Pet Food Contamination Might Be Intentional

[lily]

I certainly hope this isn't true. (http://www.wetmtv.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=acd40939-0d37-4661-a7e4-32b67d46e419)

Pet Food Contamination Might Be Intentional
Last Update: Apr 20, 2007 11:55 PM

Posted By: Jeff Stone



Another brand of pet food is being pulled from the shelves at the same time
word comes the food poisonings may not be accidental.
Royal Canin recalled several dry cat and dog foods after finding evidence of
melamine. It's a chemical suspected of making thousands of pets ill and
causing a still undetermined number of deaths.

NBC News reports the U.S. Food and Drug Administration now suspects melamine
may have been added intentionally to make it appear the food had more
protein While melamine is believed to be the chemical causing the problems,
the FDA isn't certain of that.

For more information on the Royal Canin recall you can call the company's
toll free number at 800-513-0041 or visit their website at,
http://www.royalcanin.us

[Nitrus]

But... why? why would someone do it intentinally?

[Drocket]

But... why? why would someone do it intentinally?

NBC News reports the U.S. Food and Drug Administration now suspects melamine may have been added intentionally to make it appear the food had more protein

The chemical, apparently, screws up the test used to determine protein content, making it look richer than it actually is. Higher protein wheat gluten means a higher price. Possibly they didn't know it was poisonous, or didn't think they added enough to have an effect, or... Well, maybe they just didn't care.

Also something to note on this topic is that it appears that cats react a lot more strongly to the poison than dogs. There have been a few reports here and there of dogs with kidney trouble, but really no more than the statistical average. Cats, however, were dying all over the country by the thousands. The gluten in question was sold as human-grade. I don't know how human react, but if human tolerance is closer to dogs than cats, it COULD have been a dosage designed to screw up the tests without causing harm (in the short-term, at least. In the long-term - who knows?) If the pet food manufacturers hadn't used human-grade gluten, and if cats weren't as allergic to the material in question...

That's really the most frightening possibility: it's entirely possible that this sort of thing has been going on for years, but because humans were eating it and not the super-allergic cats, nobody noticed.

Still, it's not been proven that this is anything other than an accident. This is a topic that's going to require some very serious investigation, though, because the possible implications are massive. This is almost certainly going to result in a LOT of new testing procedures being required for some different food products.