FDA says thousands of pets dead, Chinese import alert expands
In an import alert buried deep on its website and just uncovered tonight, the FDA last Friday expanded its hold on imported foods from China - ingredients including Wheat Gluten, Rice Gluten, Rice Protein, Rice Protein Concentrate, Corn Gluten, Corn Gluten Meal, Corn By-Products, Soy Protein, Soy Gluten, Mung Bean Protein, Soy Bean Meal/Powder/Gluten/Protein Isolate, Soy Protein Powder, Wheat Gluten, Wheat Flour Gluten, Wheat Gluten, Rice Protein, Rice Gluten, Rice Protein, Corn Gluten, Milled Rice Products, Amino acids and protein hydrosylates.
They also, for the first time, published estimates of pet deaths closer to what other authoritative sources have been speculating for weeks now:
As of April 26, 2007, FDA had received over 17,000 consumer complaints relating to this outbreak, and those complaints included reports of approximately 1950 deaths of cats and 2200 deaths of dogs.
These numbers are very much in line with what have been seen in the database of self-reported cases at PetConnection:
Total reports of illness or death: 14,228
Total cats reported dead: 2,334 cats
Total dogs reported dead: 2,249
From the FDA report:
Total reports of illness or death: 17,000
Total cats reported dead: 1950
Total dogs reported dead: 2,200
To quote nationally syndicated pet columnist and PetConnection blogger, Gina Spadafori:
(Y)ou would not believe the crap we have had to take for our Pet Connection database. We have been accused of promoting everything from hysteria to our own careers, and through it all the FDA has said nothing that substantiated what we and the independent Veterinary Information Network knew was the scope of the tragedy.
[...]
Perhaps now every time a media outlet says "16" or even "17 or 18" or "high teens" or some other such nonsense, the reporter will get this FDA document in their e-mail inbox from, like, every one of us who cares about making these pets count.
I take absolutely no joy in being "right," and I would gladly be wrong to have all those pets still alive. But I truly do believe if it weren’t for the pressure from those of us working to get this information out and force the FDA to step up, there’d be a lot more people grieving for their pets tonight.
And tainted products would still be flowing into this country.
And from the Washington Post:
"I do think this pet food thing has shown people, including people at the very highest levels of the administration, that something needs to be fixed," said William Hubbard, associate director of the FDA from 1991 to 2005. "If this isn't a wake-up call, then people are so asleep they are catatonic."
More info here.
