The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) seized large amounts of food products intended for sale at PETCO stores in sixteen states because the Supplies Distribution Center located in Joliet, IL was deemed in April (!) to be filthy and unsanitary.

The following is the entire release posted to the FDA’s website dated June 19th.

Today, at the request of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), U.S. Marshals seized various animal food products stored under unsanitary conditions at the PETCO Animal Supplies Distribution Center located in Joliet, Ill., pursuant to a warrant issued by the United States District Court in Chicago.

U.S. Marshals seized all FDA-regulated animal food susceptible to rodent and pest contamination. The seized products violate the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act because it was alleged in a case filed by the United States Attorney that they were being held under unsanitary conditions. (The Act uses the term “insanitary” to describe such conditions).

During an FDA inspection of a PETCO distribution center in April, widespread and active rodent and bird infestation was found. The FDA inspected the facility again in May and found continuing and widespread infestation.

“We simply will not allow a company to store foods under filthy and unsanitary conditions that occur as a direct result of the company’s failure to adequately control and prevent pests in its facility,” said Margaret O’K. Glavin, associate commissioner for regulatory affairs. “Consumers expect that such safeguards will be in place not only for human food, but for pet food as well.”

The distribution center in Joliet, Ill., provides pet food products and supplies to PETCO retail stores in 16 states including Alabama, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, and Wisconsin.

FDA has no reports of pet illness or death associated with consumption of animal food distributed by PETCO, and does not have evidence that the food is unsafe for animals. However, the seized products were in permeable packages and held under conditions that could affect the food’s integrity and quality.

As a precaution, consumers who have handled products originating from the PETCO distribution center should thoroughly wash their hands with hot water and soap. Any surfaces that came in contact with the packages should be washed as well. Consumers are further advised as a precaution to thoroughly wash products sold in cans and glass containers from PETCO in the 16 affected states.

The FDA also requests you contact a consumer complaint coordinator if you believe your pet has been harmed by food bought from PETCO.

Running a large business means huge challenges to provide for constant and complete vigilant oversight of the entire operation, but we must demand that any company that sells nourishment for our pets adhere to the highest possible standards to ensure 100% sanitary and healthy conveyance of all
items they sell at all times.

It’s horrifying that the report states that the Jolliet facility of PETCO twice failed sanitary examinations by exhibiting ‘widespread and active rodent and bird infestation’ and eventually had to have food product seized by warrant so it could no longer be sold on shelves.

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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.

If the settlement is approved by the court, the fund is expected to be set up and disbursed over a period of months. Unlike many large settlements, consumers will get cash rather than coupons.

The vast majority of the fund will go to pet owners whose pets were injured or died as a result of kidney failure, which was linked to the contaminant discovered in some of the recalled pet food.

Damages supported by documentation, such as veterinary receipts, may be paid in full. Claimants also could get $900 per claim for undocumented losses, according to the agreement filed in U.S. District Court in New Jersey.

The settlement requires that eligible claimants’ dogs or cats ate a pet food recalled between March 16, 2007, and now. Coverable expenses include veterinary bills, pet food costs, burial costs, replacement pet costs, property damage and lost wages to care for sick animals.

The fund includes only $250,000 to compensate pet owners for food purchases, because most people have already been reimbursed for recalled pet food. Another $400,000 is allocated for people who had pets screened that were found to be healthy.

In addition to Menu, defendants include pet-food makers Del Monte, Hill’s Pet Nutrition and Iams; retailers such as Wal-Mart and importers ChemNutra and Wilbur-Ellis.

The fund is expected to compensate thousands of pet owners in the U.S. and Canada who bought recalled pet foods made by Menu and 11 others. The products had a contaminated ingredient from China that sickened dogs and cats.

The $24 million is in addition to $8 million that pet food makers have already paid to pet owners. Legal fees and expenses, which haven’t been determined, will come out of the fund. The settlement, negotiated over the past seven months, would resolve more than 100 lawsuits by more than 250 plaintiffs brought in the U.S. and a dozen in Canada.

Follow this link to read the rest of the article.

Thanks to the Washington Post for this article.

