The chemical, melamine, is the same chemical that was responsible for the pet food recalls last year, and has caused 53,000 illnesses in children — including nearly 13,000 hospitalizations and 4 deaths.

The NYT says that there is widespread speculation that the contamination was being covered up due to government pressure tied to the Olympic games.

The delays have led to widespread speculation in China that the Sanlu Group and some government officials were attempting to cover up the scandal during the Olympics because Beijing had pressured Chinese journalists and companies not to release negative news.

22 companies have been caught producing melamine tainted dairy products, leading to something of a panic in China. The substance, used in the manufacture of plastics, looks like protein when tested and was used to artificially increase the protein count of the milk.

China Milk Cover-Up Started Last Year [NYT]
(Photo: Getty)

PREVIOUSLY: Pet Food Companies Agree To $24 Million Settlement Over Killer Pet Food
(Photo: Ariana Lindquist)

After a two-week delay to make sure the language of the settlement met U.S. and Canadian law, about 30 pet food makers have agreed to pay out $24 million to customers whose pets were killed or injured in the tainted food fiasco a year ago. Victims will be reimbursed for expenses, including vet and burial/cremation bills. Additionally, "pet owners can request reimbursement for the cost or fair-market value—whichever is higher—of a deceased pet or one purchased in replacement. Owners who don't have documentation of expenses can get as much as $900 each. All claims are subject to review."

If approved, this will pretty much wrap up the saga of the melamine-tainted pet food, and teach pet food companies a hard lesson about enforcing stricter standards on their Chinese suppliers. According to the Wall Street Journal,

Among the companies settling the suit are Menu Foods Income Fund; Procter & Gamble Co., which makes Iams pet food; Colgate-Palmolive Co., maker of Hill's; Nestle SA, maker of Purina; and Mars Inc., maker of Pedigree. Retailers including Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Target Corp., Petco Animal Supplies Inc. and PetSmart Inc. were also part of the suit.

The settlement has to be approved by a judge, and the court date is set for Friday, May 30th.

"Legal settlement reached in tainted pet food case" [Reuters UK]
(Photo: faster panda kill kill)

According to USAToday, Menu Foods has been ordered to have no further contact with owners of pets who were injured or killed by its contaminated pet food, unless the pet owner's lawyer is present. Why? Apparently, Menu Foods has been bullying the bereaved to settle their lawsuits and sign various papers that waive their rights. From USAToday:

Ontario, Canada-based Menu Foods has hired Crawford & Co., an insurance adjustor in Atlanta, to contact pet owners who called the company to report animal illnesses or deaths, according to the hearing transcript.

At a previous hearing on Friday, May 18, the judge had cautioned Menu and Crawford that they should not contact people who had joined one of the lawsuits against the company. Legally, Menu cannot contact those plaintiffs directly but must go through their lawyers.

But in affidavits presented in court Wednesday, pet owners said they received calls that weekend from Crawford representatives who pressed them to answer questions even after being told the owners had hired lawyers. In some cases, the pet owners also received multiple calls from Crawford's computerized phone banks after telling representatives they were represented by attorneys, according to the affidavits.

"Menu's representatives asked owners to sign releases which waived their right to get advice from a lawyer," said attorney Jay Edelson in an interview.

Court: Menu Foods harassed pet owners [USAToday]

Fantastic news. They don't know how many U.S. fish farming operations used the tainted feed or what type of fish they fed it to. Some of the fish was probably sold to grocery stores and restaurants, some might have been released into lakes and rivers.

From the Washington Post:

Government scientists said they will conduct a risk analysis to determine whether eating fish that were fed tainted feed raises human health concerns. A similar analysis completed last weekend concluded that chickens fed small amounts of contaminated pet food were safe to eat.

David Acheson, the FDA's assistant commissioner for food protection, said he is optimistic that the risks of eating fish will be minimal, even though contaminated ingredients may have made up a greater percentage of the fish feed than of the chicken feed.

Gluten is the high-protein constituent of flour that remains after starch has been removed. Investigators suspect that Chinese exporters boosted their profits by using cheap, unprocessed, low-protein flour and adding melamine, which gives false high-protein readings.

Farm-Raised Fish Given Tainted Food [Washington Post]
(Photo:cygnoir)

Mao's company Xuzhau is accused of tainting the wheat gluten with melamine, the substance thought to have killed 16 pets and sickened thousands more. The gluten was routed through a textile company in order to avoid the necessary inspections for items marked for food use. It is thought that the melamine was added as a filler meant to register as protein content when tested, making it appear as if the wheat gluten is of higher quality.

