Considering how many thousands, maybe millions of pets were killed or injured by this horrible occurance, don’t you think Menu Pet and the others got off too easily?

Thanks to USA Today for this article.

Tainted pet food suit settled for $24 million
By Julie Schmit, USA TODAY

Menu Foods, other pet food makers and retailers involved in last year’s massive pet food recall will set up a $24 million cash fund to compensate pet owners, according to a proposed settlement filed Thursday in federal court.

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Have you been wondering what happened to the Menu Pet Recall class action suit? The answer is it was just settled this week.

Thanks to ConsumerAffairs.com for this update.

Menu Foods Settles Pet Food Class Action
Thousands of dogs and cats sickened by contaminated pet food

By Lisa Wade McCormick
ConsumerAffairs.Com

The company behind the largest pet food recall in United States history — one blamed for the deaths and illnesses of thousands of dogs and cats in North America — has agreed to settle lawsuits with pet owners.

Menu Foods Income Fund announced the tentative settlement on Tuesday.

The Canadian-based company said it could not disclose terms of the agreement, which is subject to the approval of U.S. and Canadian courts.

“It’s a comprehensive settlement,” Amy W. Schulman, a lawyer for Menu Foods, told MSNBC. “It would resolve all the claims.” The lead attorney for pet owners agreed and said she’s confident a final agreement will be reached.

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Thanks to Donna and Gizmo the Great for barking in this article from The Daily Green. Also thanks to Animals Speak on FreeForums for covering this article.

Indictments Handed Down in Tainted Pet Food Scandal
4 People Sold Chemical as Food: FDA
By Dan Shapley

Three businesses and their owners have been indicted by a federal grand jury today, meaning they will face trials over allegations related to the melamine-tainted pet food that sickened pets throughout the United States last year.

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Thanks to the Associated Press for this update.

Bad Pet Food May Have Killed Nearly 350
By KATHY BARKS HOFFMAN

LANSING, Mich. (AP) — More than 300 dogs and cats may have died earlier this year as a result of eating contaminated pet food, a survey released Thursday shows.

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Thanks to Mike for barking in this press release from PRNewswire! More “pawer” to these lawyers!

Audet & Partners, LLP Files First-Of-Its-Kind Class Action Complaint in U.S. Against China-Based Company

Suit Seeks Relief for Violation of Chinese Consumer Protection Law on Behalf of Pet Owners Impacted by Melamine Poisoning

SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 8 /PRNewswire/ — The law firm of Audet & Partners, LLP has filed a class action lawsuit against Binzhou Futian Biological Technology, Co., Ltd., a company based in Binzhou, China, seeking relief under the laws of the People’s Republic of China and California. The complaint, filed in California State Superior Court (San Francisco) (Case #: CGC-07-465924), seeks damages and other relief arising from injuries to pet owners whose dogs and cats became sick or died from ingesting melamine.

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I feel terrible for the pet parents who lost their furbabies in the recalls earlier this year. First the horror of having your pet poisoned by the very company you trust to feed them. Then, they are insulted by having their dogs’ and cats’ deaths disappear from public attention and basically forgotten.

We can help keep the memories of those who died much too early alive. If we value the lives of all of out pets we MUST make sure these corporate crimes are not swept away from public memory! We must fight for safer foods and better labeling of country of origin so that those who callously taint food products can be identified and punished.

Thanks to Mike for meowing in this article from USA Today.

Pet-food death toll unlikely to be known

By Julie Schmit and Elizabeth Weise, USA TODAY

The number of dogs and cats killed by contaminated pet food recalled this year will probably never be known, the Food and Drug Administration says.

The FDA received a record 18,000 consumer calls after the largest pet-food recall ever started in mid-March. Officials said in May about half alleged a pet death.

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Are you looking for a complete list of tainted foods? It has been a frightening and confusing time with lots of foods being recalled. Here’s the FDA link to their complete list:

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This press release just came out today from the FDA and USDA. Nice of them to get around to talking about the connection between the poisoned pet food being sold to use as chicken and hog feed and, of those of us who might actually eat that meat.

I’m reading this but I just don’t buy it. This sure sounds like a whitewash to me. These are the same people who kept reassuring us that the recall wasn’t that bad and hadn’t reached the human food chain. That was before they even looked at whether or not it happened.

Okay, maybe each individual doesn’t get a massive dose of melamine but this isn’t like getting drowned in water where the amount is the crucial factor. The important fact here is that melamine even in very small amounts is toxic to living creatures. It doesn’t take a pound of it in your body to permanently disable or kill you. The right combination is shown to cause autoimmune dieases. So years later when you’re wondering why you have fibromyalgia or diabetes even though it does NOT run in your family, you eat healthily, etc. the tainted chicken is long gone but it has left its scars on your body. Besides, these poisons stay in bodies, building up over time.

Until the FDA and USDA admit there is a serious food importation problem and set about closing the holes through which tainted foods and supplements enter North America, I cannot believe or trust them when they try to make me stop paying attention.

In defense of the FDA and USDA, they are outmanned and outgunned when it comes to imports. Many of the recall problems seem to come from having too little money and people trying to watch all food products coming into the country. We as a society have got to realize it costs money to keep food safe and fully fund these two agencies. If we continue to try to hamstring these agencies with budgets that are way too small, we’ll be guaranteeing that both us and our furbabies will continue to be slowly poisoned by low-cost yet deadly food imports.

FDA/USDA Joint News Release: Scientists Conclude Very Low Risk to Humans from Food Containing Melamine

Media Inquiries:
FDA Press Office: 301-827-6242
USDA Press Office: 202-720-4623
Consumer Inquiries:
888-INFO-FDA

May 7, 2007

There is very low risk to human health from consuming meat from hogs and chickens known to have been fed animal feed supplemented with pet food scraps that contained melamine and melamine-related compounds, according to an assessment conducted by scientists from five federal agencies.

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I’m glad to see the activity but I worry that the Chinese AND the FDA will try to pin everything on one or two supposedly rogue operators. Its very apparent that the system is broken and ALL food stuffs from China (including things such as ascorbic acid put in our foods and drinks to increase Vitamin C levels) need to be BLOCKED. Stop the imports until China fixes its system (if it can). Until then, a few arrests mean nothing.

Thanks to Morgan the Pirate Gato for meowing in this news from the New York Times.

China Makes Arrest in Pet Food Case

By DAVID BARBOZA
Published: May 4, 2007

SHANGHAI, May 3 — The general manager of one of the companies accused of selling contaminated wheat gluten to pet food suppliers in the United States has been detained by the Chinese authorities, according to police officials here and a person who was briefed on the investigation.

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Anyone who can read this and NOT call for a ban on Chinese food products has to be seriously suicidal. The addition of melamine is not just planned; its systemic. And don’t even try to tell me its not in the human food. Anyone who would add this poison to animal food will add it to human food. Not to mention that when we eat the animals which have eaten it, we ARE eating the melamine too.

My questions now are why are we still allowing ANY food products of any type in from China and why would anyone other than a competing athlete WANT to go to an Olympics in a country where they may be poisoned by the food?

Many thanks to The New York Times for this very enlightening article.

Filler in Animal Feed Is Open Secret in China

By DAVID BARBOZA and ALEXEI BARRIONUEVO
Published: April 30, 2007

ZHANGQIU, China, April 28 — As American food safety regulators head to China to investigate how a chemical made from coal found its way into pet food that killed dogs and cats in the United States, workers in this heavily polluted northern city openly admit that the substance is routinely added to animal feed as a fake protein.

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