Salmonella Outbreak Linked to Dry Dog Food

By Steven Reinberg
HealthDay Reporter
Thursday, May 15, 2008

THURSDAY, May 15 (HealthDay News) — An outbreak of Salmonella infections in people has been traced to contaminated dry dog food, the first time such a link has been uncovered, U.S. officials said Thursday.

And, Salmonella infections from dry dog food may be an under-recognized source of illness in people, especially young children, officials from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.

“This is the first time human illness has been linked to dry dog food,” said CDC epidemiologist Dr. Casey Barton Behravesh, who co-authored a report on the finding.

The CDC isn’t sure how the Salmonella bacteria got into the dog food, Barton Behravesh said. “There are a number of possible ways that that could happen, and that’s something we are still trying to figure out,” she said, adding that there have been previous cases of people contracting Salmonella infection from contaminated pet treats.

The incidents of people becoming infected with Salmonella from dry dog food occurred in 2006 and 2007. An estimated 70 people, mostly in the Northeast, were infected by dog food produced by Mars Petcare at its Pennsylvania plant. About 40 percent of those infections involved infants, according to the report, published in the May 16 issue of the CDC’sMorbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

Most of the cases occurred in Pennsylvania (29), New York (nine) and Ohio (seven). There were also reported cases in Alabama, California, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Carolina and Virginia.

Follow this link to read the rest of the article.

Follow this link to read the report from the CDC.

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.

Tuesday’s settlement comes just a little more than a year after Menu Foods recalled 60 million containers of tainted pet food.

The company took that action after dogs and cats across the country suffered kidney problems or died after eating the company’s food.

Menu Foods initially blamed the contamination on a chemical called Aminopterin, which is used as a rat poison and to treat cancer.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) later discovered the chemical melamine in the imported wheat gluten used in the pet food. Melamine is used to make plastics.

Unapproved chemicals
In December, veterinarians blamed the dogs’ and cats’ deaths on the combination of two chemicals FDA officials found in the tainted pet food: melamine and cyanuric acid, which is used to chlorinate pools.

Neither chemical is approved in pet food.

Veterinarians said those two chemicals can combine and form crystals in the dogs’ and cats’ bodies. And those crystals can impair the animals’ kidney function.

“Either one of those chemicals alone wouldn’t cause these (deaths),” Dr. Barbara Powers, immediate past president of the American Association of Veterinary Laboratory Diagnosticians (AAVLD) and director of Colorado State University’s Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory, told ConsumerAffairs.com. “It has to be the combination of the two.

“So it’s not melamine alone.”

Pet owners in 19 states — and Ontario — filed dozens of lawsuits against Menu Foods in the weeks that followed the March 16, 2007, nationwide recall of dog and cat food. Those cases were consolidated in a federal court in Camden, New Jersey.

The lawsuits alleged unfair and deceptive trade practices, negligence in failing to provide adequate quality control and breach of implied and express warranties. Some consumers also claimed they suffered emotional trauma after their pets became sick or died.

Pet owners sought compensation for their veterinary bills.

Companies named in the lawsuits — besides Menu Foods — included Del Monte Foods Inc. of San Francisco; Nestle of Stamford, Conn.; Procter & Gamble in Cincinnati; Xuzhou Anying Biologic Technology Development Co. Ltd. in Pixian, China; and Suzhou Textile Import and Export Co. in Jiangsu, China.

Those defendants — and Menu Foods product liability insurance company — will cover the costs of the settlement.

Menu Foods’ estimates the nationwide recall cost the company $53.8 million.

The company said pet owners with potential claims should not contact Menu Foods regarding the tentative settlement. When a final agreement is reached — and claims are processed and approved — the administrator of the settlement fund will notify pet owners.

U.S. District Judge Noel L. Hillman set a May 14 hearing in New Jersey to consider the settlement. A final hearing date in Canada is not yet scheduled.

Follow this link to read the rest of the article.

Remembering the Initial Pet Food Recall March 16, 2008

Web radio station Womanradio.org will present special programming for the first anniversary of the initial pet food recall of 2007. It will begin at 2 p.m. EDT with Make a Change a song for the friends lost by noted composers Karen Phillips and Yohanna Vanderkley of Webbils and Song.

The programming will feature people whose lives have been deeply affected by the pet food crisis and those working to make changes.

