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Menu Foods Agrees to Test for Pain Killer in its Cat Food

Independent lab found acetaminophen in Special Kitty samples

By Lisa Wade McCormick
ConsumerAffairs.com

October 24, 2007

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Menu Foods will test samples of its Special Kitty food for the pain killer acetaminophen, ConsumerAffairs.com has learned.

The action comes on the heels of a ConsumerAffairs.com report that revealed ExperTox Analytical Laboratory found the over-the-counter pain medication in samples of Special Kitty food it tested earlier this month.

ExperTox detected the acetaminophen in a composite of three flavors of Special Kitty food - Special Kitty with beef and gravy, Special Kitty mixed grill in gravy, and Special Kitty with turkey and giblets in gravy. Lab report (pdf file)

The findings added to the growing number of cases in which toxicologists at the Texas-based lab have discovered the pain medicine in samples of dog or cat food.

The latest findings came in samples of Special Kitty food that a Rhode Island pet owner purchased in February – one month before Menu Foods recalled more than 60 million containers of tainted dog and cat food.

FDA blames melamine

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) blamed the contamination -- and the subsequent kidney problems and deaths of thousands of pets nationwide -- on the chemical melamine.

ExperTox also found that chemical in the Special Kitty food it tested.

Rhode Island pet owner Carol V. told us last week that her two cats -- Jessica and Smudge -- almost died after eating the Special Kitty food.

“To say the food made them sick is an understatement,” she said, adding the cat food was included in Menu’s recall. “It nearly killed them.”

Carol said she repeatedly contacted Menu Foods and the FDA to test her cats’ food, which she stored in the original, unopened packages in her freezer.

Both refused.

But a new organization called The Pet Food Products Safety Alliance heard about Carol’s sick cats and paid ExperTox to test the Special Kitty food.

Those test results -- and our story -- apparently captured Menu Food’s attention. The company confirmed this week that it will test samples of Special Kitty food specifically for acetaminophen.

“Menu Foods is accumulating samples of the products we understand were used in the composite sample she (Carol) tested at ExperTox and we will undertake our own tests on these products as soon as possible,” the company said in a written statement sent to ConsumerAffairs.com. “Based on the information available, we understand that the product the consumer supplied for testing was part of the recall of melamine-contaminated products earlier this year.”

Menu Foods posted a similar statement on its Web site.

A victory

Carol's Cats Jessica Smudge sick Smudge recovered

Carol cautiously applauded the pet food company’s action.

“It is a victory. I wanted further investigation on this and we’re getting that.”

But she added: “It’s a baby-step as long as they (Menu Foods) use an independent lab -- one that’s not connected to a pet food company. They also need to make sure the lab has state-of-the-art technology. This is a step in the right direction if Menu Foods makes its test results public. Those of us getting our food tested are out in the open. I want to feel that same thing from Menu Foods.”

Carol also questioned where the company was getting its samples of Special Kitty food.

“I thought the company was supposed to destroy all this (recalled) food,” she said. “I think Menu Food should have at least contacted me, but they haven’t. You would think they would want samples from the same batch. What they really need to do is test ExperTox’s samples.”

Menu Foods said a court order prevented company officials from communicating with Carol about “her claim.”

But ExperTox’s lab results, Carol said, have nothing to do with her requests for reimbursement of the more than $2,000 she’s spent treating Jessica and Smudge.

Carol, who is not involved in any litigation against Menu Foods, wants to ensure the company tests the correct samples of cat foods – the ones that made her cats seriously ill.

As we reported last week, ExperTox’s test results gave Carol some insight into why her healthy cats suddenly became so sick after eating the Special Kitty food.

“I expected the lab to find melamine,” the veteran X-ray technician. “But from what I’ve read, melamine isn’t too harmful and isn’t toxic unless it reacts with cyanuric acid. But the lab didn’t find cyanuric acid in the food.”

Finding acetaminophen in the cat food, she said, could explain Jessica’s and Smudge’s health problems. The popular pain killer can be toxic to cats, according to veterinarians.