Mao had previously denied any knowledge of how melamine got into the pet food supply, as well as denying that he'd ever exported wheat gluten to the United States. From the New York Times:

ChemNutra, the Las Vegas company that bought the wheat gluten and resold it to pet food makers in the United States, said it thought that Xuzhou was the manufacturer.

Regulators also said that Xuzhou had failed to disclose to China's export authorities that it was shipping food or feed products to the United States and thereby avoided having its goods checked by food inspectors.

The Xuzhou shipments to ChemNutra were made through another Chinese company, the Suzhou Textiles Silk Light Industrial Company.

Despite its denials of knowing anything about melamine contamination, Xuzhou appears to have sought to buy large supplies of melamine, even in the weeks after the pet food recall.

The company had posted more than a dozen advertisement on the Internet seeking supplies of melamine scrap, the impure waste of an industrial chemical that animal feed producers here often mix into the feed to artificially increase the reading of the protein.

The producers here do that, many acknowledge, to cheat buyers into thinking they are getting higher grade feed, even though the melamine has no nutritional value.

China Makes Arrest in Pet Food Case [NYT]

While adding no nutritional content, the additives high nitrogen levels makes a food look like it's chock full of protein. And it's certainly cheaper than actual food.

In China, they make melamine from boiled coal. Mmm, yummy coal! Makes kitty's fur lustrous and eyes so shiny! — BEN POPKEN

Filler in Animal Feed Is Open Secret in China [NYT]
(Photo: Ariana Lindquist)

From the AP:

Menu Foods also said the U.S. Attorney's offices in Kansas and the western district of Missouri have targeted the company as part of misdemeanor investigations into whether it violated the federal Food, Drug & Cosmetic Act. The sale of adulterated or contaminated food is a misdemeanor. A Justice Department spokeswoman had no immediate comment.

"Menu Foods has been doing everything it can to cooperate with the FDA," company chief executive officer Paul Henderson said in a statement. "Even before commencement of this investigation we have given the FDA full access to our plant and our records, have answered questions and provided documents to them any time they have asked."

FDA spokeswoman Julie Zawisza would not confirm or deny that a search warrant was executed. "We have a strict policy of not discussing activities of our Office of Criminal Investigations," she said.

ChemNutra said it had been informed the company could be held accountable because it imported the melamine-adulterated wheat gluten used in the tainted pet food even though the company had no knowledge that its Chinese supplier had introduced melamine into the product.

"We have cooperated and complied fully with FDA investigators both prior to and since being served with today's search warrant, and will continue to do so," Steve Miller, chief executive officer of ChemNutra, said in a statement. "We keep very good records, which has made it relatively easy for the investigators to retrieve what they needed."

U.S. agents search two pet food plants [Houston Chronicle]
(Photo: Lone-Star)

Just because there's been a big recall doesn't mean the remaining pet food is safe. Consumers should still check labels and product dates to make sure the food isn't potentially contaminated. — BEN POPKEN

Tainted pet food still on shelves, FDA says [Reuters] (Thanks to Jim!)

In Canada's Globe and Mail, Wiens called it a "horrible coincidence."

Here's another horrible coincidence: Menu Foods also waited three weeks after discovering the kitty and doggy deaths before announcing the recall.

Wow, so that means Wiens sold his stocks at the same time the contamination was discovered, but before anyone else knew about it.

Where was that "how to" on hacking Menu Foods' phone tree... oh wait here it is. — BEN POPKEN

CFO Sold 14K Shares Before Recall [AP] (Thanks to Lana!)

RELATED: Contaminated Pet Food Linked To 30% Increase In Feline Kidney Failure

(Photo: sandcastlematt)

The veterinary hospital chain saw 1 million dogs and cats during the three months when the more than 100 brands of now-recalled contaminated pet food were sold. It saw 284 extra cases of kidney failure among cats during that period, or a roughly 30 percent increase when compared with background rates. It's not clear if those animals ate the contaminated food, though it seems likely.

"It has meaning, when you see a peak like that. We see so many pets here, and it coincided with the recall period," said veterinarian Hugh Lewis, who oversees the mining of Banfield's database to do clinical studies. The chain continues to share its data with the Food and Drug Administration.