The now legendary Don Earl will tell the story of the killing of his cat Chuckles and his determined quest for justice over the past year.

Lawyer Ted Charney of Toronto Canada will outline class action lawsuits versus Menu Foods.

Ron Smith creator of PETitionz.org will comment on the reactions of site visitors from 143 countries to events as they unfolded following that first recall.

Karen Fraser and Personal Chef Tabitha Chapman will chat about the March 18th launch of their new Trust Pet Cuisine. The meals are cooked by an International Chef in a kitchen using all fresh human ingredients and then conveniently delivered to your home or office. Trust makes the food pet owners would cook for their pets if they had the time and knowledge.

Company reaches $3.1 million settlement for aflatoxin contamination

Diamond Pet Foods has agreed to a $3.1 million settlement in a lawsuit relevant to product contamination that apparently led to illness and deaths of dogs in late 2005.

The dogs had eaten Diamond products that contained aflatoxin, a toxic byproduct of the growth of certain fungi on corn and other food crops. The company issued a broad recall of the suspect products at the time (see JAVMA, Feb. 1, 2006, page 334).

The recent legal settlement, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee at Knoxville, provides for Diamond to pay a total of up to $3.1 million to customers who purchased products subject to the recall and to pet owners whose dogs sustained injury from eating the company’s products.

Customers who did not return products subject to recall can still receive a refund for up to two bags of food. Pet owners who incurred veterinary bills as a result of Diamond products can receive reimbursement for aflatoxin-specific testing and treatment, not to exceed $200 for testing or $1,000 for testing and treatment. Pet owners whose dogs died can receive a payment for the market value of the animal, not to exceed $1,000.

Diamond and its insurance company already had resolved about 1,200 claims for compensation for products, veterinary bills, and pet deaths prior to the settlement.

Additional information and claim forms are available by calling (800) 960-6651 or visiting recalledpetfoodsettlement. All claims must have a postmark of April 15 or earlier.

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.

The Food and Drug Administration made the announcement, labeling it a “scheme to import products purported to be wheat gluten into the United States that were contaminated with melamine. These products were used to make pet food.”

Named in two separate but related indictments are:

Xuzhou Anying Biologic Technology Development Co., LTD., a Chinese processor and exporter of plant proteins, and Mao Linzhun, its owner and manager.

Suzhou Textiles, Silk, Light Industrial Products, Arts and Crafts I/E Co. LTD., a Chinese export broker, and Chen Zhen Hao, its president.

ChemNutra, Inc., a Las Vegas, Nevada corporation that buys food and food components from China to sell to U.S. companies in the food industry, and its owners, Sally Qing Miller and her husband, Stephen S. Miller. Sally Q., a Chinese national, is the controlling owner and president; Stephen S. is an owner and CEO.

The 27-count indictments charge all three companies and four individuals with delivering adulterated food that contained melamine, which is believed to have sickened pets, and related offenses.

Here is how the FDA described the indictments:

The indictments allege that more than 800 tons of purported wheat gluten, totaling nearly $850,000, was imported into the United States between Nov. 6, 2006, and Feb. 21, 2007. According to the indictments, SSC falsely declared to the Chinese government that those shipments were not subject to mandatory inspection by the Chinese government prior to export.

Melamine can be used to create products such as plastics, cleaning products, glues, inks, and fertilizers. Under certain conditions, melamine mixed with wheat gluten can make the product appear to have a higher protein level than is actually present. Melamine has no approved use as an ingredient in human or animal food in the United States. Wheat gluten is a natural protein derived from wheat or wheat flour, which is extracted to yield a powder with high protein content. Pet food manufacturers often use wheat gluten as a thickener or binding agent in the manufacture of certain types of pet food.

ChemNutra contracted with SSC, a Chinese registered export broker, to purchase food grade wheat gluten, according to the indictment. SSC then entered into a separate contract with XAC to supply the wheat gluten it needed to fulfill its contract with ChemNutra.

The indictments allege that the products purported to be wheat gluten were misbranded because the labels incorrectly represented that the purported wheat gluten had a minimum protein level of 75%.

