signal boost: Purina food could be hurting your pets

[cellio]

Thanks to siderea for pointing me to this post about problems with Purina pet food (dog and cat, at least). After seeing this I read the last several month's worth of consumer-affiars complaints, and older ones about the specific foods relevant to me. (Warning: can be gross.) This goes well beyond "ew, yuck" to "get that stuff out of the house before it contaminates anything else". Fortunately I don't use their dry food (infestations), but I do -- or did, until now -- use Friskies canned food (toxins) sometimes.

I didn't find anything on Purina's site about this. Since this isn't in the news I don't know how I would hear about a response from them other than searching from time to time.

Comments

[indigodove.livejournal.com]

Yikes!

Thanks -- I did not know that.

[hildakrista.livejournal.com]

Look, I don't mean to be contrary or anything, but that kind of thing happens with all pet food. The thing is, things that are mostly grain and aren't sealed get infested with pantry moths (Indian meal moths), especially in Sept-Nov and especially if a store has poor pest control. And especially in warmer climates. All grain-stuffs can become infested; human food is just normally stored better by both stores and consumers.

As for pets getting sick, well, they do. Most people blame it on the food because the precious little beasts can't actually tell you anything, and changing their food is just about the only thing their owners CAN do. The whole "since 2007" thing is related to the melamine-in-wheat-gluten scare. Ever since then, a pet gets sick, and many people automatically assume it's the food, because the news told them to assume it's the food.

Or, the pets may have developed a sensitivity to some ingredient. Go from Purina to a fancy grain-free food for a pet that's sensitive to wheat, and yeah, the dog's going to feel better if he's sensitive to wheat. Similar to a someone with a sensitivity to MSG feeling better after they stop eating certain soup. Is it the pet food company or the soup company's fault? Nope.

If your cats like Purina or Friskies or whatever, and they seem to be doing well on it, there's no reason to stop feeding to them. These pet food companies have a serious vested interest in providing products that keeps pets healthy, not make them sick. There's no news reports because there's nothing systematically wrong with the food.

Furthermore, consumers that jump to the conclusion that it's the food making their pets sick (rather than, say, something genetic, something foreign they ate, stress from a move or new baby, or even just age) without evidence, and report it as such to the companies that produce the food, are obfuscating real data that the QA dept may previously had been able to use to detect REAL potential problems. Ironic.

[hildakrista.livejournal.com]

And if I may comment on people saying "the vet told me it's the food": none of these people actually say the vet TESTED the food, did they? That is from either lazy vets that don't do enough real blood tests, good vets that don't have a good reason that the pet is unhappy, so they say it's the food because they can't think of anything else, and pet parents who completely misunderstand what the vet meant. I can see at least a couple of complaints that indicated the dog is diabetic and shouldn't be feeding certain foods because of that. Doesn't mean the food caused the problem, just means that yeah, the pet has a health problem and needs a different diet. And there are vets out there that say it's the food because they are trying to push foods only sold in vet offices because they get a kick-back. Similar to docs that get a kick-back from big pharma, only it's more prevalent in the vet biz. Yeah, that happens. Poor-quality vets are harder to weed out than poor-quality docs

Think about this one, too: most vets know nearly diddly squat about pet nutrition. In vet schools, pet nutrition is usually an elective. If a vet takes the class at all, it's only one semester, if that. These people are doctors of veterinary medicine (treating illness), not nutrition and wellness (preventing illness).

I routinely feel sorry for people whose vet said "it's the food", but the consumer has no other info because the vet didn't say anything else, or they misunderstood. Especially with older pets. If your 16-year-old dog seems lethargic and can't handle the same food anymore, how is that Purina's fault? My grandfather's heart attack was not caused by the chocolate pudding he ate right before.

[cellio]

I am trying very hard to respond to the content of your posts and not the delivery, which I am reading as very defensive.

I'm going to respond from two perspectives, the consumer and the signal-booster.

