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For Cate (and others in her place):
Last week the news on the pet food recall was grim. Among the stories of loss we shudder to read about came the “revelation” that more pets were affected than has likely been reported by the pet food companies. Then finally, on Friday, news out of the FDA of another toxin: melamine. Though its role is unclear, it plunges vets and owners ever deeper into the confusion provoked by the initial recall.
By Saturday, Menu Foods had received 300,000 complaints and the FDA tallied 8,000 reports. The owner-advocate organization, PetConnection.com, had gathered almost three-thousand specific self-reported cases of death. And VIN (the Veterinary Information Network) had received over seven hundred a week ago—reported directly by the limited percentage of vets who are VIN members. And yet the death toll is still listed as a paltry sixteen.
Of course, all but the official sixteen are classified as “unconfirmed.” But, as is the case with VIN’s numbers, these are also the most obvious ones where owners have had the funds to pay for advanced care or seek euthanasia as a financial or humane alternative. True “confirmation” of cases is likely to take months (if lots of clinical information has been gathered before and after the event) and only if both vet and owner are proactive enough to seek justice in each specific instance.
My own sick patient is doing much better. After two weeks in hospital her creatinine is now down near normal and she feels so much better. The pet food company in question has agreed to foot the bill. But that doesn’t mean she’s numbered among the confirmed cases. Far from it. Her owner has a long way to go before she’ll get the justice she’s due. From my point of view, the vet bill is only restitution. Justice comes later when the dust settles and we can see clearly who did what and when they did it—and only if we all have the courage to demand it.
But I have a prediction: most cases will be almost impossible to confirm. And then they’ll get lost in the sticky human mire of grief, ignorance and frustration.
People will get discouraged. Or perhaps the payment from the food companies will satisfy them sufficiently that they might not seek legal means to achieve the justice they know they deserve—because they don’t know how to go about it or because it’s hard to get things done when people are feeling angry and hurt.
Their stories will no longer be in the media. And the loss of a pet has a short-lived shelf-life as far as most of the world is concerned. (“After all, there are people dying in Iraq and Darfur. Get real, it’s only a cat!”)
But justice is irreplaceable—whether we’re talking about your cat, your car or your brother’s life. Without it, we have no right to consider ours a civilized nation.
As a close family member of someone who was killed by a foreign government not long ago, I know well the stress of the crisis that comes after the loss. I see it as a completely distinct emergency, one that requires an almost complete dedication to the cause of justice—even from the beginning, as you’re grieving.
Can you imagine how sickening it must be to talk on the telephone with reporters and lawyers when all you want to do is curl up in a ball and die? It makes the anguish of loss almost surreal. And it inevitably makes justice that much less tenable.
Most people can’t move themselves to do what’s necessary to secure appropriate redress—for obvious human reasons—while those that can usually don’t know how to make things happen. And the learning curve on legal means of achieving justice against a big institutionalized player is steep, indeed, whether we’re talking about foreign governments or multi-national consumer product conglomerates.
In my experience, the issue of legal ignorance is the real problem. How do you keep an issue alive long after your cat is dead or has finally recovered? When your opponent is a powerful industry that wants this handled as quietly as possible and has the money to make that happen? When your friends and co-workers are starting to look at you like you need therapy more than justice? It’s not easy. I know. I’m not insensitive.
I was recently chastised for being careless to the feelings of those directly hurt by the pet food recall. (See my satiric piece on Dolittler’s Pet Food Recall Awards.) Though it’s my honest belief that the owners of affected pets need all the support we can give them, emotional support is perhaps the tiniest piece of what we can and should offer them.
Because those of us not directly affected have the luxury of being possessed of more dispassionate reason, we should take our role in this case as seriously as those seeking justice directly for their pets’ sake. After all, it could have happened to us. And if we care about living in a civilized world where individuals, corporations and countries, alike, are held accountable for their actions, then it’s as much our responsibility as it is theirs—more so perhaps, as we don’t have to push back tears as we do the necessary work.
