Melamine in Cat Food Poisoned cat Photo: © exrorro reproduced under creative commons license 
Melamine in cat food and indeed any pet food was a major concern in 2007, when, in the USA, there was a massive pet food recall. Many thousands of cats and dogs suffered fatal kidney disease as a consequence of eating pet food tainted with melamine. The source of poisoning was, it seems, in the gravy added to the pet food. The gravy contained gluten to thicken it, which in turn contained the melamine. Melamine added protein to the food but it is used for the manufacture of a wide range of products and is poisonous when eaten. To use melamine in cat food to make it cheaper to manufacture was a scandalous act of gross negligence. It seems that the source of the melamine tainted food is China, where there is poor governmental regulation. This has come to haunt the Chinese government as baby milk manufacturers subsequently put melamine in their product. This understandably had far reaching consequences with large numbers of Chinese children suffering kidney failure; reduced to dialysis for the rest of their lives. Read about a poisoned cat (not with melamine as far as I know). I received an email that originally came from a person unknown to me. It talked about melamine poisoning and therefore relates to melamine in cat food. He/she asked in the text of the email to "share this information with friends". I consider that all people who keep cats as my friends, actual or potential. Accordingly, the contents of the email is reproduced here. I have only removed a few pictures to lighten this file so that it loads more quickly and added some notes..........Make sure you look at the end - very interesting - perhaps this a way to tell where things are made. This page mainly informs pet food suppliers/manufacturers in the West who use ingredients made in China or other countries. Melamine in cat food is still a possibility and will be in the future. Cat Food Recall List The following is a near verbatim transcript (additional text is in italics). The English is good but the writer's first language is not, it seems, English:- _____________________________
.......The China milk poisoning incidents
makes everyone afraid to look at the daily news report.
Everyday, the reports are changing. No one can clearly tell us what to
eat and not to eat.
This
is our human right to know, but the government and related departments
never educate the public, therefore we have
to RESCUE ourselves. Be vigilant about melamine in
cat food, please. Update 23rd Jan. 2009: This melamine in cat food scandal is one in a series that has come out of Chinese manufacturing. Lets not forget too that baby milk was also tainted causing the death of 6 infants and many thousands injured with kidney damage requiring dialysis - a complete tragedy. The company producing the baby milk in now rightly bust and the chairwoman has on conviction been sentenced to imprisonment for life. The two people who produced the melamine (some of which I presume tainted cat food) have been given the death sentence. The Chinese authorities covered things up during the Olympics. An earlier baby food scxandal in China concerned the manufacture of baby food with no nutritional value; babies starved. It seems that some Chinese put little value on the vulnerable, babies and companion animals. Update 3rd April 2009: See a Cat Food Recall List prepared by the FDA (US Drug and Food Administration). The perpetrators, Chinese exporters and American importers are being brought to justice.  |
