The monthlong pet food recall expanded Tuesday with a
troubling twist, for the first time involving foods that do not
contain wheat gluten but still tested positive for a potentially
lethal chemical.
The finding makes it much tougher to tell people what
to safely feed their pets and fuels suspicions that the chemical
melamine is being deliberately added to some pet food ingredients to
bolster apparent protein.
Natural Balance, a Pacoima-based company, is "99.9
percent sure" that a rice protein made in Asia is responsible for
the melamine detected Tuesday in some of its venison-based pet
foods, company President Joey Herrick said.
"It was pretty shocking," he said in a phone
interview after the company recalled several of its venison foods.
"I was livid."
Herrick declined to name the supplier of the rice
protein or the country it came from, saying only that a large
American company acquired the ingredient for Diamond Pet Foods,
which makes some Natural Balance products.
Because both wheat gluten and rice protein enhance
the protein content of pet food, "it certainly is suspicious" that
melamine now is associated with both, said Bob Poppenga, a UC Davis
veterinary toxicology professor.
Melamine isn't an edible protein, but it has plenty
of nitrogen, which can be used as a marker for protein in chemical
analyses.
So, if someone wanted to use less of the
relatively pricey sources of vegetable protein, such as wheat
gluten, and throw in cheaper starches instead, adding melamine to
that mix would still make it look like a protein-rich product,
numerous veterinary nutritionists and toxicologists have said.
With such speculation swirling, the rice protein-melamine link
further alarmed pet owners as it began appearing on Web sites
Tuesday, said Gina Spadafori, a Sacramento-based author who runs a
pet Web site.
"I see people who are being almost panicky," she
said. "Last week, it was easy for veterinary associations to say if
you want to feel better, just avoid wheat gluten," Spadafori said.
"Now for this expansion to be an entirely different protein source
... I don't think right now anybody can say, 'Go feed this, it's
safe.' "
Natural Balance President Herrick was so shaken by
the melamine finding that he imposed a new policy Tuesday to hold
all company foods in a warehouse until an offsite lab tests each
batch for melamine. He won't ship anything until it has tested
clean, he said.
Local veterinarians who've tracked kidney ailments
nationwide have tentatively identified five more foods, not at this
point under any recall, that they plan to have tested as soon as
possible.
The Veterinary Information Network, used by about
16,000 of the estimated 35,000 U.S. veterinarians, noticed the five
foods kept recurring in vet-described disease reports, said Paul
Pion, the Davis vet who co-founded the service. Pion said it would
be premature to name the foods.
He hopes to get suspect food samples to the
California Animal Health and Food Safety Laboratory at UC Davis to
start testing as early as today. As the recall expands, "my sense is
it's time for every manufacturer to go testing for melamine," Pion
said.
The notion that melamine could be a deliberate
additive -- not an industrial mistake -- arose as early as April 5,
when Stephen Sundlof, head of the FDA's Center for Veterinary
Medicine, said that the pet food recall could turn into a criminal
investigation if investigators find that melamine was added
deliberately.
Later, the New York Times reported that the Chinese
company that supplied tainted wheat gluten to Menu Foods sought to
buy large amounts of melamine through Internet trading sites.
More than 4,000 pet deaths have been reported on
Spadafori's petconnetion.com site. Others have estimated
recall-related deaths at hundreds to thousands of pets nationwide.
All the 100 or so products recalled previously had
involved wheat gluten, the vast majority of them dog food, cat food
and treats manufactured for many labels by the Canada-based company
Menu Foods.
As of Tuesday evening, the Natural Balance recalls
hadn't appeared there. Natural Balance recalled two products Monday
and added more Tuesday after learning of the melamine test results.
It has pulled back Venison and Brown Rice canned and bagged dog
foods, Venison and Brown Rice dog treats and Venison and Green Pea
dry cat food.
For pet owners, vets said, the important thing to be
aware of is any behavior change that seems linked to either a new
food, or even a new bag of the same food. Symptoms could include
loss of appetite, vomiting, lethargy and excess drinking or
urinating.
