Big Mick, from what I read, Menu didn't start getting complaints that something might be amiss with the food until February 20, 2007 and they started their own testing after that date. I don't know how long would be a reasonable time to set up such tests to determine what foods were affected or how long the tests would have to run, until symptoms of poisoning showed up in test animals, but from the time of the first complaint until first recall, by my reckoning, it would appear that it took 24 days.

Considering that the FDA had been warning California spinach farmers to improve their safety practices for a year, prior to the deadly E. coli outbreak, it would seem that the manufacturers of pet foods, without regulation and government testing that human food undergoes, weren't doing a bad job by comparison.....and I too am not usually an apologist for multinational corporations.

While some kinds of testing on animals make me very uncomfortable, until such time as there is no need for the SPCA or other organizations to euthanize unwanted or stray cats and dogs, because there aren't any, using them for tests that may save the lives of other pets, at least means that their imminent deaths have not been in vain. Either way it's a tough call.