On March 15, 2007, a pet food manufacturer alerted FDA to the deaths of 14 cats and dogs, several reported by consumers and several that died during routine taste trials conducted by the company. The animals were reported to have developed kidney failure after eating pet food that had been manufactured with the purported wheat gluten.

The FDA did not indicate what penalties are possible based on the charges.

Three Companies Indicted Over Contaminated Pet Food That Killed Dozens Of Animals
Created: 2/6/2008

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Two Chinese businesses and a U.S. company were indicted Wednesday in the tainted pet food incidents that killed dozens of animals last year and raised worries about products made in China.

Xuzhou Anying Biologic Technology Development Co., Suzhou Textiles, Silk, Light Industrial Products, Arts and Crafts I/E Co., and Las Vegas-based Chemnutra Inc. were charged in two separate but related indictments. The U.S. attorney’s office in Kansas City said the tainted food led to the death and serious illness of pets in the U.S. last year.

One of the indictments charges Xuzhou Anying Biologic, located in China’s Jiangsu Province, and Suzhou Textiles, in Suzhou, China, with 13 counts of introduction of adulterated food into interstate commerce and 13 counts of introduction of misbranded food into interstate commerce.

ChemNutra and company owners Sally Quing Miller, 31, a Chinese national, and her husband, Stephen S. Miller, 55, were charged with 13 counts of introduction of adulterated food into interstate commerce, 13 counts of introduction of misbranded food into interstate commerce and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

Maker of Tainted Dog Food to Pay $3.1M
By MEG KINNARD

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A company that made contaminated pet food that killed dozens of dogs nationwide will pay $3.1 million in a settlement with pet owners, an attorney said Friday.

The pet food, which contained a mold called aflatoxin, was produced at Diamond Pet Foods‘ plant in South Carolina. The company will set up a fund to reimburse pet owners for the loss of their dog, veterinarian bills and the cost of any unreturned contaminated food, said attorney Jim Andrews, who represented a Knoxville, Tenn., family that sued the company.

Diamond Pet Foods, based in Meta, Mo., acknowledged that workers at its Gaston, S.C., plant failed to follow internal testing procedures to ensure its products were safe. The company made the acknowledgment after the Food and Drug Administration released a report showing the company has no record of test results for 12 shipments of corn in 2005, when grain tainted with the deadly fungus slipped into the plant.

The company contends it did nothing illegal, according to the settlement. Mark Schell, Diamond’s assistant general manager, did not immediately return a telephone message.

Aflatoxin, a naturally occurring chemical that comes from a fungus sometimes found on corn and in other crops, can cause severe liver damage.

The contaminated pet food was sold in 23 states. Diamond recalled about 20 varieties of dog and cat food when a New York veterinarian said in December 2005 that she had linked a dog’s death to the company’s food.

Follow this link to read the rest of this article.

Follow this link to get more information on the settlement.

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.

There were no accurate counts earlier on how many pets had died from eating contaminated food, although estimates had run from a few dozen to several thousand.

The Michigan State University study showed the cause of death may have been related to melamine and cyanuric acid, two food contaminants that turned deadly when pet food manufacturers combined them.

“When combined, they form crystals which can block the kidneys,” said Wilson Rumbeiha, an associate professor in Michigan State’s Diagnostic Center for Population and Animal Health.

“Unfortunately, these crystals don’t dissolve easily. They go away slowly, if at all, so there is the potential for chronic toxicity,” Rumbeiha said.

Rumbeiha found that 347 cases met the criteria for what he called “pet food-induced nephrotoxicity.” The cases involved 235 cats and 112 dogs.

A request for comment was left Thursday with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which oversees pet food safety among its other duties.

Michigan State based its findings on data collected from veterinarians, veterinary technicians and pathologists from April 5 through June 6.

The survey was commissioned by the American Association of Veterinary Laboratory Diagnosticians.

The Michigan State study found that more cats and smaller dogs got sick than larger dogs, and that the most cases of animals sickened by the contaminated food occurred in Texas, Illinois and Michigan.

About a quarter of the affected animals already had a condition that made them more susceptible, such as kidney or cardiovascular disease.

“The good news is we are not seeing any new cases,” Rumbeiha said

Follow this link to read the rest of the article.