A Look Back At The 2007 Pet Food Recall
A Look Back At The 2007 Pet Food Recall
2007 will go down in pet circles as the year of the pet food recall. It was a very scary moment for pet owners everywhere when it seemed like every day there was new information regarding contaminated pet foods that were not only causing sickness in pets, but death too.
In March of 2007 reports started coming in worldwide of pets suffering from renal failure. Such widespread problems caused concern and government agencies as well as the pet food companies themselves started looking for a cause. When a company test showed not only sickness but death in test animals, Canadian pet food manufacturer Menu Foods became the first company to issue a voluntary recall on March 16, 2007. Initially the recall was confined to wet pet foods and was traced to wheat gluten from a single Chinese company. Later, other contaminations would be discovered that would lead to a complete investigation of Chinese food exportation. This investigation would also find contaminated rice protein that was related to kidney failure in pets.
Although the actual number of infected pets and pets suffering death as a result will probably never be known due to the lack of a centralized animal death registry, the number was originally reported as around 100 at the end of March and has grown to be reported as multiple thousands. When all was said and done over 5300 pet products were recalled by multiple companies and a true cause was never completely discovered.
With several lawsuits still pending litigation and an investigation that found the distribution point, but not the source of the contamination, many wonder what the long term effects of the pet food recall of 2007 will be. Perhaps the long term effects will be what some people want, government regulation of the pet food industry.
