Now that we know that the deadly dog food was poisoning the dogs because of rat poison in the wheat imported from China how much of this toxic product is in the wheat products sold to people in the USA? And will we actually find out the truth? It took forever for the truth about the dog food to emerge. I noticed a story in the NY Times about deadly wheat in Tajikistan that was blamed on a late harvest. But are we being told the truth. I ask because the first question that comes to mind is why are we buying wheat from China in the first place? And if anyone followed this story the blame game was amazing. First the dogs who died got into garbage, then it was gluten. Now this. And there has been no mention of the probability that many old folks have eaten this toxic dog food. Older poor people do eat dog food, sorry to say.
Other things to note. China is a NET wheat importer. So why export all this wheat unless someone knew it was bad and this was the way to get rid of it. This has not been addressed by anyone yet.
related links:
For all we know the poison was put in the wheat gluten as an additive for some reason or other. Look at this list of synonyms for the chemical.
Our Original Post
Was that the rat-poison that was named after that chineese guy, or some other chineese rat-poison?
Its interesting that the dog food tainted was MOST the upper quality brands.
could it be that the Chineese have the HIGHER grade wheat??
The Chinese are smart. They import all the quality wheat and they export all their crap wheat. On the other hand, Americans export all their quality wheat and import the crap wheat from places like China. Can the United States get any more screwed up? Sad to say, probably so.
I presume that some of the people here know something about business and how it really operates at the top of the heap.
Someone was offered wheat for half a cent less each bushel. Could have made a couple percent rise in margin. Look at those eyes light up!
It doesn’t matter where it comes from. What matters is standards that are enforced and verified at the port of entry. Or at the manufacturer of foodstuffs.
Why are we paying farmers to not farm grains and then buying tainted grain from China?
What the *hell*? Would it not improve the American economy to buy wheat grown in America for product sold in America?
What kind of government have we been electing for the last 30 years? This goes way beyond (R) and (D).
I don’t know about any poison, but I’m happy to report that those pesky rats that were eating all my bread have suddenly taken ill. This happens just in the nick of time, too. Those bastards were just learning how to make sandwiches, and my cold-cuts were starting to disappear as well.
If you’ve got a rat problem, just leave a few slices of bread around.
Didn’t our “President of everybody” recently close down various USDA testing facilities to save a buck for Halliburton or something? Vague on the details but it wasn’t long ago. I feel so much better under deregulation and skimpy budgets, don’t you?
China is raping its environment. Most of the food produced there would flunk the tests over here. Why should anyone trust the rest?
Just an aside —
This food is definately killing more cats than dogs at this point, though both are tragically dying. “Pet-killing wheat” would be a more accurate headline…
Either way, what a horrible situation…
Let’s sue China over this. Be a good way to pay down our debt to them. 😉
Food supply is one area America should think about very very carefully before we outsource — this time it was our pets. Consider this a warning. The next time it will be us.
Why do I think this? Because I’ve personally seen where this food comes from:
1) The sanitary and health conditions (of the fields, of the workers) is far sub-standard.
For example, the land owners are too-damn-greedy to provide toilets for the workers, so they have to defecate among the crops. (That’s just one small thing among countless.)
2) Government officials lie like crazy and can easily be bought off by the farmers or the suppliers.
Your crop water have massive levels of dioxins in it? Pay a few bucks and nobody notices.
11 – Hey, just shut down the testing. Big waste of money and the results only upset people. Nobody who matters is eating from those sources anyway. Hey Prez! Where’s that tax break you promised me?!
#12 TJGeezer, you got your tax break. If you stand in exactly the right place, you can feel the trickle 😉
Since no “hard-hitting” investigative journalists ever seem to trace these things back to the true source, I doubt we’ll ever find out – but my money is on a few Bush-regime-connected Republican plutocrat investors who made a ton of bucks on this deal… after all, that’s pretty much who’s reaped most of the benefit from the trade created by the replacement of American goods with Chinese ones, with the additional benefit to Big Bidniss of offloading a shitload of those profit-reducing corporate liabilities / cost centers previously known as ‘American employees.’
