Melamine toxicity

Remember that before this there was no national mechanism in place for this kind of incident, similiar to the Center for Disease Control for humans. They are having to make this up as they go along. I think at first they were probably somewhat non-chalant but I imagine now at least someone has realized that there are strong implications which reflect on the safety of the human food supply.

The 8500 hundred deaths reported by the L.A. Times and other news organizations yesterday was wrong; they misunderstood what the FDA said. Here's why; [linkC_7_2_5JM_parentnav=TRANSCRIPTS_SPEECHES&C_7_2_5JM_navid=TRANSCRIPT#7_2_5JM]http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/!ut/p/_s.7_0_A/7_0_1OB/.cmd/ad/.ar/sa.retrievecontent/.c/6_2_1UH/.ce/7_2_5JM/.p/5_2_4TQ/.d/1/_th/J_2_9D/_s.7_0_A/7_0_1OB?PC_7_2_5JM_contentid=2007%2F05%2F0127.xml&C_7_2_5JM_parentnav=TRANSCRIPTS_SPEECHES&C_7_2_5JM_navid=TRANSCRIPT#7_2_5JM[/link];>http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/!ut/p/_s.7_0_A/7_0_1OB/.cmd/ad/.ar/sa.retrievecontent/.c/6_2_1UH/.ce/7_2_5JM/.p/5_2_4TQ/.d/1/_th/J_2_9D/_s.7_0_A/7_0_1OB?PC_7_2_5JM_contentid=2007%2F05%2F0127.xml&C_7_2_5JM_parentnav=TRANSCRIPTS_SPEECHES&C_7_2_5JM_navid=TRANSCRIPT#7_2_5JM]http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/!ut/p/_s.7_0_A/7_0_1OB/.cmd/ad/.ar/sa.retrievecontent/.c/6_2_1UH/.ce/7_2_5JM/.p/5_2_4TQ/.d/1/_th/J_2_9D/_s.7_0_A/7_0_1OB?PC_7_2_5JM_contentid=2007%2F05%2F0127.xml&C_7_2_5JM_parentnav=TRANSCRIPTS_SPEECHES&C_7_2_5JM_navid=TRANSCRIPT#7_2_5JM[/link];

REPORTER: Okay. And this may be a question for Dr. Sundloff. Last week the FDA said it had gotten reports of nearly 2,000 dead cats and about I guess 2,000 dogs. I know they are not confirmed yet, but can you give us an update on the numbers? I think also 17,000 complaints.
DR. STEPHEN SUNDLOFF: I think we don't have any new numbers from that, so I would have to ago back and tally the numbers again. We are continuing to add the - we have more phone calls than we've actually been able to log into our system, and so right now what we are doing is, we are trying to catch up with the backlog and get all those logged in and I imagine when we have our next press conference we can update the numbers. But right now those are still the same numbers that we reported on last time.
DR. MICHAEL ROGERS: I can update or provide some context to that number as we provide it. This group last week, we stated the agency has received more than 17,000 calls from consumers that allege animal illness or death associated with pet food products. Our preliminary review of those, and we've certainly entered a subset of those into our official data system, but the preliminary reviews suggest that as many as 50 percent allege an animal death associated with those pet food products. But as part of a long-term process, the agency will be evaluating those calls and determine their direct association to the implicated product.
DR. ACHESON: I want to emphasize that Michael Rogers said "allege." This does not mean it's definitive proof as I understand that.
 
   It sounds like they're saying 8500 but today they clarified the numbers and it's still stands at 4150.