First, wearing the consumer hat:
I drink diet soft drinks even though they contain artificial sweeteners. Given a choice I prefer the ones with Splenda, not because I know Splenda is safe but because I know Aspertame (and Saccharin, if you can still find it) has been implicated in some health problems and Splenda has not yet. Similarly, there are many brands of cat food out there; given a choice among those that have had reported problems and those that have not, if they're nutritionally equivalent and the cats will eat them I'm going to choose the ones that don't have the reported problems. That doesn't mean that Nine Lives is any better than Purina; it, like Splenda, is in the "don't know anything bad yet" category. I originally chose Purina using the same criteria -- "don't know anything bad yet"; there was nothing special about them. Well, now I've heard something bad, with enough volume to be a concern, so it is prudent for me to choose somebody else, at least for a while. I wager that you would have done exactly the same thing if we were talking about baby food (back when yours were still eating that).

Finally (on the consumer thread), if I were doing exactly the same things I've done for years -- purchasing habits, storage, how I feed the cats, etc -- and suddenly I found maggot nests in my food or my otherwise-healthy cats started puking after every meal, you can bet that I'd file a complaint too, with both the store and the manufacturer, and discontinue use. QA does not catch everything.

Second, wearing the signal-booster hat: I heard about this last night but did not post until this afternoon. Knowing the damage that can be done by spreading news that turns out to be wrong, before posting I did a few things. First, I read the consumer-affairs reports (as noted in my entry) and found many (not all!) of them credible. I don't know the person who posted to LJ about this and have no way of knowing if the poster cherry-picked, exaggerated, or just plain got things wrong; that's why due diligence is important. I recognize that the reports are from unreliable consumers, but they're what we have and, gosh, there are a lot of them. Second, I looked for any commentary from Purina, first via their web site and then via Google, in case they had already investigated these complaints and had something to say. Even if nothing is wrong, if people are complaining about your product it's reasonable to think you might say something. I found nothing. Then I looked more generally for news about this, and also specifically for information about geographic distribution because for all we know there's one infested distribution point that's the source of the problem. Again, I found nothing. So, taking all that into account and remembering the problems of a few years ago where the pet food em>was the problem that killed animals, I posted. Note that I used the word "could" in my title. I don't expect anybody who doesn't know me to trust me any more than I trusted the poster of the original entry, but I would rather share what I know and let others decide than sit on it when I had reason to be concerned and perhaps be a contributor to somebody I know having problems through lack of warning. YMMV, obviously, but those are the factors I took into account.

If anybody reading this is more effective than I was at finding information from Purina about this, I will be happy to revise this entry to include that.

[hildakrista.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry you thought my reply was defensive. I thought it was pretty straightforward, giving a different point of view. If my post about vets seems a bit miffed, it's true I do get miffed at poor quality care for animals, and who would blame me? I care a lot about peoples' pets.

Nowhere in my reply did I say that real problems shouldn't be reported to the company. Of course they should! Infestation is a problem that normally doesn't originate with the manufacturer, but one that should be reported nonetheless. You are right... QA will never catch infestation because it usually originates after the product is out of the company's hands - that is, in stores and homes. That's why it IS important to contact them!

I can say to the fact there were a lot of complaints about Purina: they sell a muck lot of food. The more you sell, the more complaints you get. Volume of sales has everything to do with volume of complaints.

I applaud you for trying to find some kind of response from Purina - you are good at research. However, I would point out that the website in the post is just a sounding board for upset people. The website doesn't send these complaints to the company... it doesn't compile them, look for patterns, do any reporting to companies. What was Purina supposed to be responding to? They responded to the people that contacted them directly, and some of the posts even said they did. If people post complaints to that website and don't send any info to Purina, Purina simply doesn't kow about. Consumeraffairs.com and the hundreds of websites like them (though most not as nice-looking), provide a place for people to sound off anecdotally without any further assistance toward resolution. You and I both know the problems with anecdotal evidence.

[cellio]

I'm sorry that I read something that you didn't intend. You have a good point about that web site. I assume that these days every major company has people who track what's being said about them out there (Google alerts and the like) and monitors the known complaint sites, but those people are probably in marketing and don't necessarily do anything useful with the information.

[woodwindy.livejournal.com]

I respect that you're being even-handed and analytical about this. Having said that...

One of my beloved cats passed away unexpectedly not long ago, with two different major veterinary centers unable to pinpoint any primary cause of his dramatic decline. Guess what he was eating?

I don't honestly give a damn how Purina does or doesn't respond to the concerns, and I couldn't care less how anecdotal the evidence is. There will not be any more Purina food in our house unless the company demonstrates a major overhaul of its processes. There's just absolutely no reason to risk it when other brands are at the same price point and haven't had any reported issues.