“It just floored me that there was acetaminophen in the food I feed my cats,” Carol told us last week. “How can you explain acetaminophen in my cats’ food? I sent the food in the original, unopened pouches.

“But finding the acetaminophen in there also makes perfect sense after seeing what they’ve gone through,” she added. “I really thought both of them were going to die.”

The first signs of problems surfaced in mid-February when Carol detected a strange odor on Jessica’s breath.

“It smelled uremic, like a kidney dialysis patient,” Carol recalled. “We also noticed that Jessica was outside drinking water from a melting puddle. I remember commenting that we’d never seen either cat drink before. But Jessica was so desperate for water that she was drinking from a puddle outside.

“And then we noticed that she couldn’t stand on her own.”

Carol rushed the 15-year-old Tabby cat to the family’s veterinarian.

“He did a urinalysis and discovered her kidneys were failing,” Carol said. “We thought we would have to euthanize her. But our vet said that because Jessica she’d seemed fine the day before, he wanted to presume this was something he could treat.”

For the next few days, Jessica received fluids, potassium supplements, the heartburn medicine Pepcid AC, and an antibiotic.

“We decided that if this didn’t work…if she was suffering…we wouldn’t continue with the treatment,” Carol said. But Jessica’s condition slowly improved.

“Her back legs were getting stronger and she seemed to be getting better. So we continued giving her more fluids and sticking with this same treatment program.”

Carol’s vet also emphasized the importance of getting Jessica to eat.

“So I tried to force fed her the Special Kitty food,” Carol said, adding this occurred a few weeks before Menu Foods announced its recall. “Jessica refused. I even poured tuna fish oil on the Special Kitty food to entice her to eat, but she walked away.”

Smudge, however, continued to gobble up the Special Kitty food.

And on March 12 -- four days before Menu Foods announced its recall -- the Calico cat suddenly became seriously ill.

“She could hardly stand up, she was staggering, and her breath smelled foul,” Carol said. “I thought that she had whatever Jessica had…that maybe it was a virus.”

But Carol’s vet discovered another -- much more serious -- problem. Smudge was in renal failure.

“He said she was much worse than Jessica was and he didn’t think that she’d last through the day,” Carol said. “He said it looked like she’d gotten into some antifreeze. But he did a test and that proved it wasn’t antifreeze poisoning.”

The family took aggressive measures to save the 13-year-old cat. They authorized their vet to follow the same protocol he used to treat Jessica. Slowly, Smudge started to improve.

“Our vet said he didn’t know what was going on with Smudge,” Carol said. “He was baffled. And I think I asked him if it could be something we were feeding the cats.”

Stiffed by Menu, FDA

“I was watching the news and heard about Menu Foods’ recall and that the food was causing renal failure in pets.” Carol said she immediately contacted Menu Foods, but the company didn’t respond.

“All Menu Foods was publicly telling pet owners to do was save their receipts. But this wasn’t about money. It was about saving our pets and nothing was happening.”

Carol also contacted the FDA--several times.

“I offered to give the FDA my cats’ food, but they said they didn’t want it. I told them I have the food that’s on the recall list and I also have two really sick cats. I begged and pleaded them to test my food, but they didn’t want it.”

At one point, an FDA employee even chastised Carol for calling.

“The person who answered the phone said ‘why are you calling me about this.’ What really bothered me was how these agencies could be reporting information about the pet food recall if they weren’t taking any information -- at least not from me. I didn’t expect this from the people who supposedly were the investigators on this.”

The FDA finally returned Carol’s calls – but only after she sent numerous e-mails and contacted Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse.

“Five minutes after contacting the Senator’s office, I received a call from a woman at the FDA,” Carol said. “She told me my previous messages apparently didn’t get through.

“This whole experience has been so frustrating. It’s like being on a merry-go-round and I keep going to back to square one. And all I really wanted was for someone to test my cats’ food.”