Write to your State Veterinarian. Write to the FDA. Write to your local congressional representative. Write to your local newspaper. Check out PetConnection's list of to-do's. Call your friends if it helps but, whatever you do, don’t stop talking about the recall.
And, Cate, we really are truly sorry for what you’re going through. Moreover, I’m sorry if anything I said made you feel as if we didn’t care as much as we do.
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People are scared. This is not to say that they weren't scared before, but now it's coming to light that more and more products are tainted. Some of these people let their guard down and relaxed alittle as they were not feeding their pets anything from the original recall list until "surpise" there is more and it wouldn't surpise me if there is still yet more to come.
In between that, I found this site http://www.wheatworld.org/html/news.cfm?ID=1178. While the article was written on March 30, I had to wonder just what side of the fece they are actually sitting on. While they say that wheat gluten for humans is perfectly safe for human consumption, at the bottom it states that they import wheat, although they are quick to say that they do not import from China which may or may not be true. But if these pet food companies can cut corners as a means of saving a buck, whose to say companies that make human foods will not do the same?
I've taken alot of heat for the sugestion over the past couple of days. I've also had people telling me that my own diet is probably loaded with the stuff and since it hasn't killed me yet, it must be okay. An interesting point of view, but I'd prefer not to somebodies lab rat to find out.
Then I started thinking about all the animal shelters that depend on donations. I still cannot wrap my brain around how of those animals have died. Grim doesn't even begin to describe what some of those animals have gone through. While I don't usually feel anything but hosility for animal horders, I do feel for their animals as well because these people depend on donations if they feed their animals at all in some cases.
You're right Dr.Patty, this whole situation is not going to go away if people don't become proactive. I actually had somebody tell me that it was good Menu Foods saved money by purchasing wheat from China. I can only gather that this person is a anti-pet person or is so delusional that she can't see the trees through the forest. As long as this whole thing didn't effect her, who cares. She's right up there with the "If it hasn't killed me, it must safe" people as far as I'm concerned.
And people wonder why this country is in the state that it is in regardless of political agenda. People can blame the dems, republicans or whomever they want. The fact of the matter is that there are lots of people making lots of money a year while they do nothing but sit on their ass while pretending to look after the best interest of all the reside in this country. I wonder how many more times there has to be food recalls for humans and animals before people remove their rose colored glasses to realise this....
Read the laws/ rules and weep. They are pretty sad....
http://www.fda.gov/cvm/prodregulation.htm
"There is no requirement that pet food products have premarket approval by the FDA. However, FDA ensures that the ingredients used in pet food are safe and have an appropriate function in the pet food. Many ingredients such as meat, poultry, grains, and their byproducts are considered safe “foods” and do not require premarket approval."
Link... http://www.fda.gov/cvm/petfoods.htm#consumer
This whole fiasco has been scary enough, but I could look at my healthy, happy, furry friends and applaud my decision to feed my cats only dry food (Hills Science Diet C/D). Ha! that recall didn't affect me! Then I read the latest news. I know they recalled a different HSD formula, but damn, we're getting too close for comfort.
And Stacy, hog away, and thank you for the information. And for raising the very valid point about the shelter animals. It's pretty sad that I have 7 former strays but never gave the shelter animals a thought in all this. Thank you for the reminder.
Then the news broke....I think this is much bigger than we have been told in the news.
Christie Keith wrote a good article:
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2007/...
As someone who has fed primarily raw for many years, I wonder now what people will be saying to their vets when lectured about the safety issues with cooked and raw diets, and how perfectly formulated commercial foods are.
If I wanted to add wheat gluten( imported from China no less) I'd be doing it already. No thanks. My heart goes out to my agility friend and to everyone else who has lost a pet through the greed and negligence of Menu Foods and their clients.
In fact, this is an excellent idea for another post. I think I'll table tomorrow's talk of plastic surgery in favor of a little more vet industry politics.