BackInBlack

I received this article from www.waggintails.com They have been really on top of the re-call. They send out emails anytime something changes. You can subscribe to their email list on their website if anyone is interested. They carry alot of natural pet products as well.

Menu Foods Recall Expands

Dear Waggin Tails Customers
There has been some new significant information regarding the recent pet food recalls. This email is designed to bring you up to date on what has happened, and provide you with an updated list of products recently recalled. We also wanted to share some additional decisions we have made, based on a careful review of the facts over the last 2-3 weeks.
The most recent expansion of Menu Food items making the recall list is the result of cross-contamination during production. This further supports the stance we have taken from day 1, suspending sales of all foods produced there. As mentioned in our last email, there is a much larger issue here beyond Menu Foods, specific to China and their horrific business practices. There will be a point where products made at Menu Foods will be absolutely safe and brought back to our site. We look forward to that day and are working with manufacturers, reviewing their quality control standards, but for now our approach will continue to be a cautious one.
Of the many foods being recalled this week, the Triumph brand has made the list, which is a brand we did carry, but had suspended sales of weeks ago.


IN this email… Below, you will find information from the FDA on the expanded recall list from Menu Foods, as well as an article from the NY Times that we felt was very important outlining the state of affairs in China, which are simply appalling. It is because of these conditions that we are now adding the following products to our list of items we refuse to sell. These additions are a statement from us. We will not sell any item made in China or that uses ingredients sourced from China. These are important issues and we have the ability to send a message to manufacturers buying products and ingredients from China by spending our money elsewhere.


Additional Products removed from our site

• <LI class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Dogswell line of Treats, all made in China <LI class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Piece of Love Treats, all made in China
• Pet Ventures Treats, all made in China

Last, the number of products we have suspended has created many voids in our offering, especially among cat owners. We are working with many new manufacturers at the moment and are finding that the potential for great products from both in and outside the USA is not only possible, but very promising. We will be expanding our list of products coming from outside the US, but can assure you it will not include China and assure you that each new company will be looked at individually and scrutinized very carefully.
Look for new products coming soon.


Please note that based on your request, we have now posted our emails on our home page, which include past important recall related emails. You can view them by going to our home page at www.waggintails.com Sincerely,
John Gigliotti
President
Waggin Tails

Menu Foods Press Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE -- May 2, 2007 -- Menu Foods has previously recalled wet cat and dog food produced with adulterated wheat gluten supplied by ChemNutra Inc. Menu Foods is now expanding the recall to include cuts and gravy and select other products which do not include ChemNutra wheat gluten but which were manufactured at any of Menu Foods’ plants during the period that ChemNutra wheat gluten was used at that plant, to the extent they have not already been subject to a recall, due to the possibility of cross-contamination. Menu Foods has received a report from a customerand has received study results, both of which indicate cross-contamination.

As a result, Menu advises the public: ·
Additional items in the United States and Canada have been added to the recall list as shown below. A further two varieties for Europe have been added to the recall list.
The recall dates of those products previously recalled have been modified to include all dates during the period that ChemNutra wheat gluten was used in the applicable Menu plant. All of these products, including the expanded dates, have previously been withdrawn from the market and should already be off the retailer shelves.

Menu estimates that this additional recall represents less than 5% of the products that have already been recalled or withdrawn.

For a complete list of foods recently recalled, visit the Menu Foods Website
http://www.menufoods.com. Triumph Cat Food Nov/08/08 to Mar/07/09Pouch Turkey/Giblets 24x3oz 3oz 73657-00332 PouchNov/08/08 to Mar/07/09Pouch Mixed Grill 24x3oz 3oz 73657-00334 PouchDec/06/09 to Jan/24/10Sliced Beef/Gravy 24x3oz 3oz 73657-00167Can Dog FoodTriumph Dog Food
Dec/11/09 to Mar/07/10Sliced Beef/Gravy 24x5.5oz 5.5oz 73657-00171Can

NY Times Article-China Food Mislabeled, U.S. Says

SHANGHAI, May 2 — A Chinese company accused of selling contaminated wheat gluten to American pet food suppliers avoided inspections partly because it did not correctly disclose its shipping contents to Chinese export authorities, according to American regulators.

The Xuzhou Anying Biologic Technology Development Company, one of two Chinese companies at the center of the huge recall of pet food that has killed or sickened thousands of animals, shipped more than 700 tons of wheat gluten labeled as nonfood products this year through a third-party Chinese textile company.

By listing the goods as nonfood items, the company’s shipments were not subject to mandatory inspection by the Chinese government. Though a possible violation of export policies, such mislabeling is thought to be widespread in China.

The details of the case, some of them disclosed on Friday in a circular released by the Food and Drug Administration, are just the latest clues that Chinese feed suppliers may have been intentionally disguising the contents of their goods.

