Coli.
Yep, you can't even count of found purchased "fresh" at the market. Either an illegal wiped his butt with the lettuce or the grocer seasoned the
rotten meat to hide the color and stench.
Joe
[Edited on 24-3-2007 by joeflsts]pantone159 - 24-3-2007 at 17:13
says that the company who made the pet food has not figured out how it became contaminated, but this isn't stopping them from continuing production,
"business as usual" according to the company president.joeflsts - 24-3-2007 at 17:21
I'm glad that we don't use any of their products. I have four dogs and would like to keep them for a while.
Joevulture - 25-3-2007 at 04:19
Quote:
Nothing like free trade with a communist fascist country
I bet more than 50% of what's in your wallmart somehow contains made in china stuff. They don't have enough organisational talent to be fascist btw.
Rosco Bodine - 25-3-2007 at 23:33
Actually from what I understand that transition from
communism to fascism is already well developed in China ,
as fascism is far more profitable than communism .Rosco Bodine - 12-4-2007 at 23:35
The nature of the toxin has subsequently been confirmed to be melamine , and the source of the contamination in the pet food has been identified .
There is no evidence of nephrotoxicity of melamine. The compound has been found in the offending food and is being used as a tracer for affected
batches. They do not know what the actual causal agent is. Aflatoxin takes out the liver, not the kidneys; aminopterin would need to be in larger than
"accidental" doses and was ruled out.
One of my kitties was "put down" yesterday for renal failure. I am currently analyzing the food ( I think it is coincidence as our food is not listed
in the recall, but I don't like coincidences). I'll identify the food when I know more. I predict a n/d.
If anyone can supply a sample of bona-fide "bad" food, I would love to have a crack at it (U2U).
Past denial, on to anger,
O3Rosco Bodine - 1-5-2007 at 08:19
There is growing evidence concerning the mechanism by which the melamine is acting to destroy the kidneys of
affected animals . Reportedly the melamine reacts with
cyanuric acid in the urine and forms crystals throughout
the entire mass of kidney tissue , unlike a compact stone
as could be removed surgically to alleviate an obstruction . The accumulation of the crystals slowly
destroys the kidney function and causes death by kidney failure . The toxicity is by mechanical obstruction which
has chemical origin , rather than a toxicity to the tissue
itself at a cellular level as would be more usual for a toxin .
Investigations in China have resulted in Chinese officials
admitting that melamine has for years been added *deliberately* to wheat gluten ( and possibly to other food products ???? ) as a means of assuring an
inflated
test value result when the protein percentage analysis
is done by prospective buyers , as this assures an inflated
price by misrepresenting a higher quality for the product .
Toxic and deadly FRAUD , racketeering on the part of
the Chinese government is what that standard of
"business" is called in America . Felony murder is
what that business is called when the first person
dies from eating a melamine laced product .
Anyway , the investigation shows that the melamine
laced ( poisoned ) foodstuffs have indeed been included
in animal feeds for agricultural use and many of those
animals have already made their way into the human food markets and been consumed already , and thousands of the animals which have been fed
contaminated feed are going to be destroyed because of
the unknown risk associated with their use for human food .
Anger is an insufficient word for describing ( my reaction ) to this situation where a poison would be deliberately added as a contaminant to a
foodstuff by an unscrupulous supplier
whose only reckless purpose was to defraud buyers ,
collecting a premium as reward for poisoning them .
Pehaps we have arrived at a day when " takeout chinese "
acquires a more sensational meaning , and some understanding must be reached with those who value life
less than they should .
[Edited on 1-5-2007 by Rosco Bodine]dedalus - 1-5-2007 at 08:46
They juice up animal feed with melamine so the TKN will be higher. TKN is how they evaluate crude protein.
Whatta bunch of sleaze artists. It's not the first time - they've also poisoned people. A few years ago, they sold something as propylene glycol that
was really ethylene glycol.unionised - 1-5-2007 at 10:08
Where does the cyanuric acid come from? As far as I know it's not a normal constituent of urine.Rosco Bodine - 1-5-2007 at 10:26
I don't know what is the origin . What I got was straight from CNN . Supposedly the cyanuric acid is a metabolite
of melamine which then reacts with unmetabolized melamine . But this is hypothetical and it is possible that
the cyanuric acid is an additional adulterant . The labs
are still sorting this out .
This is breaking news , but reportedly the information has been confirmed by labs at Cornell Univ. and also at Michigan State Univ. About halfway down
the following page is more on this pretty huge and troubling story .
