Oh no! More contaminated pet food!

Texas lab finds pain medicine in pet food

Click on this post's title for the full story, but the FDA is investigating a Texas laboratory’s finding of acetaminophen in cat and dog food … the highest level found is eight times what a 10-pound cat could safely consume!

The story says, "The pain medication is the fifth contaminant found in pet foods during the past 2-1/2 months and can be toxic or lethal to pets, especially cats."

FIVE?? We knew about melamine and cyanuric acid, but what are the other three??

At least five dog and cat food samples tested contained acetaminophen, and these five were NOT among the 150+ brands recalled since March.

The highest level of acetaminophen was found in a dog food sample submitted by a manufacturer ... who got the results well over a month ago and was supposed to notify the FDA, but they DIDN’T DO IT!

I say it's time for a massive uprising against the pet food industry!

Postcards from Endangered Pets - May 3

May 3 is National Hug Your Cat Day, a perfect day for ALL kitties and other pets to protest the lack of safeguards in the pet food industry and the lack of news coverage about this important issue. We urge all kitties and woofies and their humans to join the May 3 Postcards from Endangered Pets blitz!

Be sure to send postcards, not letters, since envelopes will probably not be opened due to security issues. And mail your postcards on May 3, so they'll all arrive at about the same time.

1) Write a polite postcard to your government officials about how the pet food recall has affected you and your humans, and how worried you are about pet food -- and human food, too! As Zippy, Sadie and Speedy suggested, your humans can also say something like, "We agonize about what to feed our cat/dog because of the lack of regulation in the pet food industry. The lives of our companions should not be put at risk for greed." If you've had vet expenses because of the recall, mention that as well. Send your postcards to these addresses:

Marcia K. Larkins, D.V.M.
FDA Center for Veterinary Medicine
Ombudsman
7519 Standish Place HFV-7
Rockville, MD 20855

Senator Richard Durbin
309 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510

Your state senators: you can find their addresses here

The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

2) Write to the national media asking them why there has been so little news coverage about this major issue. You might mention that pet care is a $40 billion industry and there are more than 70 million homes with pets in the US -- that's a lot of interested viewers! Send your postcards "ATTN: News Director" to these addresses:

NBC News and MSNBC
30 Rockefeller Plaza
New York, N.Y. 10112

CBS News
Use their web site contact form

CNN
Use their web site contact form

FOX Broadcasting Co.
P.O. Box 900
Beverly Hills, CA 90213

ABC News
7 WEST 66th Street
New York, NY 10023

Newsweek Magazine
251 W. 57th St.
New York, NY 10019

Time Magazine
Email: Letters@Time.com

US News & World Report
1050 Thomas Jefferson Street NW
Washington, DC 20007

And don't forget to SPREAD THE NEWS! If everyone announces this postcard blitz to every pet web site (Catster, Dogster etc.) and in every pet mailing group, message board etc. you can think of, we'll bombard the recipients with thousands of messages! Maybe then they'll take action so that we can feel safer in the future.

Fed Up Friday

As I was preparing to post an article here about how cat food is prepared and what actually goes into it, I read on the Cat Blogosphere about yesterday's additional recalls. Enough is enough! I no longer feel safe feeding my babies ANY commercial food of any kind, and I'm developing serious concerns about what I might be feeding myself and my family.

Thank goodness I feed my kitties primarily homemade cat food. But I have been adding some (supposedly) high quality commercial food to it in order to give them a variety of taste and nutrients. I've switched from one food to another as the recalls expand, and most recently have been giving them canned and dry Spa Select. Now all canned Spa Select has been recalled. No doubt if I switch to another brand, it will eventually be recalled as well.

There needs to be an organized effort to penalize the pet food industry for what essentially comes down to poisoning for profit. I don't have the knowledge to undertake such an effort, but merely refunding us for the affected cat food we have on hand and being reimbursed for veterinarian bills is like punishing a mass murderer with a scolding.

Whether or not you have been purchasing food that has subsequently been recalled, I urge everyone to read the article, Cat Food Uncovered, by Sarah Hartwell, who works for UK's Cats Protection and also adopts and cares for aged cats. It's lengthy, but I think it will make clear why I decided to start making my own cat food. Even if a particular cat food is not contaminated with substances such as melamine, I believe that, at best, what goes into commercial foods is disgusting and, at worst, all commercial foods are harming our pets.

Cat Food Uncovered discusses the pet food industries in the United States, the UK, Canada, Australia and other countries and covers such topics as:

- Where Does Cat Food Come From? - The Rendering Process
- Where Do The Ingredients Come From?
- Pet Food Regulatory Bodies
- Pet Food Labeling
- How is Canned Food and Kibble Made?
- The 'Not-So-Hidden' Ingredients
- Meat Based and Plant Based Ingredients
- Colors, Flavors, Preservatives and Other Additives (such as foreign bodies, road kill, racehorses, zoo animals and euthanized pets)
- Diet-Related Problems
- How is Cat Food Tested?
- Fungal and Bacterial Contaminants
- Hormones, Antibiotics and Euthanasia Chemicals
- Prion Disease