It goes without saying that the pet food recall has grown again.  More brands and more products have been added to the list.  Be sure you’re checking the FDA’s page regularly.

Yet that’s not the most troubling aspect of this.  And neither is the obvious spread of the tainted products into the human food supply, and some of that on a large scale of already consumed meats.

No, what’s frightening is this report about the latest scientific findings.  And it’s something I’ve alluded to before.  To wit:

The prime suspect for the killer ingredient is an industrial chemical called melamine, an organic base usually found in plastics and resins. The FDA has examined 210 samples of pet food and various ingredients in six field laboratories. Of those, 130 have tested positive for melamine, either in the food itself or in the wheat gluten used to thicken the gravy accompanying it. Researchers at the College of Veterinary Medicine at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, have found melamine crystals in urine and kidney tissue taken from some of the dead cats.

[. . .]

Some of the melamine detected by the FDA could be a breakdown product of another contaminant. Cyromazine is a commonly used pesticide that is chemically similar to melamine and can be converted into melamine when fed to animals. This has led to suggestions that cyromazine residues on the wheat and rice products are responsible for the poisoning. That does not, however, explain the melamine already in the wheat and protein products sent from China.

A third suspect is cyanuric acid, a chemical that is added to swimming pools to stop light destroying chlorine too quickly and which has also been identified by the FDA in some of the pet food samples. One possibility is that the cyanuric acid was created by bacteria in the rice and wheat consignments. Klebsiella bacteria are known to be able to convert melamine into cyanuric acid, while other bacteria create it by breaking down the widely used herbicide atrazine, which could have been sprayed on wheat and rice crops grown in China. The problem with this theory is that while cyanuric acid can cause cancer in animals exposed to it long-term, swallowing a few doses should cause nothing more serious than an irritation of the gut.

So we’re up to three contaminants, and not one of them or a combination of them explains the deaths and illnesses.  That leaves us with this:

A literature search shows that the only ill effect of melamine so far identified is its ability to cause bladder cancer in animals given large doses over long periods. What’s more, this has only been observed in rats (Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology, vol 5, p 294), and occurs indirectly, as crystals of the chemical seed the growth of bladder stones that then trigger the growth of tumours. Melamine has never been shown to produce the kidney damage seen in most of the affected pets in the US. For now, it seems, the cat and dog killer remains at large.

And since that’s the case, the FDA and USDA announcing that the tainted human foods were/are safe for consumption is a blatant lie and a deceptive tactic that endangers the lives of more than the animals we’re supposed to be providing for.  Now, don’t get me wrong; we can do with a lot fewer people, but not knowing what the real culprit is means we should have decisively halted all Chinese imports at least a month ago, and we should be performing rigorous testing on all pet foods—not to mention any of those products that are being used to feed animals going into the human food supply.

I don’t know about you folks, but this is one huge and frightening mess.  This will only go downhill from here, and it’s possible it’ll go way downhill.