[Edited on 1-5-2007 by Rosco Bodine]franklyn - 8-5-2007 at 18:25
Any new food additive introduced in the United States is subject to
extensive investigational studies often for years before approved by
oversight agencies. Such is not the case abroad and acceptance of
foreign standards for domestic distribution is largely the absence of
apparent deleterious incidents in indigenous consumption. A given
product may be produced for export only , in which case there is no
assurance other than the naivete of the vendor moderated by the
quest for profit.
It has been the practice in the trucking of bulk liquids by tanker truck
to simply wash the tank before refilling with the next load rather than
segregating the tanks for specific use, which for independent truckers
can be anything at all - anything at all. Thus after delivery of a load
of recyclable chemical sludge and subsequently "washing" the tanker
with a garden hose , it may very well pick up a load of fruit juice.
Quality control will test for contaminents it could reasonably expect
to find, but without knowledge of the previous manifest who would
test for heavy metals in cranberry juice ?
Because evidence for it will have long since vanished, I wonder if
bewildering cancer clusters that appear without any seeming reason
might not be the result of such practice.
.Ozone - 8-5-2007 at 18:45
I have a sample of food (which is supposedly unaffected) from the time when one of my cats went down with CRF (I think it is coincidence). She we 12,
which is roughly middle-aged for an inside cat. the statistics seem to demonstrate a predisposition (be it genetic) for this malady. If it were not,
the casualty would be much greater--thousands, if not millions of pets fed this *intentionally* adulterated shit and only a few have died (far less
than 1%).
Perhaps a metabolic disorder which would involve melamine (the deceased was a calico)?
Since I have recently gotten a grant for a new GC/MS (which I should have around June), I'll ask again if anyone here could forward to me, a sample of
"bona-fide" bad food. If I find anything, Sciencemadness would be the first to know.
Rosco and Franklyn are not incorrect in their theories. I know of one case were the sampling tube (a ~1L "U" tube that they use to sample tankers)
contained an agent (likely from a previous load) which set up an explosion (latent exotherm) in the next truck sampled. This truck merely exploded and
killed a few people--far less heinous than had the cargo been destined for consumption.
I think that our willingness to hire untrained personnel to execute seemingly innocent tasks is to blame (for the explosion). Likewise, our
willingness to subcontract our lives to the lowest bidder...That is, for components likely to find their way into the food supply (be it pets or
ourselves) is asking for trouble.
How hard would it be for someone to intentionally add "something extra" to a load of food ingredient that already had "something extra" (melamine) and
was intentionally marked so as to avoid inspection (and *did* actually make it into food products destined for us)?
By god, our greed will kill us yet,
O3Rosco Bodine - 8-5-2007 at 20:18
More somewhat confusing news is breaking today ,
all of this is very bizarre . Evidently what the Chinese suppliers were doing is taking ordinary flours of various sorts , adulterating the flours
with melamine and possibly other materials , to cause the flours to respond to analysis of protein content which would make those flours appear to be
gluten or protein concentrates , when all the material actually was in fact was poisoned flour . The materials were actually counterfeit ,
deliberately mislabeled , not only toxic but fraudulent products
all together .
The list of known contaminated foods now appears to be growing , even involving other countries who have traced the same contaminant back to imported
ingredients of various nature .....no longer just wheat gluten , but rice and corn products also , .....sourced from China .
A total ban and boycott of further imports of any Chinese
foodstuffs is already in its beginnings .
Dead pets in the US alone is now in excess of 10,000
based only on those suspicious deaths reported , and the
actual number is estimated to be higher .
[Edited on 8-5-2007 by Rosco Bodine]Ozone - 9-5-2007 at 17:10
Gah!
I will apologize in advance for any profanity that insinuates its way into this post, but the sheer stupidity of this has numbed my better sense.
Is this what it has come to? In the act of initiating and enforcing ISO protocol, we have eliminated all process of thought from the QA/QC process.
Did any of the labs looking at this stuff think, hmm, this batch doesn't look like gluten, it does not dissolve like gluten, but, hey, it passes the
TKN for gluten...So on it goes.
I mean, fuck! If it does not walk like a duck or quack like a duck, it is not a fucking duck! But, they hire minimally educated personnel who are
given a standard operating procedure and treat the whole thing like a black box. Not once, I think, did an analyst question the physical properties of
the material (and worse, if they did, it was ignored).
What if something worse than melamine was deliberately put into the shit? What if it then made it into our food supply?
