WomanRadio.org Saturday, March 16th!
PETitionz.org is pleased to be joining paws with WomanRadio.org, in
rememberance of our dead and wounded friends, for a special web
broadcast beginning Saturday, March 16th at 11 a.m. Pacific.
On Saturday March 16 web radio station Womanradio.org will present special programming for the first
anniversary of the initial pet food recall of 2007. It will begin at 2 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time
with the premiere of "Make a Change", a song for the friends
lost. We thank noted musicians Karen Phillips and Yohanna Vanderkley of Webbils and Song for their contribution.
We will begin with a frank conversation with Don Earl. He will tell the
story of the killing of his cat Chuckles and his determined quest for justice
over the past year.
Lawyer Ted Charney of Toronto Canada will
outline class action lawsuits versus Menu Foods.
Elliott Haplem
Executive Producer of Pet Food: A Dog's Breakfast will
discuss the making of the documentary.
Dr. Ernest Lykissa
co-owner of Expertox Laboratories will look back at an interesting year at the
lab.
Ron Smith creator of PETitionz.org
will comment on the reactions of site visitors from 143 countries to events as
they unfolded following that first recall.
Karen Fraser and personal
chef Tabitha Chapman will chat about
the launch of their new Trust Pet
Cuisine. Chef cooked in a kitchen with
all fresh human ingredients delivered to your home or office. Trust
makes the food you would cook for your pets if you had the time and knowledge. Trust was the response to the recalls of
frightened pet guardian Karen Fraser.
Grand jury indicts companies for melamine contamination of pet food
A federal grand jury in Kansas City has indicted two Chinese
companies and a U.S. company for their roles in manufacturing and
importing an adulterated ingredient for use in pet food.
Illness and deaths of animals that ate the food led to a massive
recall of products last year and the discovery that the ingredient in
question contained the contaminants melamine and cyanuric acid. The
Food and Drug Administration later determined that the ingredient,
which bore the label "wheat gluten," was actually wheat flour.
Following a federal investigation, the grand jury in Kansas City
returned a 26-count indictment against two Chinese companies—Xuzhou
Anying Biologic Technology Development Co. Ltd., a processor of plant
proteins, and export broker Suzhou Textiles, Silk, Light Industrial
Products, Arts and Crafts I/E Co. Ltd.—and against the companies' top
executives.
Read more . . .
Killer imports: Almost a year later and yes, it could happen again
Click on the headline above for a very interesting article on
the Pet Connection website that everyone concerned about pet food
safety should read.
Dear Anderson Cooper
,
During the height of the pet food crisis
last year you ran the first in depth piece on the emerging problem. We
are asking that you consider doing a follow up. There are so many
unanswered questions.
CBC Television in
Canada has just aired a very interesting 1 hour expose titled
Pet Food
- A Dog's Breakfast . The production, created by Yap Films, has a great segment which shows that "
Old
Boots Pet Food", a
melange of boots, old motor oil and wood chips would
meet the pet food nutrition standard in Canada!
A
lot of people
in the U.S. would like to see this documentary ( check Itchmo, Pet
Connection etc).. We (PETitionz.org) contributed a brief review of the
show for Americans to the blogs and had an immediate response.
Your interest in this ongoing and not-solved issue
is appreciated by all of us who are concerned about our pets - we are
all still very worried.
Ron Smith for PETitionz.org
We
are hopeful that if enough people email Anderson Cooper that together
we will get CNN's interest. This might help to get someone like PBS or
a cable/satellite network interested in airing the entire 1 hour
documentary. Anderson Cooper 360 can be reached at:
http://www.cnn.com/exchange/ireports/topics/forms/2006/12/ac360.anon.html
The
most important meal of the day
For those who live outside the viewing area
of the CBC television network that carried “Pet Food: A Dog’s Breakfast “ on Thursday night may I offer my reaction to it.
If you had somehow missed one of the
biggest news stories of 2007 or if you are not a pet owner, the production was a
good light overview. However, if you had lost pets or are still struggling
to care for an animal damaged by the tainted food it tended to make you, I am searching for a mild word – upset.
Perhaps you needed to be as well informed as all of us have
become since March to pick up on the
contradictions but to me they were glaringly obvious. I could not shake the feeling that
“Breakfast” had started out as a much better film but somehow
along the way…….