According to import records, the wheat gluten was shipped to the United States from Nov. 3, 2006 to Jan. 23 of this year and contained "minimal labeling" to indicate whether it was intended for humans or animals. The vast majority went to pet food manufacturers and distributors, according to the FDA. But some of the processing plants that remain under FDA scrutiny make both human and pet food.

"To date, we have nothing that indicates it's gone into human food," said Dorothy Miller , director of the FDA's Office of Emergency Operations . "We have a bit more investigation to do."

Was human food tainted too? [Boston Globe] (Thanks, Mitchell!)
(Photo: Hector Garcia)

1) To reach Paul Henderson (pictured), President & CEO of Menu Foods GenPar Limited, call (905) 826-3870
2) Press 0 when the recording picks up.
3) Leave a short message
4) Press #.
5) Press # again when prompted.
6) Then press # to use the directory.
7) Type in "henderson" with the alphanumeric pad.
8) Press #.
9) You are then taken straight to the man.

This at least worked for us after-hours, results may vary during the day. You can use this method to reach the other executives, like:

Robert W. Luba, Chairman of the Board of Trustees & Administration Board (rluba@menufoods.com)
Mark A. Wiens, Chief Financial Officer, Executive Vice President, Secretary of Administrator (mwiens@menufoods.com)
Randall C. Copeland, Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing of Administrator (rcopeland@menufoods.com)
William F. Grant, Executive Vice President - Corporate Purchasing & Logistics of Administrator (grant@menufoods.com)
Christopher J. Mifflin, Executive Vice President - Operations of Administrator (cmifflin@menufoods.com)
Richard G. Shields, Executive Vice President - Technical Services of Administrator (rshields@menufoods.com)
Serge Darkazanli, President and Chief Executive Officer (sdarkazanli@menufoods.com, adoremus@menufoods.com)

Address:
Menu Foods Income Fund
8 Falconer Drive
Streetsville, ON
Canada L5N 1B1
Fax: 905.826.4995

We made this post at the request of Darla and Dave, whose dog Sissy died after eating the deadly dog food.

"We only want Menu Food to be responsible for the vet bills, cremation, cost of the dog. We do not want to get rich off this. Just be compensated for our beloved dog," the couple wrote The Consumerist. — BEN POPKEN

[email info via For The Love Of Dog Blog]

Elaine Larabie said Saturday she ate some dog food last week in an effort to convince her terrier, Missy, to do the same. Soon afterwards, both Larabie and Missy found themselves in hospital — Larabie at an after-hours emergency room, and Missy at Ottawa's Alta Vista Animal Hospital.

Initially, the devoted dog owner did not think dog food made her sick.

"I thought I caught a virus, but then I realized I ate the food, and put two and two together," she said.

For three days, she suffered a range of "confusing" and "embarrassing" symptoms, including loss of appetite, vomiting and foaming of the mouth.

She also had problems urinating. She had blood work done last Wednesday and is now awaiting the results of those tests.

A source close to the investigation tells ABC News that the rodenticide, which the source says is illegal to use in the United States, was on wheat that was imported from China and used by Menu Foods in nearly 100 brands of dog and cat food.

There is some good news according to the source. Knowing the chemical should aid veterinarians who are treating animals that have been sickened by the pet food.

Aminopterin is used in the United States in, of all things, a cancer drug, according to the source.

Rat Poison to Blame for Pet Food Contamination [ABC News] (Thanks, Kevin!)

Menu Foods announced the recall on "cuts and gravy" style pet food sold under numerous brands, including store brands for Wal-Mart, Kroger, and Safeway, as well as name-brands like Nestl Purina PetCare and Science Diet.

A complete list of affected products and serial numbers is on Menu Foods website.

Symptoms of kidney failure include lethargy and jaundice. Immediate hospitalization is advised if your pet shows these symptoms and you've fed them a can of the recalled product.

What makes this really sad is owners often feed cuts and gravy style canned food to their pets as a special treat. One reader wrote in saying she gave some to her dog for its birthday, only to discover later the cans were part of the recalled batch.

Menu Foods floundered over the weekend in keeping pace with concerned consumer inquiries. The list of recalled product was initially only available as an excel sheet. A "contact us" section, now removed, led to a "404 not found" error. Menu Foods toll-free recall line, (866) 895-2708, continues to emit a constant busy signal. — BEN POPKEN

Pet Food Is Recalled After Link to Animal Deaths [NYT]
(Photo: Artnchicken)