Report: Toxic dog food not properly tested

[RamboLiberal]

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/11099237/

Federal regulators determined that a pet food company improperly tested or failed to test corn shipments for a deadly fungus that has been blamed for deaths and illness in dozens of dogs, a newspaper reported Monday.

According to a government report obtained by The (Columbia) State, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration found that Diamond Pet Foods allowed tainted corn into its Gaston plant and failed to properly test for the naturally occurring poison aflatoxin.

<snip>

Southeastern states tend to have a higher occurrence of aflatoxin because of the region’s hot, humid summers, experts say. Typically, the company gets one or two tainted loads of corn each year, but beginning in September, the tests began showing one or two tainted loads a week, company officials said.

Dozens of dogs in eastern and southern states have died or become sick from aflatoxin poisoning after eating the tainted food.

[MADem]

1. Hell, they hardly inspect human food nowadays

About the only inspection FIDO can hope for is the pet owner giving the shit a sniff after they open the can.....

[Mithras61]

2. Does aflatoxin generate enough...

of a smell that you could detect it over the other crap they add to dry dog food? I did a quick search and couldn't find anything definitive...

[roseBudd]

3. I read that some dogs refused it so owners dumped gravy on it...

Pet food snobs love to slam the big 3, Purina, Iams and Hills but you've never heard of the big 3 having quality control problems.

My dad's wife worked at Iams for awhile and she said you wouldn't believe the testing a batch of corn went through.

[RamboLiberal]

4. That's good to hear cause I feed mine either IAMS or Purina One

Cause I can't afford the more expensive brands. But I sure wasn't going to try the bargain basement stuff for my mutt.

[CAcyclist]

5. Diamond is what I would call generic dog food

It's sold through Cost-co and is not a premium brand of dog food. I always tell people to avoid grocery-store and feed-store brands.

I agree with you - there's nothing wrong with Purina -it may not be trendy but the company has good quality control and it's been around for a long time. Same goes for the other name brands.

[Critters2]

8. The quality of the treatment Iams gives to its lab animals

should be controlled. If you treated your own dog the way Iams treats its test animals, you'd be prosecuted, and rightly so. They care about corn but not about dogs. Why would you support such a company? I invite you to check out iamscruelty.com

[LisaL]

6. If they did that to people, they would never see the end of it.

They would have been sued, and might have ended up paying millions for each person. But because it's dogs and cats, they will basically get away with it.
That's just sick.

[Gato Moteado]

7. i hired a taster to try my dog's food before i give any to her.....

....the taster is just some garden variety freeper. he says the food i give him to try is better than his wife's cookin' so he loves to come over and wash down a bowl with a coor's lite.

ok, ok....just kidding. we don't have any freepers down here.

[MakeItSo]

9. Dog food is another thing I wish I knew less about now

Completely unregulated --- even the legal stuff is utterly disgusting. No wonder all my dogs have died of cancer at fairly young ages.

"Dogs and cats euthanised at clinics, pounds and shelters are sold to rendering plants, rendered with other material and sold to the pet food industry. One small rendering plant in Quebec was rendering 10 tonnes (11 tons) of dogs and cats per week from Ontario. The Ministry of Agriculture in Quebec, where a number of these plants are located, advised me that "The fur is not removed from dogs and cats." and that "Dead animals are cooked together with viscera, bones and fats in 115 C (236 F) for twenty minutes." One large pet food company in the U.S., with extensive research facilities, used rendered dogs and cats in their food for years and when the information came to light "claimed no knowledge of it."

http://www.fuzzyfaces.com/lfood2.html