It took me five dead cats to realize the food from the grocery and pet stores is poison.

Louise,
Many of these are from VETS!  One of the Science Diet for felines Prescriptives has been recalled.  I do hope it is not the one you use as I believe there should be two of them.

Just as many foods from vets have been recalled as those from pet stores and grocery stores.  

And the recalls have apparently just got started good.

Getting the food from a vet is no guarantee just as buying organic does NOT mean the food was even produced in this country.

Wish it were that simple but my vet and I have gone round and round as he sells Science Diet, too, and the prime ingredient in it is YELLOW CORN.  My dogs are not cattle and do not need a diet that high in grain.

.

I am posting a link to concerns about pet foods expressed in the 1990s  which detail a great many facts that have been kept hidden for many years and seem to be coming to the general public's notice only now. It contains an explanation of how plastics and chemicals can become included in the food, and if these impurities are behind the recalls it may explain why there is confusion and the possibility of cover-ups over the actual source of the contamination.

WARNING - do not read if you are at all squeamish in any way.  And especially do not read while eating.

www.nexusmagazine.com/articles/petfood1.html

And lest we humans start to feel too smug about our own meat supply, check this business out!  The last 30 years!!!  I was told that all major packing houses have an on-site meat inspector who does inspection daily.  HA!  How about never!

The FDA has become a joke as has USDA and everything else!  We truly are going to hell in a handbasket.  I must put that back in my signature line.

Article:

USDA admits skipped meat plant checks for 30 years By Charles Abbott
Thu Mar 29, 6:11 PM ET
 


For three decades, U.S. inspectors visited 250 meat processing plants as rarely as once every two weeks despite federal law requiring daily inspection, Agriculture Department officials admitted to lawmakers on Thursday.

"All I can say is, it's been going on for a long time," said Undersecretary Richard Raymond to the House Appropriations subcommittee on agriculture. "It's going to stop now."

There are 6,000 federally inspected slaughterhouses and meat processing plants in the United States, USDA says.

The practice started under directives issued in the early 1970s, said Raymond. He told reporters afterward that daily inspections would commence "soon, damn soon." He said the plants apparently were small operations located a long distance from an inspector's base.

Also during the hearing, Raymond said USDA would delay until June or July the implementation of "risk-based inspection" of processing plants, rather than begin in April. USDA may propose at the end of 2007 to adopt the system at slaughterhouses, he said.

Subcommittee chairwoman Rosa DeLauro (news, bio, voting record) repeatedly challenged whether USDA has the data needed to justify the new inspection system. "If I can help it, not on my watch," said the Connecticut Democrat in adjourning the hearing. She said Raymond would be called to another hearing in April.

DeLauro said the infrequent inspections at the 250 plants could be a violation of meat inspection laws, which require daily inspection. "I believe you're exactly right," replied Raymond, who is in charge of food safety at USDA.

While Raymond said he learned three weeks ago of the practice, DeLauro said "I find it very improbable" no one at the Food Safety and Inspection Service, which runs the meat inspection system, was aware of it.

FSIS acting administrator David Goldman told the subcommittee the 250 plants were not allowed to ship meat without inspection. They held it until approved by an inspector, he said. Some plants were checked twice a week and others were visited once every two weeks, said Goldman.

Raymond said he would take steps to assure all plants received daily inspection.

"It is critical that FSIS from this point forward document that plants are visited daily, as required by law," said Caroline Smith DeWaal of the consumer group Center for Science in the Public Interest.

Federal law requires continuous inspection of packing plants and daily inspection of processing plants.




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s/nm/20070329/us_nm/usa_meat_usda_dc

Right on, Anna.