I am not usually one for conspiracy theory, but what if this was a "dry" run? If not, I am certain that some ill-minded individuals can
read-between-the lines and see the possibilities presented in this highly successful scenario.
We need to re-educate our technicians or hire bona-fide Chemists or else the next QA/QC gaffee may be on us. At the every least, this should warn us
that food stuff QA/QC is not trivial, and can in fact have significant impact on national security.
The CEO's who outsource like this should shoot themselves in the face repeatedly!
And...We can thank the auditors who gave us legitimate logbooking and tainted food.
Sorry about that,
O3Rosco Bodine - 9-5-2007 at 20:23
It seems that the practice of selling adulterated and fraudulently labeled foodstuffs has been standard practice , business as usual in China for
years , and that
would mean that undetected gradual poisonings have been occuring for an extended time .....never causing
acute symptoms of sudden illness that would be noticed ,
but acting as a "silent killer" destroying health so gradually and with such subtlety as not to be recognized
that a poisoning is in progress .
This matter should be very thoroughly investigated ,
as regards to the potential of past shipments of
adulterated feeds that were already consumed ,
and known to have been contaminated .....but are
expired foods not among the current recall . These
products could still be identified from old retained lot samples . Realistically , because of liability concerns ,
a coverup and non-disclosure of such sensitive information is just about guaranteed . People
whose pets were possibly poisoned a year ago , for example by another adulterated foodstuff where the toxicity was below the threshold for raising
alarm , can have no confidence about the health of pets which though still living , may have damaged health and shortened lives for having consumed
bad food that
went undiscovered because of such absolutely lousy and inadequate quality control . QC sure as hell wasn't better
last year or the year before this scandalous debacle
and crime has become discovered and publicized .
The presence of both melamine and cyanuric acid as separate adulterants used for the same purpose of
enhancing the nitrogen/"protein" analysis in order to make flour masquerade as gluten has now been explained . Indeed both materials were adulterants
which spoof the total nitrogen analysis , and both were deliberately added adulterants .
I never noticed in the protein analysis and source statement on the dog food which I buy , what percentage of protein is derived from melamine and/or
cyanuric acid .
Such information should be provided for those really conscientious pet owners who wish to know the poison content of what they feed their pets .
Maybe they should add that category to the label , so
attentive consumers can more accurately supervise the
progressive poisoning of their beloved pets , and do a better job of killing them slowly and tortuously in the most scientific manner .Rosco Bodine - 10-7-2007 at 14:32
Hmmm .....interesting news item today .
The chief bureaucrat in the Chinese government who is responsible for food and product safety .....
was *EXECUTED* ! today by the Chinese government ,
following an investigation which found he had accepted bribes in connection with products which have later
been the cause of consumer deaths and product recalls .
[Edited on 10-7-2007 by Rosco Bodine]Ozone - 10-7-2007 at 14:48
I thought that was pretty neat. One wonders how things whould be here if our corrupt politicians were subject to equally intense scrutiny.
Aside,
I have acquired both melamine and cyanuric acid (reagent grade) and am planning to test the combination for crystals. I will post the results when I
get to it. Additionally, I have managed to get some bona-fide bad food (science diet MD with the correct batch number). I will analyze this, along
with a sample of the food my cat was eating when it went four-paws-up to CRF. Again, I'll post the results here.
Cheers,
O3Rosco Bodine - 10-7-2007 at 15:44
The canadian distributor for the toxic pet food is now
facing *90* class action lawsuits in connection with the
poisonings of pets .
As the old saying goes ....shit has hit the fan
(and the wind is blowing in their direction) .sparkgap - 20-7-2007 at 07:23
This may just be my demented mind talking, but I'm starting to think that China is purposely sending tainted food as their way to make amends for
contributing to overpopulation.
On the more serious side of things, where I am currently residing, the government is currently taking steps to block the importation of China-made
foodstuffs and cosmetics. That after a local lab found some biscuits to have been laced with formaldehyde.
sparky (~_~)Rosco Bodine - 10-3-2008 at 07:48
In the news today ....Over 700 people injured , 19 killed by counterfeit adulterated drug import from china .
Counterfeit heparin imported from china has reportedly killed 19 *people* in the US , to whom the counterfeit drug was administered as a blood thinner
"medicine" .
Similar reports of problems with the counterfeit adulterated or contaminated heparin are being published in europe .Panache - 18-3-2008 at 15:08
i wonder if the german-sherpard/alsatian farms in china that supply the booming asian fur trade use this food to save them having to kill the dogs
mechanically by club wielding farm workers. They would kill two birds with one stone/club (pardon the pun).