New Organization Responds

A new organization called The Pet Food Products Safety Alliance answered Carol’s plea.

That organization -- created to raise public awareness of pet food safety issues – paid ExperTox to test Carol’s cat food. A representative with the group, Don Earl, learned about Carol’s situation on an Internet Web site.

“Don asked me if I would send him the cats’ food to be tested and I told him I’d be happy to,” Carol said, adding she’d saved several unopened pouches of Special Kitty since March and stored the food in her freezer. “Don wanted to know which flavor was worse and I said I feed my cats every flavor. That’s why he wanted three different flavors. He knew the results would be scrutinized.”

ExperTox’s results on the Special Kitty food are significant for two reasons, Earl said.

“To my knowledge, this is the first time acetaminophen has been detected in the presence of melamine.”

Red herring

The tests also cast doubt on the theory that melamine is the culprit behind the pet food recall, he said.

“(These tests) add significantly to the body of evidence that melamine has been used by the pet food companies as a red herring to cover up the actual toxin that killed an estimated quarter of a million pets,” said Earl, who has extensively researched this issue since his cat, Chuckles, died in January. Chuckles went into kidney failure after eating Pet Pride cat food that wasn’t included in the recall.

Earl said his research -- and these latest finding by ExperTox -- have convinced him that another toxic caused the illnesses and deaths in pets nationwide.

The scientific data, he said, just doesn’t support the melamine theory.

“Melamine is less toxic than common table salt and couldn't possibly account for the kidney failure epidemic in affected pets,” he said.

ExperTox’s latest results also add to the growing list of pet foods that have recently tested positive for acetaminophen, including:

• About a half-dozen samples of pet food tested in May. ExperTox did not disclose the brands of those foods because of a confidentiality agreement. But Earl confirmed that two of those samples were Menu Foods’ Pet Pride "Turkey and Giblets Dinner" and Pet Pride "Mixed Grill that he sent to the lab for analysis. The FDA disputed ExperTox’s findings, but we discovered the FDA could not confirm it tested the same lots and brands in which ExperTox detected the pain medication;

• A sample of pet food -- identified as CANIDAE dog food. ExperTox, however, said the sample arrived in a Ziploc bag and it could not confirm the pet food was a CANIDAE product. The lab's customer, who was not identified because of a confidentiality agreement, listed the sample as CANIDAE pet food on ExperTox’s forms. CANIDAE denied its products contain acetaminophen, but said it would test samples of its food for the painkiller.

ExperTox’s newest findings demand further investigation, Carol said.

“I know some people have criticized ExperTox, but I trust them. I know how hard it is for a lab to stay accredited. “I don’t think the FDA can continue to turn its head on acetaminophen.”

FDA Mum

Carol's Cat Food

But will the FDA unleash a new investigation of possible toxins in the tainted pet food in the wake of ExperTox’s latest findings?

Will it specifically look for acetaminophen in pet food?

An FDA spokeswoman told us the agency “does not comment on pending legislation, litigation, or citizen petitions.”

What about the run-around Carol received trying to get some answers from the FDA – and get that agency to test her cats’ food?

The FDA spokeswoman suggested Carol contact the FDA’s Consumer Complaint Coordinator. Carol took that action on Tuesday and said the FDA now seems interested in the Special Kitty food.

“The FDA coordinator took very detailed information from me,” Carol said, adding the representative wanted her cats’ medical records and additional information about their food. “I think from my tone she knew that I have no intention of keeping this quiet.”

In the meantime, Carol said her cats are getting better each day.

“Jessica is 90 percent of her sassy self,” she said. “And Smudge just started eating on her own at the end of June. We were feeding her in a syringe for months. We were determined that if she survived this in the beginning, she had a right to make a full recovery.”

Pet owners also have a right not to worry every time they feed their dogs or cats, Carol said.

“I don’t want something like this to happen again. My cats don’t have the reserves to survive even one more bite of bad food.

“The FDA cannot dismiss this as they have with all the other tests (that detected) acetaminophen.”

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