F.D.A. officials are now visiting China to seek more information about how and why an industrial chemical used in plastics and fertilizer got mixed into pet food ingredients.

American regulators admit that six weeks after one of the biggest pet food recalls in United States history, they still do not know who in China manufactured the contaminated pet food ingredients or where in China the contamination took place.

Though the agency has named two Chinese companies as the suppliers of the tainted vegetable protein sent to the United States, regulators suspect the companies may not have been manufacturing the feed, but buying it from dozens of other feed manufacturers in China.

Those feed producers, regulators say they believe, may have intentionally mixed melamine into the feed to inflate artificially the level of protein in the bags to meet pet food requirements.

“Records relating to the importation of these products indicate that these two firms had manufactured the ingredients in question,” the F.D.A. said in an import alert released last Friday. “There is strong evidence, however, that these firms are not the actual manufacturers. Moreover, despite many weeks of investigation, it is still unknown who the actual manufacturer or manufacturers of the contaminated products imported from China are.”

Worried that the contaminant may continue to enter the United States and also seep into the human food supply through food additives, regulators have blocked all Chinese imports of wheat gluten and warned importers to screen nearly every other kind of food and feed additive entering the United States from China, including corn gluten and soy protein.

Last week, the F.D.A. and the Agriculture Department issued a joint warning to consumers saying that melamine has found its way into hog and chicken feed, encouraging producers to destroy the animals, even though there is no clear evidence that consuming meat from the animals is a danger to human health.

American regulators are now under growing pressure to ensure the safety of human and pet food and to get to the bottom of the melamine scare.

But what began as a pet food recall on March 16 involving two factories working for a single pet food maker, Menu Foods , has now expanded to include some of America’s leading pet food brands and over 60 million pet food packages.

The two Chinese companies named by American regulators last month have said little publicly since the recall. Both companies are based in eastern China, near one of the country’s biggest wheat-growing regions and also one of the centers of melamine production.

Melamine is an industrial chemical that animal feed producers here say has been intentionally mixed into feed to trick farmers into thinking they are buying higher protein meal, even though the chemical has no nutritional value.

A similar practice once took place in the United States and in China involving a related compound called urea, but that compound is now more widely tested for and is banned from certain feeds in the United States.“

This was standard stuff after World War II, when animal feed was adulterated with urea,” said Marion Nestle, a professor of nutrition, food and public health at New York University. “This is simple greed. It’s like they’re adding water to the wheat gluten.”

The Chinese government has told American regulators that Xuzhou is not a manufacturer of wheat gluten but purchased its products from 25 manufacturers.

ChemNutra, the Las Vegas pet food supplier that bought the wheat gluten from Xuzhou and then resold it to pet food makers in North America, also said it was led to believe Xuzhou was the manufacturer of the product.

But ChemNutra officials also say that they received the shipments of wheat gluten through a third party, a company called Suzhou Textiles Silk Light and Industrial Products.

A spokesman for Suzhou Textiles denied that the company exported any wheat gluten to the United States.

The other supplier of contaminated protein named by regulators is Binzhou Futian Biology Technology, which says that it supplies soy, corn and other proteins and has strong sales in the United States, Europe and Southeast Asia. The company also declined to comment.

The Chinese government said last week that it was unlikely melamine could have harmed so many pets in the United States. But on Friday, China banned melamine from use in any vegetable protein for export or for use in the domestic food market.

The F.D.A. says that it has received reports that more than 4,000 cats and dogs died as a result of eating pet food that may have been laced with melamine.

Scientists are now struggling to determine why melamine, a chemical that is not believed to be toxic, may have turned poisonous.

Some scientists theorize that melamine mixed with other melaminelike compounds, like cyanuric acid, created a poisonous substance.

And that possibility may be all the more likely because many animal feed producers in China are not using pure melamine but impure melamine scrap that is sold more cheaply as the waste product after melamine is produced by chemical and fertilizer factories here.

“It’s possible the other stuff they were left with was the bottom-of-the-barrel stuff, leftover melamine and possibly cyanuric acid,” said Richard Goldstein, an assistant professor at the Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine. “I think it’s this melamine with other compounds that is toxic.”

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tjmom

Thanks for all the info. This is just getting to be crazy.

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Murreydobe

I think it's getting to be time to stop ALL imports from China until they get their shit together a bit more.

I can only process so much of this stuff..if you think about it too much, you'll just make yourself nuts.

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CH. Birchrun Who's On First, aka Razzle
Foxfire N KO Simply Madness WAC, aka Connor

Linda H

AND who likes buying products made from chinese slave labor????
Recently bought a electric razor, couldn't find one made in USA, and made a comment about wanting to buy one not made by CSL and people around me were agreeing. I would be willing to pay more for a product.

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All dogs deserve a good home

http:www.dogfoodanalysis.com
http://www.dogaware.com/dogfeeding.html