Capital punishment doesn't fix a thing ever, in maybe a hundred years, hopefully sooner, school history lessons will teach how the overly simplistic,
retribution-demanding societies of the 20th and 21st century actually 'killed' people. PLease challenge yourself and view the execution of this
offical as a step backwards not forwards, because it is.
My first job after my PhD was working for a small american company (they make chocolate bars, par boiled rice lots of pet food) in a very very large
pet food factory in country australia. I remember how devastating it was when through an inadvertent accident 25 cats were killed in the cattery by a
leaking steam line. Its funny how attitude changes so much, this company is focused on the customer and realises that's its customers are also its
staff and as such there was never ever the slightest notion of trying to forward profitability at the expense of the health of the cats and dogs,
their well-being was so paramount to all involved. Compare this admirable attitude to that being discussed. This company has the ultimate luxury
however as it is in private hands.
Blaming poorly qualified technicians disguises a larger endemic problem of unrealistic growth minimums set down by super funds for their investment
in public companies operating in mature industries.
Mature industries cannot grow by 10%p.a, thats why they are know as mature, but if they don't show this growth the retirement funds pull their funds
the share price bombs and all is fucked quickly instead of slowly. So instead pressure is slowly ramped on each and every individual in every public
company.
As a whippet owner and lover this story is so disturbing I'm sickened, we are lucky to miss the effects of this one in Australia but i'm sure
something else will arise for us.
Very sorry about your cat ozone, 8(
[Edited on 18-3-2008 by Panache]Rosco Bodine - 18-3-2008 at 15:33
Ichthyology holds the answer for resolving the problem with product counterfeiters and adulterators ,
every time one is discovered ......
Shackle a cash register to one of their ankles and
toss them overboard to swim with the fishes .
Problem solved .Panache - 19-3-2008 at 19:55
Or...
Make them watch every episode of American Idol from the first one, back to back, without allowing them to fall sleep and without any breaks.
Immediately after this they have to go and audition for the show singing the theme from 'Chariots of Fire'. If they make it into the first pool of
bright young talent then they can go free, otherwise they have to eat deep sea fish from the Sea of Japan while sitting at the bottom of said Sea
lounging on a 44-gallon drum of radioactive waste from the 60's and talking to Yoko Ono.
Coming shortly on the heals of melamine formulated cereal for pet food exported to
the U.S., the chinese are now experiencing the tragic consequences of lackadaisical
efforts at monitoring the quality of even their own domestic food products. The late
vocal artist and musician Frank Zappa said it best " stupidity is it's own reward "
.Mr. Wizard - 17-9-2008 at 16:25
The Chinese entrepreneur has little reason to play by the rules. A little bribe here and a favor or hooker , and it's all OK; typical third world
corruption. Same as it ever was. If the US had any sense they would put a complete inspection of every Chinese product prior to entry to the US. Let
the freighters stack up in the harbors for a few months, then we'll see who cries the loudest.
The reason it won't happen is the Chinese, like all the other large holders of US dollars, have bought special privileges with politicians with their
money.
The addition of melamine tricks the protein test into reading higher levels, thus more profit.JohnWW - 18-9-2008 at 02:09
In the last few days, a scandal has broken in China about the adulteration of baby milk powder formula with melamine, in a product supplied by a
company in China that is 43% owned by Fonterra, the major New Zealand milk exporter which is one of the world's largest dairy products companies.
Three infants have died of liver and kidney problems, and several thousand are ill due to it, mainly with kidney stones. All the milk powder involved,
adulterated with melamine to give a false high protein content test, was produced in China, using technology supplied from New Zealand. The scandal,
which had been known for several months, had been deliberately suppressed by the Chinese during the run-up and staging of the Olyumpic Games for
political reasons. In the last few days, about 20 people, some of them high in the Communist Party, have been arrested for their parts in the scandal.7he3ngineer - 18-9-2008 at 05:54
Actually it wasn't just suppressed by the Chinese, the bloody New Zealander who is CEO of the New Zealand bussiness that owns or runs the bussiness
end of things (or something, can't quite remember now), has himself known for 6 weeks, but "has been doing everything he can" to get the product off
the shelves.
Every thing he can my fury-pink arse
Since when has a nice media leak not been possible... now that gets results!