We have two cats that are on IV’s at an emergency clinic over the weekend. They have been eating the tainted cat food for three months and showed no symptoms. We took them to the vet for a blood test and both had kidneys that were ready to shut down. We also had a young cat that died in January after eating the tainted food.
Of course we were feeding them Iams because it’s supposed to be very high quality cat food and it costs lots more too. Now it seems that Iams is identical to 75 brands of cat food manufactured by Menu Foods, many of which were cheap store brands. I anticipate class action suits against Iams and Menu Foods.
Menu Foods has said they will cover any vet bills but I’ll wait to see what happens.
I for one make sure my wheat has been fermented into a good wheat beer. I do this with all the common cereal grains. Barley, etc..
How many pets died because of the poisoning? 16? I bet more get run over by cars in a single day in this country. And now you want to start a paranoid conspiracy about the human food supply?
sheesh!!!
18 – I bet more get run over by cars in a single day in this country.
Your reasoning is similar to this:
Perhaps one day you’ll notice the difference between an apple and an orange.
I’m happy to say that I was against NAFTA from the beginning. The whole point of the free trade gospel was to get around environmental constraints, safety checks, and to capitalize on the creation of slave labor in third world counties.
It’s hard for me to fault the “Brand”.
#16 “Now it seems that Iams is identical to 75 brands of cat food manufactured by Menu Foods, many of which were cheap store brands.”
What a surprise, same business practice used by Oil Co. and every gas station is copied by pet food companies.
What so surprising (not) is how people believe BRAND ads and commercials.
Business schools know this, and teach the same to every business executive. They teach BRANDING.
Americans are so susceptible to BRANDING tricks because words are cheap (cost nothing to companies) and people believe in what they wish for, just as long as they don’t have to think. Being practical and critical requires thought, a terrible painful process they don’t trust.
Notice ads and commercials never promise anything, only make associations and illusions.
If people could think critically, they might realize it’s just not Pet Food, Peanut Butter, Spinach or Oil industry doing this.
GM did a customer survey sometime back and found GMC customers really believed (falsely) GMC trucks used a higher grade steel in their construction, and were willing to pay more for a GMC truck.
It’s the same reasoning the public employs to elect idiots, go to war and decide jury verdicts. It only has to sound good, be corroborated by an expert (brand) and they don’t have to think.
This is why the show “Are you smarter then a 5th grader” is so hilarious and sad at the same time.
The country is just a group of consumers to the core. God help us.
JUST WHEN is someone going to make the connection of human deaths-e coli and pet deaths – aminopterin to pesticides and biopesticides use in the United States instead of blameing other courtries?
http://www.britannica.com/ebc/article-9022794
“Antimetabolites such as amethopterin and aminopterin cause sterility in female insects by preventing egg formation. In some species, certain doses may stop eggs from hatching or larvae from maturing”
http://www.biopestlab.ucdavis.edu/Labbib/255.pdf
“the California Department of Pesticide Regulation (for-. merly the California Department of … and aminopterin was added to the hybridomas 24 h postfusion. …”
“and aminopterin was added to the hybridomas”
“The aminopterin was added 24 h later”
http://www.berkeleybop.org/ontologies/obo-all/plant_environment/plant_environment.tbl
EO:0007522 aminopterin
The treatment involving use of aminopterin for mutagenesis process.
http://www.berkeleybop.org/ontologies/obo-all/plant_environment/plant_environment.tbl
EO:0007522 aminopterin
“The treatment involving use of aminopterin for mutagenesis process.”
Some chick on Canadian Tv was saying that when they kill unwanted animals at the dog pound. They inject them with whatever to kill them. I can’t remember what the name was.
The dog pound has to get rid of the dogs after they kill them. So they were selling them to a Co to get rid of them. Then that co was selling them to a Co that grinds them up to make dog food. The lady was saying that they have found traces of what they kill the dogs with in Dry dog food saples they tested. Nice !!!
