Pet food scare panics owners - Local vets, stores inundated with calls since national recall

Pet food scare panics owners - Local vets, stores inundated with calls since national recall
By Courtney Flynn, Lisa Black and Mary Ann Fergus, Tribune staff reporters. Tribune staff reporters Susan Kuczka and Andrew L. Wang, freelance reporter Joseph Ruzich and the Associated Press contributed
Copyright © 2007, Chicago Tribune
Published March 20, 2007


Jim Hill thought it was odd when his usually healthy and hungry 5-year-old cat, Charlie, turned down his favorite canned food with fish a few days ago.

By Saturday, the orange tabby was guzzling water, emptying two bowls before 10 a.m.

By Sunday, Charlie was hospitalized and in kidney failure, and Hill thinks it's because the cat ate canned Iams, one of dozens of brand-name dog and cat foods that have been recalled after being suspected of poisoning pets.

"It's just too coincidental, with all the symptoms my cat had," said Hill, 33, of Lake Villa.

While it's not clear whether Charlie's ailments were caused by his food, Hill and countless other area pet owners were jamming their veterinarians' phone lines Monday with concerns about their pets becoming sick.

More than 60 million cans of dog and cat food were recalled Friday by Menu Foods of Streetsville, Ontario, which makes the store brands for companies such as Wal-Mart, Kroger and Safeway. The company also makes food for brand-name pet food companies, including Iams, PetCare and Science Diet.

The company recalled certain gravy-style foods sold in cans and pouches made from Dec. 3 to March 6 after hearing complaints that an unknown number of cats and dogs that ate the food had kidney failure, and about 10 died.

On Monday, the government reported that a study conducted by Menu Foods found that as many as one in six animals died after eating the suspect foods.

A federal investigation is now focusing on wheat gluten as the likely source of contamination that sparked the recall, said Stephen F. Sundlof, the Food and Drug Administration's top veterinarian. The ingredient, a protein source, is commonly used as filler.

Menu Foods told the FDA it received the first complaints of kidney failure and death among cats and dogs from pet owners on Feb. 20. It began new tests on Feb. 27.

During those tests, the company fed its product to 40 to 50 dogs and cats. Seven animals--the mix of species was not immediately known--died, Sundlof said. The contamination appeared to be more deadly to cats than to dogs, he said.

Menu Foods spokeswoman Sarah Tuite told the Associated Press that the recalled products were made using wheat gluten purchased from a new supplier, which has since been dropped.

Wheat gluten itself wouldn't cause kidney failure, leading FDA investigators to suspect contamination by other substances, including heavy metals such as cadmium and lead or fungal toxins.

Locally, veterinarians said Monday that they were deluged with calls from pet owners who wondered whether their pets might be affected.

Among the callers was Chicago resident Neal Gironda, who realized his cat's health had been failing in recent weeks while it was eating one of the recalled foods by Iams.

On Monday, Gironda took his 17-year-old cat, Flats, to Abell Animal Hospital on Chicago's Northwest Side for testing.

He said Flats had an unexplained shortness of breath, vomiting and lethargy that left him emaciated.

"He used to be very responsive, almost like a dog," said Gironda, 50. "Now he's non-responsive; almost like he's hiding on me. It's very painful."

The problem veterinarians are facing is that it's difficult to draw a direct connection between potentially tainted food and pets' symptoms; some sick animals could have unrelated ailments.

For example, Gironda's cat probably has a chest tumor, Dr. Glenn Mayer said.

Dr. Lisa Wardisiani, a veterinarian at Riser Animal Hospital in Skokie, said her office had fielded at least 30 calls by midday Monday. Dr. Brian Rooney of Burr Ridge Veterinary Clinic said his office had received about 20 calls since Saturday.

"We had one cat that died last week from a kidney problem. We are still waiting to see if there is a connection," Rooney said. "We also had another recent cat death that had signs of the illness."


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Questions and answers about the pet food recall
March 20, 2007




The best advice veterinarians have is to stop feeding animals the foods on the recall list and return any unopened containers.

"Many of the food manufacturers have put extra people on the phone lines," said J.B. Hancock, a spokeswoman for the American Veterinary Medical Association in Schaumburg. "They want the public to know what they know and be as helpful as they can."

Hancock said owners should be on the lookout for lethargy, diarrhea, increased or decreased urination and thirst, vomiting, and lack of appetite as symptoms that an animal may be sick and possibly have kidney failure.

Veterinarians weren't the only ones affected by the recall.

At a PETCO store in Vernon Hills, shelves that normally hold brands of pet food that had been recalled sat empty Monday. At a nearby PetSmart, the scene was the same.

A pet food cannery in Wheeling that had no involvement in the recall still handled nonstop calls from concerned pet owners, stores and distributors. The company's Web site crashed Monday morning because it was overloaded.

"As soon as you get off the phone, the phone rings again," said Holly Sher, owner of Evanger's Dog & Cat Food Co. "As a matter of fact, if you just pick up the phone, there's already somebody there. My head hurts."

Sher said her company is one of five pet food canneries in the country. Since the recall, customers have been demanding more of her product to fill their shelves.

"I'm not even getting double orders, I'm getting triple orders," she said. "I already warned people they're going to be working 16-hour days this week."

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To learn more

A complete list of recalled products, along with product codes, descriptions and production dates, was available from the Menu Foods Web site, www.menufoods.com/recall. The company also designated two phone numbers that pet owners could call for information: 866-463-6738 and 866-895-2708. For FDA information, visit www.fda.gov.

Source: Associated Press

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