Pet Food Recall - March 21, 2007

It has been a busy week at the Beverly Animal Natural Health Center as we are dealing with the recall of over 60 million cans and pouches of pet food sold between December 3rd and March 6th manufactured by Menu Foods in the United States and Canada.

Here is some of the information that we have been able to gather at this time.

Menu Foods manufactures pet foods for several brands as well as supermarket retailers. Sometime near the end of February, a new flavor of food was undergoing feeding trials and several cats developed kidney failure. The food was withdrawn from testing and never marketed.  On March 16th, Menu Foods announced the recall.  The timeframe from February to the recall is not well known to the public at this time.

As of today, March 21, 2007, the specific cause of the problem remains unidentified. There are likely thousands of animals across the country that have been affected.  We have had a few suspect cases here at BANHC.  Veterinarians all over are working very hard to try to gather information and try to prevent this from happening in the future. Several substances, including ethylene glycol, heavy metals, as well as several pesticides have been ruled out. We hope that a cause will be identified soon but it is possible that no cause will be found, or the inciting agent will remain unidentified.  As difficult as this sounds, we know that grapes, raisins and lilies are toxic to the kidneys but we do not know why and these have been studied for years.

So what to do?

If you have been feeding your pet ANY food that is on www.menufoods.com/recall/, discontinue it immediately. If you can confirm that you have fed a product whose serial or lot number or UPC is on the list: Save all unopened cans or pouches. Find any empty cans or pouches that may still be in your garbage and save them in plastic bags. If your animal is not acting normal and showing any signs of vomiting, lethargy or decreased appetite, we recommend checking  blood and urine samples.  Call the office to set up.  Do NOT panic.  If your pet is not showing any signs but you had been feeding one of the listed products, we would still consider screening blood and urine tests just to be sure.

If your brand is not on the list, your pet should be fine.  If your brand is on the list but not with the specific lot number, we still do not recommend feeding any canned or pouched foods from the affected companies as there is more to learn about the recall. At this time, dry food is not affected.

At this time, there has not been a central registry set up that we are aware of to report this data.  We are asking clients to help us collect information and document any issues that they may have.  We are still in the very early stages of this crisis and appreciate your patience and understanding.  Please call us at 978-927-3622 if you have a question regarding the pet food recall.  If you need to leave a message, we will get back to you as soon as we can.

Take care,

Dr Nancy Crowley and the staff at Beverly Animal Natural Health Center

See Update Letter