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Wilbur-Ellis release is
here
.
Over the last few days, as news of this has circulated, we’ve been hearing a tremendous clamoring to have the companies to whom the concentrate was shipped named publicly. And Wilbur-Ellis is asking those companies to stand up and do the right thing. But Wilbur-Ellis knows who they are, and presumably so does the FDA; why are we having to shame the companies into naming themselves? Isn’t the FDA supposed to be protecting us? I listened in on the FDA press conference a few Fridays ago, in which we were assured that they’d let us know anything they found out as soon as possible. They haven’t so far, and they aren’t now.
How many of you out there would like to know the names of those other companies, so you can decide for yourself if you want to risk feeding their products to your pets? I’m just curious.
Update:
USA Today’s Julie Schmit
just reported that “Procter & Gamble (PG), owner of the Iams and Eukanuba
brands, has set out its ‘promise’ to consumers that it will, in effect, exert
more control over Menu Foods, the Canadian company that makes the Iams and
Eukanuba wet foods for P&G.” She wrote:
Menu says its recalled food was contaminated by wheat gluten that contained a prohibited chemical and that happened after it switched to a new wheat gluten supplier. P&G says its new policy forbids its suppliers from obtaining raw ingredients from different sources unless P&G has checked out that supplier and OK’d the switch…. P&G is Menu’s biggest customer, accounting for 21% of Menu’s 2006 revenue.
Update 2, the Christie never sleeps edition: Carrie Peyton Dahlberg of the Sacramento Bee, who has been doing great work on this story, just reported:
Wilbur-Ellis said although its customers requested that their names be withheld for now, they are expected to become public as they begin their own recalls shortly.
[….]
Since July, Wilbur-Ellis has imported 336 metric tons of rice protein from one Chinese company, Binzhou Futian Biology Technology and has shipped just under half to the five pet food makers.
So it looks like we’ll be hearing those names “shortly”… when the companies begin their recalls, on their timetable. Meanwhile, what should pet owners do?
Murl Bailey, a toxicology professor at Texas A&M’s college of veterinary medicine, said at this point pet owners should add a new step to their shopping routine: Before each shopping trip, check the 5,000-plus-item recall list to make sure something they’ve bought before isn’t now among the recalled items.
I don’t mean to simply quote all of Carrie’s article – there’s much more and you should read the whole thing. But I can’t leave this out, as it’s a bit more information on her story from last night, and something I know a lot of people have questions about:
In Davis, the California Animal Health and Food Safety Laboratory was checking an ever-growing array of food submitted by veterinarians who’ve treated ailing cats and dogs.
“It’s been crazy with phone calls and triaging,” said toxicology professor Birgit Puschner. The lab has not yet received food that’s been gathered by the Davis-based Veterinary Information Network after reports on its Web site of animal illnesses.
Paul Pion, who heads that service, said he plans to take five foods to the Davis lab today. He said he has arranged the tests out of an excess of caution.
“They are not strong patterns, but we don’t want to miss anything,” Pion said, adding that if he were sure that the foods were contributing to illness, he would already have named them