By Shanon Trueman, Nerac Analyst
I own the smartest, cutest, and funniest dog in the world.

Well, maybe only one of the smartest, cutest, and funniest dogs. Agatha, my two-year-old mini dachshund, has moments when she is a complete knucklehead. She is pretty funny though, and she is pretty cute. And I am not the only pet owner to feel this way. Most pet owners consider their pets, whether they are dogs, cats, gerbils, or horses, as family members.

That may be part of the reason that the recent pet food recalls by Menu Foods (and more recently, other companies) are so disturbing. On March 16, Menu Foods of Canada recalled nearly 100 brands of wet pet foods after hundreds of dogs and cats were sickened with kidney failure. Fifteen cats and one dog have died after eating the tainted food, the FDA has reported, although other sources, such as the web site petconnection.com, have reported over 3,500 unconfirmed deaths. Data from the American Veterinary Medicine Association estimates 39,000 animals, or three out of every 10,000 cats and dogs, have been affected by the contamination, which seems to have affected cats more severely than dogs.

Finding The Source
Laboratories in Canada and the United States initially blamed aminopterin, a rat poison not commonly used in the United States, suggesting that wheat gluten imported from China and used to thicken the gravy in wet pet foods, was the source. However, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) later announced that it did not detect aminopterin in the foods, but it did find melamine, a chemical used to make fertilizers and plastics. The FDA subsequently announced that it found melamine in samples of the imported wheat gluten. By mid-April, melamine was also suspected in rice protein imported from China, causing more pet food brand recalls. . More recently, cyanuric acid, a high-nitrogen chemical used as a swimming pool stabilizer, was implicated in the contamination of pet foods, according to The New York Times.
While it has not been proved definitively that melamine or cyanuric acid are to blame, Cornell scientists found melamine in the urine of sick cats and in the kidney of one cat that died after eating wet food manufactured by Menu Foods. That would make sense. The International Chemical Safety Card on melamine says that when ingested in large amounts, the substance can affect the kidneys and bladder, resulting in stone formation. The World Health Organization classifies melamine as a chemical “that causes tumors of the kidney or urinary bladder.” Scientists at the University of Guelph found that melamine and cyanuric acid may react together to form crystals that could impair kidney function.

What Is Government’s Role?
Could government regulations have prevented these deaths? If these were human cases, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) would be assisting in the tracking and confirmation of cases. However, there is no CDC for pets.

The Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition within the FDA regulates the safety of substances applied to foods, the labeling of foods, and food standards, and the Center for Veterinary Medicine within the FDA regulates pet foods. The FDA ensures that pet food ingredients are safe and have a function, but the agency is not required to give pet foods pre-market approval. Substances generally recognized as safe (GRAS) are permitted for use in pet foods. Wheat gluten, for example, is affirmed as GRAS and can be used in human and pet foods.

The problems with the wheat gluten apparently did not stem from FDA regulatory breakdown or failure, though. Many companies test incoming ingredients independently, using Association of American Feed Control Officials guidelines, but it is safe to say that few companies would have thought to test for melamine or cyanuric acid contamination. Melamine tests may become the norm now, however. The Las Vegas importer of the contaminated Chinese wheat gluten, ChemNutra, has suggested that spiking a product with melamine or cyanuric acid can make it appear to be higher in protein, thus increasing its value. FDA inspections of pet food processing plants are conducted only on a risk basis, due to what the FDA claims are limited resources. And the FDA has few resources to inspect all the foods and ingredients being imported today. Congress is examining FDA resources with an eye toward adding to them, but it will likely take time before anything changes.

How will the recalls affect the pet food market? Some pet owners are shunning manufactured pet foods altogether and creating homemade diets using human foods. However, owners must be careful to create a nutritional balance for their pets which is provided by most pet foods. Raw pet foods, which are frozen patty or nugget-sized pieces of uncooked meats, fruits, or vegetables which may be fortified with vitamins and minerals, normally account for less than 1 percent of U.S. pet food sales. But sales are up 5-10 percent since the March 16 recall despite costs that are 50-100 percent higher than high-end dog and cat foods. The FDA issued manufacturing and labeling guidelines for these products, due to the risk of animals and humans being sickened by pathogens in raw meat.

Other consumers have turned to organic and natural pet foods, which accounted for $400 million in sales last year. Still, that’s merely a fraction of the total $14.5 billion U.S. pet food market. Food products bearing the organic classification must meet independently verified standards by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA). However, organic diets do not necessarily guarantee against contamination, as some toxins occur naturally.

And pet foods labeled “gourmet,” “premium,” or “natural,” are not required to contain any different or higher quality ingredients or to meet any higher nutritional standards than any other pet food.

Assuredly, something must change as this story unfolds, whether it is governmental regulations on ingredient testing, the importation of ingredients from other countries, or labeling. After all, as any pet owner can attest to, when you love someone like family, nothing is too good for them. I have been lucky in that none of Agatha’s food was recalled, but I find myself reading labels more carefully and thinking twice about what I feed her. We all want the best for our family members, don’t we?