Recalls now in South Africa....surprise, surprise: the source is China!

[TAZ]

Globalization at work, I guess....


http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_2101493,00.html

30 pets die from contaminated food
http://iafrica.com/news/sa/789408.htm

source: Itchmo

[medilla]

I've been fighting for a week with a company who insists that their product is not the reason I have 3 cats on IV fluids in the hospital, 2 of whom are in renal failure. (The food is not on the recall list.) When I saw that South African press release about an hour ago, I called the company. They had not heard about it and asked for the url. I gave it to them and asked for a call back on the source of their corn gluten. This was supposedly a "good" food like many others. I did find a holistic dry product to use until I figure out the best thing.

[TAZ]

medilla,
This is shocking!
WHAT were you feeding?

[medilla]

Many thanks to people who have sent me helpful information about product testing and your kind words. I brought the cats home tonight and will continue subcutanous fluids here where they will be more comfortable.
I have been asked to name the pet food that we believe made my cats sick. It was Nutro Natural Choice Indoor Adult Dry formula. I posted the following to the general recall topic folder:

When I returned home last Wednesday the 11th of April, all four cats of my cats were vomiting violently, and this persisted with even when they just took sips of water. We had opened a new bag of Nutro Natural Choice Indoor dry food right before we left, and they don't eat anything else -- nor was there anything around that could have poisoned them. They don't go outside. 

We one of them to the vet for bloodwork on Thursday (we picked her because she was the last to vomit at the time), but thank goodness all tests came back normal. So we took a "wait and see" approach. Testing only one was perhaps not such a wise choice, since later we would learn that two others were in renal failure. We took those two back to the vet for subcutaneous fluids on Saturday. The vet did not draw blood, because she said that if we had to go to the animal ER on Sunday, they would do it all over again there. She did send us home with pepcid and another drug for nausea and a bag of syringes. We gave shots to all four cats over the weekend at one time or another. Well, the the younger ones stopped vomiting approx Saturday night, and began eating again on Tuesday. They were dehydrated and needed fluids, but their bloodwork was fine.

However, the 6 and 11 year olds are still quite ill, have been in the hospital for 3 days, and their blood titers are way off, indicating kidney and liver damage.

I have called the Nutro company every day, and every day they have insisted that the product is not on the recall list, that it is in no way responsible. Then today, when I saw the press release of the melamine in South African corn gluten, I called again. They had not heard about it, so I gave them the site of the release and asked them to investigate the source of their corn gluten and to call me back.

Prior to this, they said they had turned my name over to their insurance company, who is supposed to contact me about the damages (I did not even ask). I guess they figure I'm going to sue them, but I just wanted my vet to have some answers to work with. She called them also, and got exactly the same party line.  I'm supposed to send back eight one-cup samples of the food in a bag they are mailing me, and they in turn will share the lab results with me. (OK, I'm not going to insert anything cynical here.) We are also looking for an independent lab, but maybe we won't have to now that the "cat's out of the bag" on corn gluten, a product in the Nutro food.

If not melamine, then maybe the food had gone rancid, or was "mishandled" -- I don't know. All I know is that my cats are sick and the vet agrees that it has to be what they eat, which is the food. I won't let them suffer if this goes on much longer, but let's hope that it doesn't.

Anyone else out there who has experienced the same with this product, please file an FDA complaint and post to this blog. Thank you.

[freddie2two]

send samples to: California Animal Health and Food Safety Laboratory at UC Davis

The team there is also looking for urine samples from sick pets.  They believe they can come up with a urine analysis test for melamine. They have noticed 5 yet unnamed manufacturers about the rice.

My cat is recovering from toxin tubular poisening, and eats only Purina Friskies products, loaded with wheat gluten, and Friskies Variety dry food, with Corn Glutin.  But she also eats Max Cat dry food which is primarily Corn Glutin. Now she is only eating EVO dry, without any grains at all.