The recalls began on March 16, 2007. The death and destruction of pets began weeks before the first recall, and lasted for years after.
Per the Office of Inspector General evaluation report of FDA’s handling of the recall:
“According to FDA, it received approximately 18,000 consumer complaints from March through May 2007 regarding melamine-contaminated pet food that was causing illness and death among pets. The melamine-related recalls involved 27 firms and more than 1,000 products.”
“FDA’s lack of authority, coupled with its sometimes lax adherence to its recall guidance and internal procedures and the inadequacy of some of those procedures, limited FDA’s ability to ensure that contaminated pet food was promptly removed from retailers’ shelves.”
In other words, in 2007, FDA did not follow their own procedures to assure deadly pet food was promptly removed from store shelves. Pet’s died because of FDA’s failure.
From a Senate Hearing held on April 12, 2007 regarding the recall:
Statement from Senator Durbin at hearing: “Menu Foods, the pet food manufacturer involved, first noticed a potential problem on February 20, 2007. The company has reported that, on this date, it first started noticing test animals were getting sick and refusing to eat their product. How long did the company wait to notify the Food and Drug Administration? Almost 3 1⁄2 weeks.”
The pet food manufacturer – Menu Foods – waited “almost 3 1⁄2 weeks” before notifying FDA they had a problem. Pet’s died because of that manufacturer failure.
Promises broken.
After the Senate Hearing, Senator Durbin took the lead in writing legislation that was intended to prevent another deadly disaster in pet food. Laws were written – titled Ensuring the Safety of Pet Food. These laws required FDA to establish safety/quality standards for pet food ingredients and update pet food labels to provide pet owners with more information. Congress required FDA to complete these pet food safety updates by September 2009.
But FDA did not complete the pet food safety updates. Year after year went by – the requirements of Congress and the needs of pet owners were ignored. And finally in 2018 the laws thousands of pets died for were deleted from record by an addendum to an unrelated bill submitted by Senator Rand Paul.
Where are we today?
Within the official documents (OIG Report and Senate Hearing transcript) the FDA made statements acknowledging they needed to improve how the agency handles pet food recalls. But have they?
The evidence shows the FDA continues to fail, industry continues to fail – and pets pay the price.
In January 2019, Hill’s Pet Food announced a recall due to excess vitamin D. Seven weeks later, Hill’s expanded the recall to many more foods. This delay evidences a failure with FDA investigation of the recall and Hill’s Pet Food failure to investigate the contaminated vitamin premix.
Another example is the Purina excess vitamin D recall announced February 8, 2023. Four weeks later, on March 10, 2023, Purina too expanded the recall to include more contaminated pet foods.
Expanded recalls have become a common thing. Expanded recalls result in needless pet illnesses and deaths. Expanded recalls evidence regulatory and industry failures.
Pet Food (Feed) versus Human Food
Recalls happen in both pet food and human food. However FDA handles human food recalls VERY differently. As example…
In 2009 the Peanut Corporation of America experienced a massive recall. There were 714 human illnesses linked to the peanut products, and 9 human deaths. The owners of Peanut Corporation of America were convicted of putting adulterated food into interstate commerce – and were sentenced to 28 years in prison.
By comparison, the US company that imported the contaminated ingredients from China which resulted in the 2007 pet food recall was ChemNutra. The owners of ChemNutra were also charged with multiple counts of introducing adulterated food into interstate commerce. There were tens of thousands of pet illnesses, and thousands of pet deaths. However the owners of ChemNutra were not sentenced to prison as in the human food incident, instead this company was fined a mere $35,000.00.
Below is just one story of the 2007 recall, a letter one pet owner sent to the Judge that issued the small fine:
“Dear Judge Maughmer
I understand that you are getting ready to sentence ChemNutra. As you are contemplating the sentence, I hope you consider all of the emotional pain this company has caused. I spent agonizing months attempting to pull my little dog back from the brink that was caused by this company. In the final days, Merlin and I sat next to each other, he in a tank attached to oxygen and I on the bedroom floor next to him so that he wouldn’t feel alone. I’m disabled and it was not easy, but I was determined that Merlin knew he hadn’t done anything to warrant his isolation. In the end, I held him in my arms while my veterinarian administered a lethal dosage that would finally separate me from my dear friend. It cost $6000 in vet bills, several friendships, and almost a marriage. I cried for months. Please make sure ChemNutra pays for this horrible crime.”
We must NEVER forget.
While all the evidence shows that many manufacturers of pet food and regulatory authorities have long forgotten those horrible days in 2007 – we cannot forget. For the many pets that died, and for the pets that continue to die due to reckless manufacturing and lax regulatory oversight – we must continue to ask questions, demand answers, and write letters. We cannot forget those pets.
Wishing you and your pet(s) the best,
Susan Thixton
Pet Food Safety Advocate
Author Buyer Beware, Co-Author Dinner PAWsible
TruthaboutPetFood.com
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What’s in Your Pet’s Food?
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The 2023 List
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Sharon Kroker
March 17, 2023 at 3:56 pm
I am crying ready this! Thanks to you, Dr. Coger and so many others, I have not fed kibble for over 20 years – only human grade, fresh food.
CatsMommy
March 17, 2023 at 4:30 pm
It is so discouraging to consider the low regard the FDA has when it comes to regulating pet food and/or making a distinction between pet food and pet feed. High quality pet food definitely excludes much from China as well as much from here. (FDA’s high threshold for incompetency when it comes to dealing with rogue pet food companies is actually frightening to us pet owners!)
Let us hope that someday not so far in the distant future that a great recognition will occur that pets are what they eat just as humans are and then the FDA will accordingly stop being reticent on this issue but will instead take serious action.
Kitty
March 17, 2023 at 6:36 pm
Thank you Susan for your hard work and dedication to these matters! We used your vetted list of pet food manufacturers (that use real human grade food) to find better food for our fur children!!! Thank you and God bless you!!!!
JT
March 17, 2023 at 9:55 pm
A powerful review and reminder of how we have been betrayed by the very agency that was (in their own words) created to responsibly protect public health, the nation’s food supply, assure the safety, efficacy, and security of human/veterinary drugs, biological products, among other things.
Yet they have demonstrated through their own actions that they cannot be trusted. For that reason, we can never let our guard down, no matter what they say or claim. As such, we can never forget or we’ll find ourselves repeating the same tragedies. It is a disturbing reality that we can no longer trust the agency(s) that we, as a nation, fund to protect us and our pets.
Bunny
March 18, 2023 at 11:39 am
2007 was when I began home preparation of my dogs’ foods with locally sourced organic ingredients specifically due to the extreme dangers of US pet food purveyors sourcing from CHINA. 2007 is when the US should have decided once and for all to STOP DOING ANY AND ALL BUSINESS WITH CHINA including NO MORE importing of ANYTHING whatsoever. No more US owned companies basing operations in China. No more China-owned companies operating on US soil – most people don’t seem to know or care that the four biggest HUMAN food processors are owned by CHINA based companies with unbreakable ties to the CCP. Here it is 16 years later and we still VERY FOOLISHLY continue our dangerous relationship with CHINA in every facet of business and education and property ownership and hard/soft goods including electronics. AND YET TO THIS DAY there are willfully ignorant pet parents who don’t bother to read labels or check the source, manufacturing, and/or packaging of pet foods and toys (!!) and continue to provide their allegedly loved pets with all kinds of lethal products from CHINA. JUST SAY NO TO CHINA.
Peter
March 19, 2023 at 8:23 am
Our entire economy is too interconnected with China to “just say NO.” We cannot withdraw from this relationship or punish China in any meaningful way, because they have the capacity to push back more than we can. The risk is simply too great. Sadly, what we really need are politicians who will help structure enormous tax breaks for American companies to move production here. It would involve re-aligning our entire economy.
David Boothman
March 18, 2023 at 2:49 pm
Like many government regulators, the individual responsible people in control are quite simply parasites, living on high salaries and pension costs at taxpayer expense whilst willfully avoiding the task with which they are charged. This will continue as it is now with the flagrant failure of regulators to perform the duties with which they were charged in the regulation of Banking, doing anything that pleased them except performing the simple well defined task with which they were charged.
Jeff Gibbs
March 18, 2023 at 4:32 pm
March of 2007 is unforgetable for me. Particularly March 17th as I fielded many calls from consumers with pets that suffered from melamine poisoning. The melamine poisoning event was a tragdy for everyone it touched. I worked for Menu Foods. Susan, your article needs some corrections. Menu did not learn there was an issue until March 6th and took immediate action to determine cause and magnitude of product(s) involvement (Melamine wasn’t determined to be the culprit until the last week of March). Yes, it took until the 13th of March, 7 days, to initially ascertain what ingredient was causing the issue and what products needed to be recalled. On the morning of March 14th I called the FDA office in Kansas City to inform them of our intent to recall product, they requested that we hold off until Friday the 16th to announce the recall. On Saturday the 17th I answered calls from pet parent, very tragic calls.
While the events of 2007 were tragic for pets it could have been more tragic if melamine laced wheat gluten had entered human food. The FSMA came directly from the 2007 event. Prior to FSMA the FDA had no power to force recalls and overall has made the food/feed industry safer, not perfect. The recalls you mention in your article are the result of human failure and gaps in HACCP programs. Overall, the industry continues to evolve making products safer, with perfect safety the goal.
Peter
March 19, 2023 at 8:26 am
Pet Food Politics, by Marion Nestle.
Marilyn Marinelli
March 21, 2023 at 10:22 am
My both two dogs came down with cancer at the same time this was going on. They also lost there ability to bark. Only barked in whispers. The vets I took them both to didn’t know why this was happening and did what they unknowingly new what to do. I also contacted the dog food company and they said oh just go get another bag for free. I lost my two precious collies within a few months of each other. Heart broken and mad about what happened to my wonderful precious dogs. Thank a lot for warning us all. Enough said.
Jennie Hale
July 5, 2023 at 10:34 pm
I’m very sorry to anyone who lost a pet to a food recall…something like this should never happen. It’s hard enough losing dear friends simply to old age, let alone a life and friendship cut short! To human error….cats should be running facilities…they are such neat freaks…dogs too perhaps…or good for meeting and greet spokes dogs!
I’m very grateful to have shopped at Krisers for years, a very careful pet store…and also home cooked some food…simply as I was lucky enough to grow up around health food.
We as a world could use some back to basics mentality… and I’ve been noticing pet food companies are popping up of that nature. Thank goodness!
Why did we ever stray…
Once upon a time pet’s were fed real meat…and lived longer too !
Though I think a safe pet food is a good treat/ quick busy day meal..like your favorite soup etc…
Best wishes to everyone!