[hildakrista.livejournal.com]

I'm very sorry about your kitty... it's hard to lose a fuzzy family member! I also respect your decision not to use Purina, if you feel that's best for your family.

But I'm wondering why you think that other brands don't get similar complaints?

[woodwindy.livejournal.com]

Sorry, I can see that my last sentence wasn't as clear as it could have been. I know that most brands have at least some complaints out there (although there are some that don't!). Consumeraffairs.com has a decent -- not perfect, but decent -- representation of active government investigations and consumer complaints re. a variety of companies, and it's pretty straightforward to see where there are significant, consistent concerns over a period of time vs. the "I switched my cat to this food with no transition period and now he has runny bowels, this food must be from teh debbil!" or "This food gave my dog melanoma" kind of things.

[cellio]

I think everybody in this discussion understands that correlation does not equal causation. That said, though, correlation is still...correlation. So given two otherwise-equal options, and recognizing that "don't know something bad about the other yet" is not the same as "nothing bad", I think the prudent path is to go with the other one. If the same problems turn up everywhere then the choices are to take your chances on one of them anyway (nothing in life is completely safe) or roll your own (which few of us have time/inclination to do).

Right now, for me and I presume woodwindy, Purina is at the bottom of the list. They may be no worse than anybody else, but we can only act on the incomplete data we have.

[alienor.livejournal.com]

You have my sincere sympathy on the loss of your cat. It's a terrible, horrible experience to be unable to help your family member, and I'm sorry you had to experience that.

That said, if you think Purina food was the cause, I'd encourage you (if you haven't yet) to file a report (http://www.fda.gov/Safety/MedWatch/HowToReport/ucm053074.htm) with the FDA and also with the company (looks like the best direct line may be 1-800-778-7462; they also have a twitter account and I generally get good responses going public through twitter - @Purina_USA).

If there is a problem with the product, the best way for the company and regulating agency be able to take action is to have data - symptoms, food type, etc - to analyze and determine what's wrong.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

I'm certain that, in most cases, the grain moths aren't a problem. Grain moths are quite tasty, according to my cats.

The thing is, though -- the melamine-in-wheat-gluten thing has never been adequately dealt with. There's nothing in place that will stop the same thing from happening again. Pet food doesn't go through the same FDA import controls as human food (which is totally reasonable), and supply chains are long and confusing enough that end manufacturers like Purina can't know each step. And China has neither the ability nor the inclination to stop it on their end.

Even if Purina DOES have a vested interest in providing quality pet food -- they can't control the entire process well enough to guarantee that.

[hildakrista.livejournal.com]

My cat also eats pantry moths for fun... he loves them!

Actually, pet food is more highly regulated than people food, in many cases. Most pet food isn't imported at all (except maybe from Canada), it's some ingredients that are.

The sad part about the melamine issue of 2007 is that it's unlikely it could have been prevented at all; melamine was a deliberate contaminant not normally found in that ingredient. You cannot test for general contaminants in a batch of ingredients - you have to know what you're looking for. Good pet food companies test for known and natural problematics like aflatoxin, but until 2007, they had no reason to think that melamine would ever get into the food supply, because it's not a natural or possible danger stemming from normal processes. Remember when some psychopath decided to poison Tylenol? Not preventable. Or when a building collapses because some douche head engineer skimmed money and used cheaper building supplies? Not preventable from a processing standpoint (HR maybe, though).

Melamine contamination is unlikely to ever happen again with the big pet food manufacturers because they now require their suppliers to prove beyond a doubt that wheat, meat and dairy ingredients are melamine-free.

You are correct in saying that Purina can't control the entire process well enough to prevent a different unusual and hard-to-detect contaminant in their food. They can't without knowing what it would be. But what company does? What people food company does for that matter? People died from eating fresh baby spinach grown in California a few years ago. People got sick from canteloupe earlier this year.

I guess you could go raw and local (and I applaud you if you do), but even then, you and your pets could get sick from something - bacteria, undeclared pesticides, some idiot putting glass in your apples....

Unfortunately bad things happen when people in power are greedy or negligent. Sometimes bad things happen and it's no one's fault. Food companies do their best to combat that kind of thing, because it's in their best interest to do so. And, hopefully, because it's the right thing to do.

[moose]

http://www.raising-happy-kittens.com/purina-cat-food-recall.html