Melamine toxicity

Here is a good read on China and it's use of melamine


[linkhttp://www.iht.com/articles/2007/04/29/news/food.php?page=1]http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/04/29/news/food.php?page=1[/link]
 
Ok the above link isn't working you can read the same article at   [linkhttp://www.itchmo.com]www.itchmo.com[/link]
 
Seems China has been adding melamine for years

Okay,,,so the big question is,,,,,,,what else was put in the food that either combined with the melamine to make it more harmful, or IS it the melamine at all that is causing the problems?

Melamine on its own they keep saying shouldnt be dangerous.  The other 3 compounds they have found in melamine-tainted foods are (I believe) all related to melamine, or can be produced from melamine.  Cyanuric acid is one, and it is also supposedly not dangerous (we use it in swimming pools).  Bacteria can make Cyanuric acid from melamine.  I'm not saying that there wont be some other discovery of additional chemicals in the food, but the organic processes are in place for melamine as a sole contaminant to have caused the problem.

[linkhttp://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/news/1177741533230200.xml&coll=7]http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/news/1177741533230200.xml&coll=7[/link]

That's a nice article, I like the last quote, to find that out it would be a "PhD project". When a scientist says that, you know it will be years until we know for sure, sigh.....

I agree; that's a very nice article; thanks for posting it.

ORIGINAL: Misskiwi67

ORIGINAL: littlesaint
There are still no hard numbers from reliable sources of pets suffering renal failure due to consumed food and specifically melamine. 

When you have 4 indoor cats come into your clinic, the youngest being 4 months old, all with acute renal failure... you think toxin. When the find toxins in the food... are you really going to look elsewhere? When others all over the country are finding the same things, are you REALLY going to look at anything other than the food??? As they tell us in vet school, when you hear hoofbeats, don't look for zebras.

Is it melamine, we don't know yet. And you can darn tootin bet that they're looking into every possibility right now. We get bi-weekly updates from our toxicology teacher here at the vet school. I can continue to get updates from the experts if it would make you happy to hear it from someone other than itchmo.

Someone should always be looking for zebras.  It's the zebras that cause the bigger problems, because no one bothers to go looking until it's to late.   Doctors and vets are told to not go looking for zebras because they generally don't have the resources, 99 times out of 1o0, it's not a zebra, and 99% isn't pretty damn good in practical medicine.  Clinical research is an entirely different game and zebras are exactly what they are looking for.

And yes I would much prefer information from scientists and vets than itchmo.  That's the entire point of my post.  Scientists and vets I can believe, they are (or it least should) be interested only in finding the truth.  Companies, government, and media - not so much.

somehow turned an edit into a double post trying to get the quotes to read correctly...

ORIGINAL: littlesaint
Someone should always be looking for zebras.  It's the zebras that cause the bigger problems, because no one bothers to go looking until it's to late.   Doctors and vets are told to not go looking for zebras because they generally don't have the resources, 99 times out of 1o0, it's not a zebra, and 99% isn't pretty damn good in practical medicine.  Clinical research is an entirely different game and zebras are exactly what they are looking for.

And yes I would much prefer information from scientists and vets than itchmo.  That's the entire point of my post.  Scientists and vets I can believe, they are (or it least should) be interested only in finding the truth.  Companies, government, and media - not so much.

No, we shouldn't look for zebras. As vets, we're only human, and can only learn so much... we need to know what we know, and more importantly what we do NOT know so that when something wierd pops up we can send it to someone who specializes in zebras.

Trust me, there are far more people than just the FDA looking into this... and the more the squeaky wheel squeaks, the more funding will go to outside sources to determine the real cause.

ORIGINAL: littlesaint
You should know who are you talking to if you want to imply that you have some clue of my understanding of science.

You never answered my question about who you were... the scientific mind is, of course, ever curious and searching for answers

acknowledgment from the FDA that more than 16 pets may have died.
 
As of April 26, 2007, FDA had
          received over 17,000 consumer complaints relating to this
          outbreak, and those complaints included reports of approximately
          1950 deaths of cats and 2200 deaths of dogs.
 
[linkhttp://www.fda.gov/ora/fiars/ora_import_ia9929.html]http://www.fda.gov/ora/fiars/ora_import_ia9929.html[/link]

Amazing how close the FDA numbers are to the self-reported numbers on PetConnection --
 

Total reports of illness or death: 14,228

Total cats reported dead: 2,334 cats

Total dogs reported dead: 2,249

Amazing how close the FDA numbers are to the self-reported numbers on PetConnection

 
  Finally,everyone will know the full scope of the tragedy. Also, the FDA has taken a huge step in restricting food additives imported from China; [linkhttp://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/2007-04-30-chinese-imports-usat_N.htm]http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/2007-04-30-chinese-imports-usat_N.htm[/link];
 
The Food and Drug Administration is enforcing a new import alert that greatly expands its curtailment of some food ingredients imported from China, authorizing border inspectors to detain ingredients used in everything from noodles to breakfast bars.The new restriction is likely to cause delays in the delivery of raw ingredients for the  production of many commonly used products.
The move reflects the FDA's growing unease with what the alert announcement called China's "manufacturing control issues" and that country's inability to ascertain what controls are in place to prevent food contamination. For example, the agency says that, after weeks of investigation, it still does not know what regions of China are affected or what firms there are major manufacturers of vegetable proteins.
Inspectors are now allowed to detain vegetable-protein imports from China because they may contain the chemical melamine. Melamine, used in the manufacture of plastics, was found in the wheat gluten and rice protein concentrate that has led to the recall of 5,300 pet food products.
 

Amazing how close the FDA numbers are to the self-reported numbers on PetConnection --

That doesn't change the fact that PetConnection's method  is not a reliable source of this information.    It's taken the FDA weeks to accumulate and verify these numbers.  Petconnection has had those high numbers posted from the start.  The is no correlation, only coincidence.

Is Melamine really the culprit?  Apparently according to this article the Chinese have been spiking the food for years.
 
[linkhttp://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/30/business/worldbusiness/30food.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1]http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/30/business/worldbusiness/30food.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1[/link]

ORIGINAL: littlesaint

Amazing how close the FDA numbers are to the self-reported numbers on PetConnection --

That doesn't change the fact that PetConnection's method  is not a reliable source of this information.    It's taken the FDA weeks to accumulate and verify these numbers.  Petconnection has had those high numbers posted from the start.  The is no correlation, only coincidence.

 
There's no way to know whether there is correlation or it's coincidence.  I suspect the likelihood of "coincidence" being that close is very slim.
 
One could easily argue that owners reported affected pets to PetConnection immediately, and it took time for the FDA to confirm those same cases.  One does not negate the other.
 
(And I do not remember PetConnection reporting those high numbers "from the start".  IIRC, the numbers rose steadily over a few weeks.  I'm not defending them; they don't need that.  They've been very upfront about the possible problems with self-reported numbers from the beginning.)