News of the day. Posted without comment:

Apr 05, 2007 03:12 PM
Curtis Rush
Staff Reporter

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration admitted Thursday that the official number of pet deaths related to tainted food will climb much higher than the 16 reported so far.

"This (16) is a number we recognize is nowhere near the reality and that there are many more animals that have been affected," said Stephen Sundloff, director of the Center of Veterinary Medicine at the FDA.

The FDA said that in the past three weeks it has received more than 12,000 consumer complaints, more than twice the number of complaints it usually receives in a year for any product.

Sundloff was speaking Thursday in a teleconference call from the U.S. to update reporters on the investigation into the suspected melamine at the heart of the massive recall, one of the largest in the FDA's history.

"We're not saying we think that's an accurate number," Sundloff said. "Trying to put an estimate at this time is something we can't do. It's hard to get good clinical evidence. We have no good information what the final number will be or the extent of this tragedy."

Sundloff said the FDA doesn't have the resources necessary to confirm numbers at this time.

Meanwhile, the FDA identified another pet-food company in the U.S. that announced a food recall Thursday, adding to the massive recalled triggered last month by Mississauga-based Menu Foods after 16 animals died of kidney failure in tests.

The FDA said Sunshine Mills Inc. in Alabama is recalling dog biscuits made with imported Chinese wheat gluten, which is believed to have contained melamine.

Melamine is suspected of causing kidney failure in pets, but the FDA doesn't know how melamine, which is used in fertilizer and plastics, got into the pet food.

Also Thursday, Menu Foods expanded its original recall to include a broader range of dates, the FDA said.

Menu Foods spokesperson Sam Bornstein said the expanded recall now dates back to Nov. 8 and involves an additional 20 products, none of which are available in Canada.

Bornstein said this is a precautionary measure.

Menu Foods has being inundated with about 300,000 calls since the recall of 60 millions tins of wet food on March 16, but the company said on its website that its calling centres will be mostly silent this weekend to mark the Easter holiday.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration told reporters Thursday that it believes the latest recall will be the last, although it can never be 100 per cent certain.

The FDA's Sundloff said pet owners can be assured that the food their pets are eating today will not likely be part of a recall at a later date.

"The public should feel secure about the products not subject to the recall," Sundloff said. "We don't know of any others that are potentially pending. My recommendation to consumers is that we should have (the recalls) all wrapped up."

Sunshine Mills is now among about six companies that have announced recalls of both wet and dry food. The others include Nestle Purina, Del Monte and Hills Pet Nutrition Inc.

"These recalled products represent less than 1 per cent of the pet food industry," said Sundloff. "There remains an ample supply of pet food through the United States."

The FDA is still identifying melamine, a largely non-toxic chemical normally found in fertilizer and plastics such as kitchenware, as the chief agent responsible for the pet deaths.

Officials said there is no reason to suspect any of the suspect chemical, melamine in the wheat gluten, has entered the human food chain.

A single U.S. supplier imported the wheat gluten from China, according to the FDA.

FDA officials are working with the Chinese authorities to investigate the wheat gluten from one particular company in that country.

Menu Foods said Thursday that ChemNutra Inc. was the former supplier of its wheat gluten. Based in Las Vegas, it no longer supplies Menu Foods. ChemNutra imported the wheat gluten from a company the FDA has identified as Xuzhou Anying Biologic Technology Development Co. in Wangdien, China. Records from Menu Foods show that products from ChemNutra were first used on Nov. 8 and last used on March 6.