Lisa Wade McCormick
ConsumerAffairs.com
Grieving pet owner Gloria B. of Lakewood, Florida, knows stricter regulations on the pet food industry won't ease the emotional pain she's endured since losing her beloved 12-year-old Chihuahua in January. But it might prevent someone else from going through the long and lonely days that's she's suffered in the wake of her "Lil-Bit's' unexpected death.
Lil-Bit, she says, was in good health until she started feeding him Ol'Roy dog food last December. That's one of the nearly 100 brands of pet food included in the nationwide recall.
Gloria says Lil-bit started vomiting, had diarrhea, and became weak within days after he started eating the Ol' Roy.
In early January, he died in her arms -- on the way to the veterinarian.
"I feel totally responsible for his death," Gloria says, fighting back the tears. "When I later read about the pet food recall -- and then heard that there were problems with the Jerky treats that I gave Lil-Bit twice a day -- I thought: 'Oh, my God. Did I kill my dog?'"
Lax Regulations?
Gloria is convinced lax regulations in the pet food industry contributed to Lil-Bit's death.
"I feel that these pet food manufacturers -- and all the ingredients they put into pet food -- should be inspected just like they are for human food. If this industry is regulated by the Food and Drug Administration, why are they not testing these products to ensure there's not something in them that is going to hurt an animal?
"And why did these companies buy something and not test it before they put it in the food?"
If they had, Gloria says, Lil-Bit and the scores of other dogs and cats across the country who have died from the tainted pet food might be alive today.
"I can't tell you all the pain, screaming, and crying I've gone through since Lil-Bit died," she says. "It's been awful. He was my absolute best friend. He was like a child to me. To sit in my living room now -- without him here -- is so very sad.
"And how many other people are going through something like this?"
Thousands of Deaths
ConsumerAffairs.com has talked to scores of grieving pet owners like Gloria and received hundreds of written complaints. The Web site Petconnection.com, says it's received 4,069 reports of deceased pets in the wake of the recall. Of that number, 2,099 are cats and 1,970 are dogs.
The Web site also says it's received 12,663 reports of illnesses linked to the recalled pet food, which the FDA says is contaminated with melamine-tainted wheat gluten.
"These are self-reported numbers, and should be in no way be considered confirmed or 'official,'" the Web site states. "But if even a fraction can be confirmed, they show deaths far exceeding the FDA's count of 16 pets, most of whom died in a manufacturers feeding trial."
Yesterday, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) chaired a special Senate hearing about the pet food recall debacle, hearing mostly from FDA representatives and pet food lobbyists, while the FDA warned that some recalled pet food may
still be on store shelves and warned retailers and pet owners to be careful."Many cats, dogs and other pets, considered members of the family, are now suffering as a result of a deeply flawed pet food inspection system," Durbin said during Thursday's hearing. "The FDA's response to this situation has been wholly inadequate -- we need to establish standardized inspections, impose penalties on companies who delay reporting health problems and increase communication between the FDA and the state inspectors so that we can catch problems more quickly. These sound like basic steps but the FDA has failed to put them in place."
Durbin's remarks highlighted the many flaws in the pet food industry's patchwork inspection system, which is not all that different from the haphazard, industry-dominated, system that supposedly protects humans.
FDA Inspections
To begin with, the FDA has only inspected about 30 percent of all pet food plants since 2004, said Stephen Sundlof, director of the agency's Center for Veterinary Medicine. He said many of those visits occurred after recalls had been put in place or during the Mad Cow scare.
The FDA had never inspected the Menu Foods facility in Emporia, Kan., where many of the recalled products were made, until after the company reported a problem.
Eric Nelson, president of the American Association of Feed Control Officers (AAFCO), said few inspections are required because the industry, with help from the AAFCO, regulates itself well.
After the lengthy hearing, Senator Durbin told ConsumerAffairs.com he is working on legislation that will address these problems, but he did not specify the scope of his pending legislation.
Industry Response
In related news, The Pet Food Institute (PFI), which represents pet food manufacturers, announced Thursday the formation of the National Pet Food Commission to strengthen industry procedures and safeguards.
The commission includes nationally-recognized veterinarians, toxicologists, state and federal regulators and nutritionists, and will have two main goals:
• To investigate the cause of the current pet food recall;
• To recommend steps the industry and government should take to build on safety and quality standards already in place.
The commission will report its findings and offer recommendations to the industry and regulators at the end of its investigation. PFI President Duane Ekedahl said the commission will "augment the FDA's work and make recommendations so that consumers continue to be confident in the food they feed their pets."
"The people who make pet food are pet lovers and owners themselves. They understand the concerns consumers have about pet food products and feel a special responsibility to address this issue," he said.
Dr. Angele Thompson -- an expert in nutritional biochemistry and a member of the American Academy of Veterinary Nutrition -- will chair the commission.
"It is imperative that we study this problem from all sides and apply lessons learned to further build on industry procedures and safeguards," she said.
In other news, the Association of Veterinary Laboratory Diagnosticians--in consultation with the FDA--is trying to compile specific data on the number of cats and dogs that have died after eating the melamine-tainted wheat gluten.
The AAVLD Veterinary Analytical Toxicology Committee launched a survey on April 6, to gather data on cases that meet certain criteria for possible pet food-induced nephrotoxicosis.
These cases should meet two of the following criteria:
(1) known exposure to one of the recalled pet foods,
(2) histologic lesions consistent with crystal-induced tubular nephrosis (pictures are posted on the AAVLD Web site),
(3) urinalysis with crystals (also posted on the site), and
(4) chemical confirmation of the presence of melamine or other marker chemicals in pet food, tissues, or urine.
The organization is asking AAVLD laboratories, along with other laboratories and private practitioners who wish to participate, to report incidents in the United States and Canada, using the survey tool on its Web site: www.aavld.org. Nonmembers can enter case data via the public area by clicking on News and then on AAVLD Pet Food Toxicity Survey.
The data will be available to the FDA for its investigations.
More about the Pet Food Recall ...
