The pet food recall continues to expand, and now it seems a second—and much larger—avenue into the human food supply has been identified.  Chickens:

The Food and Drug Adminstration said Tuesday that as many as 3 million chickens that may have been given contaminated feed containing melamine have already been eaten by consumers, according to NBC News.

In addition to those used as food, even more used for breeding are now being quarantined.

Meanwhile, scientists have discovered the probable cause of death for dogs and cats:

Scientists from Canada and the United States say they have new evidence for why dogs and cats died after eating contaminated pet food.

Owners of more than 4,000 pets have complained to the federal Food and Drug Administration that their animals died after eating food that was later recalled.

Inspectors found melamine in the tainted products, but not at levels that would normally kill. But researchers now say that it may have mixed with another compound — cyanuric acid — to produce crystals that may have been deadly.

“What we’ve done is experiments that show if you take cat urine and you add melamine to it and cyanuric acid, the crystals will form in the cat urine in a test tube as we’re watching them, so it happens within a matter of hours,” said Alan Wildeman, vice president of Canada’s University of Guelph, which is renowned for its veterinary research center.

The crystals are suspected of contributing to kidney failure in pets.

Oh, and did you catch that?  At least 4,000 reports have been filed with the FDA by pet owners saying their dogs and cats died after eating the poison.

To be more precise:

The FDA said Friday it had received more than 17,000 consumer complaints about the tainted pet food, including the deaths of 1,950 cats and 2,200 dogs.

I think we’re still counting in that regard.  I think the news will be even more severe and grim than it is now.

Yet our government still has not stopped imports from China despite knowing several products from that country were intentionally adulterated before being sold to American companies.  While the FDA says they might suspend shipments for human food, what they obviously are too dumb to realize is that what’s imported for animal consumption will end up in the human food supply.

But that’s not even what I think is so intolerable.

We’re willing to take a stand to protect people while continuing to import products that have already killed animals.  I guess thousands of non-human deaths simply aren’t that important.

Their priorities are all messed up.

And let me be a broken record one more time: See the FDA’s pet food recall page for the latest.  More brands have been added, more companies have announced recalls, and more information is being posted about the intimidating reaches and impact of this event.

I continue to think we’ve yet to see the full reach of this.