The Source of Tainted Pet Food

Susy Owen

Attorney

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As the pet food recall widens yet again, the contamination has reached hogs as it makes its way into the human food chain. "This is something quite new," said Grant Maxie, a clinical pathologist and director of the Animal Health Laboratory at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada. "We haven't seen this before, and we may never see it again." Let hope not. The problem is heart breaking. So many animals have been hurt to the extreme and many have died.

The cause of the problem has still not been pinpointed exactly. You may recall back in March the New York State Food Laboratory found pet food tainted with rat poison in the form of aminopterin in cat food samples. Then the FDA and Cornell University found the industrial chemical melamine in wheat gluten and rice protein concentrate, which had been imported from China. The curious thing is that malamine is not even on the radar of what would be used in or around pet food. No one is quite sure why it is there or how it got there. Let's hope we get a handle on this problem very soon. Pet lovers are heart broken and at a complete loss. Stay tuned as we try to get to the bottom of this disaster.