We thought we were safe from recalls and tainted food because, although Pickles’ breakfast was a commercial dog food, it was vegan. But one of the brands we used to feed our dog was on the list. Like others who share their lives with dogs, we’ve decided to cook for him from now on (see the seitan and faux-chicken gravy dish we’re cooking up minus the kibble!). But not everyone is going to do that.
If you feed your animals—dogs, cats, hamsters, and others—commercial food, you need to take some precautions to protect them. The latest recall of so far 14 brands of foods has not only sickened countless animals, but it has sent five people to the hospital from salmonella. It’s not the first recall and it certainly won’t be the last. But animals are being made sick. Sometimes they die. And to add insult to injury, many of those could have been prevented.
Long before “voluntary” recalls were initiated in the latest round, the companies peddling their poisoned food knew about the problems. The FDA also knew. As Christie notes below, “The only ones who didn’t know were us. In fact, we still don’t know if there are other brands … that have chosen not to issue a recall, or are hoping no one will ever find out the truth.” As a result, you might be feeding your companion animals tainted food right now.
I asked Christie Keith to put together a short post on how to protect your loved ones from harm, including an “early warning” alarm system so you’ll have the information about future recalls as soon as possible. Christie is a journalist, blogger, and communications consultant who was one of the main sources of coverage for the 2007 pet food recall. She reported on it for the San Francisco Chronicle and for Pet Connection, a nationally syndicated pet feature and blog. She keeps an eye on pet food safety issues, No Kill, and other pet related issues at HonestDog.com.
Protecting Your Pets From Tainted Food
By Christie Keith
Who can you trust when it comes to the safety of your pets’ food? Yourself.
That’s the hard lesson learned since 2007’s four-month, 1000-brand pet food recall, and from all the smaller recalls since then. The current rolling recall of (so far) 14 different brands made at Diamond Pet Food’s salmonella-contaminated South Carolina manufacturing plant is serving as a painful reminder. (To find out if your brand of pet food is on the list click here.)
One of the hardest things to cope with when we try to protect our pets from contaminated or mis-formulated foods is that getting information about how and where those foods are produced can be almost impossible. For example, during the 2007 recall, pet owners were shocked to learn that the pet foods they were buying were all made by one company no one had ever heard of, Menu Foods. The same thing is happening now, as we find out the foods we were buying for our pets under a variety of labels—some of them the highest-priced brands on the market—were all made by a single company, Diamond Pet Foods.
Since there’s no law requiring pet food products to be labeled with the name or location of their actual manufacturer, you have no way to know if a recall of one brand might affect a completely different brand. That’s why even though Diamond announced a salmonella-related recall in early April, it wasn’t until more than a month later that we started hearing about all the other brands that were involved—after 14 people were sickened, and five people and an unknown number of pets were sent to the hospital.
But here’s the thing: the pet food companies knew all along, from day one, that their foods were being made at that plant. They knew salmonella had been found in products made there. They knew the plant had been closed down. But for weeks, none of them did anything, not until further testing by the FDA started finding salmonella in those other foods, too. Then one by one they started issuing very limited recalls, several weeks after the first recall. For more than a month, people were buying pet food—sometimes very expensive pet food—that had the potential to make their dogs and cats sick, as well as themselves.
To make matter worse, the FDA also knew which brands of food were manufactured in that same plant, but they, too, did not make a timely public announcement. The FDA knew. Diamond knew. All the individual companies knew. The only ones who didn’t know were us. In fact, we still don’t know if there are other brands manufactured at that plant that have chosen not to issue a recall, or are hoping no one will ever find out the truth.
Here’s how to protect yourself:
- Set up a Google alert for the phrase “pet food recall” and the name of the brand or brands you feed your pets. (Improve the results of the Google alert by enabling blog and news searches, not just web searches. Bloggers may report a problem with food that doesn’t pan out, but they are often the first to break legitimate recall stories.)
- Keep an eye on websites that monitor recalls such as HonestDog.com. Blogs like this are often first with recall news.
- Follow the FDA’s recall Twitter feed
- Subscribe to the FDA’s email recall alert system
- Track #petfoodrecall on Twitter
Sadly, the information you get from these sources may be days old. So add these steps to your pet food safety to-do list:
- Find out where your pets’ food is actually manufactured. Don’t let pet food companies blow off your questions. If they say they don’t know, or they can’t tell you, seriously consider whether that’s a product you want to give to your pets.
- Don’t feed one brand all the time. Some recalls are not for contamination with industrial toxins or bacteria, but for improperly formulated foods. Feeding a variety of different foods from different sources—including manufactured in different plants, once you get them to give you that information—may protect your pet from the most serious effects of under- or over-supply of certain nutrients. It can even protect against contaminants, because many of them are not as dangerous if consumed in very low levels.
- Adopt a one-strike rule. Even good food companies may be affected by a recall, but if they handle it badly, announce late, don’t implement immediate and transparent changes to prevent a repeat of the problem, find another pet food company.
- Report problems to the FDA. You can report problems with pet and human foods and drugs directly to the FDA. You don’t have to go through your veterinarian. Just fill out the form here. It may take weeks or months, but they do investigate these reports.
- Get active. Keep pressing the FDA to stop protecting industry’s interests and privacy above the health of you and your families of all species. They can be contacted through their website. Tell them, and tell your congressional representatives, too, that you want country of origin of all ingredients and address of manufacture on every pet food label.
Neither the FDA nor the pet food companies involved are aggressively looking out for your companion animals. You have to do it yourself.
For further reading: