Dog Community

More Bad Ness about Diamond Dog Food

Posted : 3/31/2006 12:11:49 PM

This was posted on both yahoo groups doghealth2 and caninedrugdangers and also sent to me. I did a goole on Christine Buff and she is who she says she is with the Search and Rescue based in New York
PERMISSION TO CROSSPOST FAR AND WIDE
Subject: DIAMOND
Date: Tue, 14 Mar 2006 10:23:45 EST

You may think the Diamond food scare is over, or that only a limited amount
of product is involved. Not so.

On Monday, March 6 - after 3 feedings of Diamond's Premium Edge Chicken,
Rice and Vegetables - we almost lost 3 of our 4 GSDs. The only reason it did!
n't effect the 16 week old is because we kept her on other feed. Within 20
minutes of ingesting their dinner, 2 of the dogs proceeded to vomit dark green
undigested food and within another 2 minutes they were foaming at the mouth and
stiff-leg gaiting. Another 5 minutes and they were having what I - as a
nurse - would refer to as petit mal seizures. After a traumatic night at the
local emergency clinic, the diagnosis was "food intoxication from Premium Edge
kibble".

The following day, upon contacting Diamond in Meta, Missouri, I was assured
they would work with me in this and stand behind their product....the
reimbursement for any and all vet care, etc was also discussed. Upon asking for
financial assistance for a test Diamond requested at Cornell ($300.00/dog
minimum) - a test that per my vet and those at Cornell said was a CYA call on
Diamond's part - they changed their mind on "helping out". I refused that
particular test, awaiting results from another analysis on samples.

Notification came yesterday from University of Missouri Vet Met Diagnostic
Lab: "Each of the four submitted samples of dog food contained approximately
0.5 ppm of vomitoxin, as detected by thin layer chromotography...".

Judging from no reference to this on Premium Edge's website (incredible how
many products Diamond makes but very difficult to trace back to them - each
feed/product seems to have it's own website/contact), no contact as of yet
from Diamond and certainly no "standing behind" their product it appears they
are not overly concerned about their consumers.

Research your food thoroughly. If it is even remotely related to Diamond -
DO NOT FEED!! If you are so inclined, please write concerns to Diamond - you
can reference me if so desired. My particular contact was Dr. Brookshire,
Director of Veterinary Services.

Christine Buff
Sr. K9 Handler/Trainer, Highland SAR
Member, Rescue International
K9 Director, New York State Federation of SAR

Berner_girl

Posted : 3/31/2006 12:28:14 PM

Gack! Glad I switched to Canidae Chicken & Rice! THat was the exact formula I had Kahaus on!

myorganicpets

Posted : 3/31/2006 3:08:04 PM

I didn't realise that Diamond made Chicken Soup brand. I bought some the other day but it's going back to the store. After the afloxin scare an investigation was done at Diamond and they were found to have MANY MANY violations. Something like 7 of 10 shipments of grains they'd accepted were found to contain toxins and mold and their ingredients were not being inspected but still 'passing' quality control.

I wouldn't touch anything from that company w/a 10 ft pole. I only wish I'd known about Chicken Soup. Thank god the dogs only ate it once. But then again w/Diamond, even once can be fatal.[:@]

jeano

Posted : 3/31/2006 3:50:45 PM

"vomitoxin"???

That sure sounds made-up to me.....

I don't feed Diamond, but I'd be inclined to write to her before posting this just to make sure it's for real. Horrible, if it is for real!

spiritdogs

Posted : 3/31/2006 7:31:52 PM

According to the Merck Veterinary Manual, the term vomitoxin refers to mycotoxins capable of producing vomiting.

jeano

Posted : 3/31/2006 8:09:45 PM

Mycotoxins are those produced by fungus? Is that right?

jessies_mom

Posted : 4/1/2006 12:46:29 AM

Here is a link I found on Mordanna's board to the report by the FDA of what they found when they inspected the Diamond food plant in Gaston South Carolina: [linkhttp://www.mordanna.com/dogfood/downloads/FDA_Inspection_Diamond_Gaston.pdf]http://www.mordanna.com/dogfood/downloads/FDA_Inspection_Diamond_Gaston.pdf[/link]

In addition to the corn, they found serious problems with wheat, chicken meal, and rice bran, having failed most of the inspections performed by the FDA. They also found that there were verbal instructions to disregard the black light testing of all incoming corn shipments and test all corn products for aflatoxin.

dyan

Posted : 4/1/2006 9:48:03 AM

In all fairness to Diamond, I pulled this from another dog message board:

I work for Diamond Pet Foods. The list of products that we manufacture is
partially incorrect. I wanted to put a corrected listing on your site for
those of you that are interested. I also wanted to explain in more detail
about the vomitoxin that was found in the Premium Edge Adult Dog Chicken &
Rice sample from a scientific perspective.

We manufacture: Diamond, Professional, Premium Edge, Chicken Soup for the
Pet Lover's Soul, Nutra Nuggets, Country Value, and the international label
NutraGold. We do manufacture the Kirkland Signature brand for Costco.

We did have a positive result of 0.5 ppm in the samples of the Premium Edge
Chicken & Rice Adult Dog that were submitted to the University of Missouri's
Toxicology Lab. The FDA limit is 2 ppm in finished product. The symptoms are
feed refusal, vomiting, and diarrhea above this level.

Wheat and barley are the two types of grain that are susceptible to
vomitoxin, barley is an ingredient in the Premium Edge. We test all of our
incoming barley and wheat mids and our rejection limit is 2.1 ppm, which is
well below the 5 ppm allowed by the FDA in raw ingredients.

We offered the testing on the urine upon the recommendation of a veterinary
toxicologist. He felt that there was something else that caused the problem
for these dogs and that finding it in the urine was a lot easier than
finding it in the food. It was not something that we did as a cover-up move
and we never withdrew this offer of assistance. Maybe I did not communicate
this clearly and if this is the case then I apologize.

I will not be regularly visiting this group, I just wanted to post some
information from our perspective. If you have additional questions or
comments, please visit one of our websites and submit a form from the
Contact page.
She DID have her credentials there, I just didn't list them in this.

fuzzy_dogs_mom

Posted : 4/1/2006 1:51:20 PM

So then would the problem be with anything at all made by Diamond or is the problem with the Gaston, SC plant? Is everything that has caused a problem so far come out of this particular plant?

dyan

Posted : 4/1/2006 2:51:41 PM

Everything that I read came out of the S.C. plant.
Also, before the fda even released their report, someone on this board (sure don't remember who, and sure don't feel like searching for it) said they had heard that someone got fired for not doing thier job.
In the end, probably more than one person got fired though!