Message Number: FHL341 | New FHL Archives Search
From: "cherylnj81"
Date: 2007-03-31 02:14:45 UTC
Subject: [ferrethealth] Pet Food Recall Includes Dry Food Now Too, And Hill's M/D
To: ferrethealth@yahoogroups.com

I know my ferrets are on Hill's Prescription Diet Z/D, so I figured
maybe someone here has their ferrets on M/D. I am thinking of taking
them off Hill's now. This is all very concerning!


[Moderator's Note: At the moment it sounds like ONE dry food is in the recall.

I looked this up to help all. The one dry food includes the same wheat gluten which is why they are recalling it to be safest.

<http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070331/ap_on_go_ot/pet_food_recall;_ylt=AoEVCHf4QTLLySWimnCOddus0NUE>

BEGIN QUOTES

By ANDREW BRIDGES, Associated Press Writer
20 minutes ago

...

Food and Drug Administration said Friday it found melamine in samples of the Menu Foods pet food involved in the original recall and in imported wheat gluten used as an ingredient in the company's wet-style products. Cornell University scientists also found melamine in the urine of sick cats, as well as in the kidney of one cat that died after eating some of the recalled food.

Meanwhile, Hill's Pet Nutrition recalled its Prescription Diet m/d Feline dry cat food. The food included wheat gluten from the same supplier that Menu Foods used. The recall didn't involve any other Prescription Diet or Science Diet products

...

FDA was working to rule out the possibility that the contaminated wheat gluten could have made it into any human food. However, melamine is toxic only in high doses, experts said, leaving its role in the pet deaths unclear.

...

The melamine finding came a week after scientists at the New York State Food Laboratory identified a cancer drug and rat poison called aminopterin as the likely culprit in the pet food. But the FDA said it could not confirm that finding, nor have researchers at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey when they looked at tissue samples taken from dead cats. And experts at the University of Guelph detected aminopterin in some samples of the recalled pet food, but only in the parts per billion or trillion range.

"Biologically, that means nothing. It wouldn't do anything," said Grant Maxie, a veterinary pathologist at the Canadian university. "This is a puzzle."

...

Menu Foods said the only certainty was the imported Chinese product was the likely source of the deadly contamination, even if the actual contaminant remained in doubt...

END QUOTES

Sorry about so much quoted material from the far longer article but people do need details to be safest and to avoid panic.]




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