Pet Food Related Deaths - the Contaminate Is... ??

Update on March 31, now the F.D.A. reports that the recalled pet foods were ...

"... found to have been made with a batch of wheat gluten shipped to the United States from China that the F.D.A. said was laced with melamine." ( nytimes.com )

However, there is confusion as to why compound would sicken and kill cats and dogs. Apparently, melamine is used as a fertilizer in China, but not in the U.S. Also reported by the NY Times online was that the list of recalled pet foods could be found at the F.D.A. website (http://www.fda.gov/).

As of March 23, 2007, rat poison is being blamed for cat and dog deaths (bloomberg.com). As noted in my blog, below, Menu Foods, Ltd. was the manufacturer of cans and pouches of "cuts and gravy" style wet food that caused the death of pets in the U.S.

Aminopterin is the chemical, and it is used as rat poison - though the chemical is banned in the United States. According to the Bloomberg.com article, this folic acid derivative can cause birth defects in people, and renal (kidney) damage in cats and dogs. The amount of aminopterim discovered in the food samples tested was 40 parts per million ( www.boston.com ), which is enough to cause the failure of dog and cat kidneys.