Was it a balance of viewpoints or A Dog’s
Breakfast of contradictions?
I noted: most pet food is adequate
- BUT the meat / fish used is largely the
remains of the human food chain that the pets cannot digest.
- BUT the concoction of old boots, wood
chips, and motor oil that Dr. Smart brewed up in her kitchen would pass
Canadian standards for pet food.
A veterinarian
working in a large emergency hospital that saw its share of agony last March trusts the reputations of the
manufacturers and their communications.
As I was writing this I received an
interesting phone call from a friend. He
had just returned from shopping at a large retailer whose private label brand of
pet food is still made by Menu Foods.
In conversation with 3 employees
he learned that they had seen the program and had started cooking for their
pets the next day. So in spite of my personal disappointment I guess Breakfast
was served!
The purpose of PETitionz.org has been to help
focus people’s feelings about the ongoing pet food crisis and turn them into
persistent pressure for positive change. We have heard from pet owners in 143 countries
and in a week or so we will be responding to their concerns and ideas with the
next step of the project.
Karen Fraser
The Canadians are Coming!
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) in Canada just aired an
hour long special last night called "Pet Food - A Dog's Breakfast". It
will be repeated on CBC tomorrow evening (check your listings if you
live in Canada). There is no word yet on wider distribution to the
U.S. (e.g. PBS). Stay tuned . . .
An Interesting Post on Utube
Check it out:
Utube Comment
Did You Lose a Companion Due to Tainted Pet Food?
We are putting together a new project to help make certain that this
never happens again. We need a few good pictures of pets who were
killed in this crisis and a brief 2 paragraph description of what
happened. Your contributions will be handled with dignity and tact and
we will ask your permission to proceed once you have been fully
informed of the new program.
While we are not able to publicly disclose details around our new
effort, we would be pleased to be able to outline the program to anyone
who would be interested in helping out. You can contact us at feedback
[at] petitionz.org.
We expect the new project to be ready for launch in approximately 3 weeks.
Your PETitionz.org team.
Notes on a Pet Scandal
What I Still Need to Learn
Q: What killed the pets? Is melamine a plastic coating over the real problems?
Q: How many pets died? Don Earle’s math reaches a total of 139,000. Early on Banfield Vet Clinics estimated 39,000 before they fell silent; Itchmo concluded that 176,000 US households were affected. No one challenged the calculations the site published.
Q: How many Canadian pets died? This is a mystery with no information available.
Q: How many pets survived but in diminished and expensive health?
Q: Why have the vets been so quiet?
Q: Where did the rest of the wheat gluten go? Various reports state that 6-7-800 tons were purchased. Was it all used in the items recalled? In an interview Chem Nutra, who sold the tainted gluten to Menu Foods, stated that they had16 other major clients.
Q: Was the wheat genetically modified? Dr. Michael W. Fox contends that melamine and cyan uric acid are natural byproducts in GM wheat. While so called “Franken foods” are not illegal in North America, as they are elsewhere, they are unpopular with the public. Past recalls have caused this huge industry annoying problems; the pet food recall would be a public relations nightmare.
Q: Is pet food a “canned fill site” for pharma, rendering, vet/hospital, shelter, zoo, road kill and retail waste? They all have waste (100 million pounds daily in the US) that is an increasingly difficult disposal problem.
Q: What do shelters do when the pet food truck is due and they have killed below the money making quota?
Q: When did the problem begin and when did Menu Foods know?
Q:
Will we hear from the special task force that Iams boasted about on their full page letter/ads in major North American newspapers?
Q: Can Canadian income trusts like Menu Foods and Castleberry be responsible corporate citizens?
Q: Why don’t we have an effective food recall alert system?
Q: Will Menu Foods be dismantled and entrusted to colleagues in the pet food empire before the lawsuits reach court?
Q: Was the initial recall a one-two punch of product and package? Pouch packages have a spotty (or drippy) history of recalls caused by chemicals from the printing process seeping through the layers into the contents or transferring to the inside during production. Fatty content is particularly at risk. Soy based inks that produce brilliant colors on food packages worry me as the soy from China was also a problem.
Q: What happens now? Will the pet food manufacturer’s contempt for consumers, often commented on by pet owners, be proven valid?
Q: The recalled items are returning to the shelves, will it be business as usual?