#19. Here’s a mango for you. The number of deaths in 911 was less than the number of people killed in India every two days due to vehicular accidents. The former has changed our world. The latter, nobody cares except those personally affected.
I’m mostly with #20.
#25
I’m sure those vehicular accidents were done on purpose.
We didn’t use Iams® because of advertising… we used it because it was recommended by our veterinarians as a safe, healthy cat food.
Just a comment about the “more expensive” pet foods. Eukenuba is owned by Proctor and Gamble which is the same parent company that owns Iams. Also Eukenuba was on the recall list.
There really are no “safe” pet foods. Some of the other companies such as Purina have their pet foods made at their own plants, some of which are outside of North America. Since the pet food industry was de-regulated under the Reagan administration, there have been numerous pet food recalls by many different companies.
Also is has come to light that some of the so-called “natural” pet foods are actually manufactured at Menu Foods, although they were not on the recall list.
As a long time pet owner, I am now looking at making my own pet food, using “human grade” ingredients. My pets depend on me and I will NOT let them donwn.
I want to make sure i buy food from us is there a way to tell?
buy USA stuff that is made in the USA only –If possible Look at labels , Research GOv doesnt care who makes our stuff, Thats obvious actually its seems theyre almost antiamerican But anywho if WE the real AMerican People do then , We the real american people will be happier , Wealthier and SAFER.. Is there a List anywhere of american made in america stuff even down Toilet paper ?? I want my ass to support the hardworking real american people of the USA.
Have seen on one web entry that the supplier of the poisoned wheat gluten is the Chinese government-run “China National Cereals, Oils, and Foodstuffs Corporation (COFCO).” Can anyone confirm this information? So far, I can’t find other references to this company as the supplier. Why hasn’t the NYT or other American news outlet investigated or published the name of the supplier? My concern is the same as mentioned here already–that American food companies use wheat or wheat gluten from COFCO in their foodstuffs, too, such as the cereal kids eat.
I have a hard time believing old people are buying dog food to eat themselves because it is so much “cheaper”. They must not have recently been to the store. Have you seen the cost of dog food ? It is high. Chicken, canned tuna, eggs, and bread might get boring, but so does dog food.
After reading about the contaminated pet food and
the tragic stories told by pet owners I did some
research and I would like to tell you what I found.
Everyone at one time or another has been bitten
by a dog or cat. Last week, my sister`s little dog gave
me a nip and I jumped(she laughed). It’s
no big deal where we live. But, if you live in China,
get bitten by a dog, you could become one of the 200
people that die every month from rabies.
It seems the Chinese have been breeding dogs and cats for a
long time for their skins. I guess they make fur hats
or something that they sell and export and the dog
population is out of control like a 150 million dogs.
And so rabies has proliferated to the point where 80%
of all world human rabies cases occurs in China.
Last summer the authorities started a campaign to
kill all dogs, usually by clubbing them to death even
in front of their owners.
Now maybe someone got a little tired of swinging clubs
and opted for a more efficient approach to the culling
of the dogs. Maybe poison bait.
The pet food poison.
I hear a lot about melamine, but after reading the MSDS
sheet on melamine it looks like it is not anything more
than an irritant and carcinogen. It certainly does not
block an enzyme necessary for protein synthesis upon
which kidney function depends but Aminopterin(the rat
poison) sure does.(It used to be used as a chemo
drug but was discontinued because it was too toxic.)
The 2008 Summer Olympics will be held in Bejing China.
If people find out about the rabies epidemic they
might think twice about attending, investors might think
twice about investing in a would-be profittable venue.
I`m not aware of how Menu Foods got the poisoned wheat
gluten – maybe it was thought to be a very economic
purchase or the supplier was having a going-out-of-business
sale or you got our gluten we got yours by mistake.
My heart goes out to the owners of the pets that
are sick and dying. The only thing sicker is that
when the slime and destruction is finally scraped away,
there`s the dollar.
Jamez1957