JoshRosco Bodine - 18-9-2008 at 21:51
Ironically now it seems like it would be safer for Chinese
babies to be fed dog food made in America than baby food made in China. I'm sure there must be a moral lesson
somewhere in that irony. But my more pragmatic nature
than philosophical inclines me towards desiring the making of an exception to the prohibition on cruel and unusal punishment for those who perpetrate
such terrorism and murder by product tampering. When the guilty persons are apprehended, they should be caused to live their remaining life in
"interesting times" .argyrium - 20-9-2008 at 09:21
and yet another from our trading partners... a little dimethyl fumarate, anyone??
"French itch with complaints over Chinese chairs
Customers say recliners, sofas are causing allergic reactions and infections"
More about the Chinese baby milk powder formula adulterated with melamine to improve its apparent protein test (using the Kjeldahl and Dumas methods
which assay the nitrogen content): 4 infants have now died, and 60,000 are now reported sick, mostly with kidney stones. Adulterated Chinese milk
powder has been found to have been used in several lines of Chinese confectionery exported to other countries, particularly the sweet called "White
Rabbit". A Chinese immigrant in Auckland, New Zealand, who liked buying it from a local Chinese delicatessen, suffered a very painful case of kidney
stones recently. Meanwhile, in China, the milk powder company Su-Lu, partly owned by New Zealand's Fonterra (which itself knew nothing about the
adulteration until after the Olympic Games), which was principally responsible for adulterating the Chinese-sourced milk powder with melamine, looks
like going bankrupt.
The stuff is reacted industrially with formaldehyde to make melamine resin or melamine formaldehyde, a hard, thermosetting plastic material, used
widely as an imitation wood veneer, and melamine foam, a polymeric cleaning product. End products include countertops, dry erase boards, fabrics,
glues, housewares and flame retardants. Melamine is one of the major components in Pigment Yellow 150, a colorant in inks and plastics.
Other uses:
Melamine also enters the fabrication of melamine poly-sulfonate used as superplastizer for making high-resistance concrete. Sulfonated melamine
formaldehyde (SMF) is a polymer used as cement admixture to reduce the water content in concrete while increasing the fluidity and the workability of
the mix during its handling and pouring. It results in concrete with a lower porosity and a higher mechanical strength exhibiting an improved
resistance to aggressive environments and a longer life-time.
The use of melamine as fertilizer for crops has been envisaged during the '50s and '60s because of its high nitrogen content (2/3). However, the
hydrolysis reactions of melamine leading to the nitrogen mineralisation in soils are very slow, precluding a broad use of melamine as fertilizing
agent.
Melamine derivatives of arsenical drugs are potentially important in the treatment of African trypanosomiasis.
Melamine use as non-protein nitrogen (NPN) for cattle was described in a 1958 patent. In 1978, however, a study concluded that melamine "may not be an
acceptable non-protein N source for ruminants" because its hydrolysis in cattle is slower and less complete than other nitrogen sources such as
cottonseed meal and urea.
Toxic effects:
Melamine by itself is nontoxic in low doses, but when combined with cyanuric acid it can cause fatal kidney stones due to the formation of an
insoluble melamine cyanurate. Melamine is reported to have an oral LD50 of >3000 mg/kg based on rat data. It is also an irritant when inhaled or in
contact with the skin or eyes. The reported dermal LD50 is >1000 mg/kg for rabbits. In a 1945 study, large doses of melamine were given orally to
rats, rabbits and dogs with "no significant toxic effects" observed. A study by USSR researchers in the 1980s suggested that melamine cyanurate,
commonly used as a fire retardant), could be more toxic than either melamine or cyanuric acid alone. For rats and mice, the reported LD50 for melamine
cyanurate was 4.1 g/kg (given inside the stomach) and 3.5 g/kg (via inhalation), compared to 6.0 and 4.3 g/kg for melamine and 7.7 and 3.4 g/kg for
cyanuric acid, respectively. A toxicology study conducted after recalls of contaminated pet food concluded that the combination of melamine and
cyanuric acid in diet does lead to acute renal failure in cats.
Ingestion of melamine may lead to reproductive damage, or bladder or kidney stones, which can lead to bladder cancer. A study in 1953 reported that
dogs fed 3% melamine for a year had the following changes in their urine: (1) reduced specific gravity, (2) increased output, (3) melamine
crystalluria, and (4) protein and occult blood. A survey commissioned by the American Association of Veterinary Laboratory Diagnosticians suggested
that crystals formed in the kidneys melamine combined with cyanuric acid, "don't dissolve easily. They go away slowly, if at all, so there is the
potential for chronic toxicity."
