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Menu Foods Denies Acetaminophen Found in its Cat Food

But company won't disclose results of UC-Davis tests

By Lisa Wade McCormick
ConsumerAffairs.com

December 12, 2007

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Menu Foods -- in a brief message that appeared on its Web site this week -- says a University of California laboratory did not find acetaminophen in samples of Special Kitty food it recently tested.

Menu Food’s statement infuriated the Rhode Island pet owner who is at the center of Menu’s decision to test this brand of cat food for acetaminophen.

“I don’t trust them and I think they’re hiding something,” says Carol V., whose two cats nearly died earlier this year after eating Special Kitty food.

Carol purchased the cat food in February -- one month before Menu Foods recalled more than 60 million containers of tainted dog and cat food. The recall included Special Kitty food.

Melamine

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) initially blamed the contamination -- and the subsequent kidney problems and deaths of thousands of pets nationwide -- on the chemical melamine.

But earlier this month, veterinarians said the combination of two chemicals the FDA found in the tainted food -- melamine and cyanuric acid -- caused the animals’ deaths.

Melamine is used to make plastic. Cyanuric acid is used to chlorinate pools. Neither is approved for use in pet food.

Veterinarians said those two chemicals -- which FDA officials discovered in the imported wheat gluten and rice protein concentrated used to make pet food -- can combine and form crystals in the animals’ bodies. And those crystals can impair the animals’ kidney function.

Agrees to test

Menu Foods, however, agreed in October to test Special Kitty food specifically for acetaminophen.

That action came in response to a ConsumerAffairs.com story that revealed a Texas laboratory found the pain killer in samples of Special Kitty that Carol had feed her cats -- Smudge and Jessica.

Test results revealed that ExperTox Analytical Laboratory detected acetaminophen (pdf file) in a composite of three flavors of Special Kitty food - Special Kitty with beef and gravy, Special Kitty mixed grill in gravy, and Special Kitty with turkey and giblets in gravy.

ExperTox also found melamine in the samples of Carol’s Special Kitty food. It did not, however, detect any cyanuric acid.

The acetaminophen findings added to a growing number of cases in which toxicologists at ExperTox had discovered the over-the-counter pain medicine in samples of dog or cat food.

On Monday, Menu Foods refuted all of ExperTox findings regarding acetaminophen in its products.

The company posted this statement at the bottom of its Web site: “Earlier this year, an individual suggested that acetaminophen was present in certain products manufactured by Menu when a single private laboratory purported to find acetaminophen in products he had tested. Those suggestions and the results of that single laboratory were refuted at the time by tests conducted by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The California Animal Health and Food Safety Laboratory at the University of California Davis (“UC Davis”) also found no traces of acetaminophen in the products at issue in tests commissioned by Menu.”

The statement continued – and specifically addressed ExperTox’s findings of acetaminophen in Carol’s cat food: “The acetaminophen claims were re-cycled in October 2007 when that same private laboratory purported to find acetaminophen in another Menu-produced product that was part of the pet food recall in March 2007. Despite the previous findings and with the goal of alleviating any remaining public concern, Menu commissioned UC Davis to perform tests on the products that were the subject of the new claim. As with the prior tests conducted by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and UC Davis, the most recent tests by UC Davis also found no traces of acetaminophen.”

Outraged

Carol is outraged by what she calls Menu’s “cold” response.

“That company poisoned my animals and they have the gall to refer to my lab results as a ‘recycled claim,’ ” she told us late Monday. “That’s a slap in the face.

“This company made money off my animals for years and now they’ve poisoned my pets. How dare they belittle them . . . it’s so insulting.”

Carol also questioned the validity of Menu’s test results.

“The company has never called me so how do they know they tested the right food – the one that has same lot, style, and UPC code as my Special Kitty.” she says. “And it took seven weeks for this to come out, and then they (Menu) don’t post their findings. I posted my findings from ExperTox.”

Hired gun?

Carol further questioned Menu’s decision to hire UC Davis.

“UC-Davis gets a half-a-million dollars in grants from the pet food industry,” she says. “Why are they using them? Why not use a lab that has nothing to do with the pet food industry?”

But Dr. Bob Poppenga, professor of veterinary toxicology at UC Davis, said the California Animal Health and Food Safety Laboratory does not receive any funding from the pet food industry.

And all its test results are objective – and not influenced by any outside sources.

“The lab is independent,” Dr. Poppenga told us on Thursday. “It does not receive a penny from the pet food industry. The funding for the lab comes from the state. We also get some federal grants.”

He added: “Other entities at UC-Davis (the nutrition program and research) may get funding from the pet food industry. And that’s why I think some of these misconceptions (about the lab) may occur.”

The lab, however, does have clients in the pet food industry – including Menu Foods.

“We do testing for them that they cannot get done anywhere else,” Dr. Poppenga said. “And there is a fee we charge them.”

Out-of-state clients – like Menu Foods – are charged a higher fee than those from California, he said.

“That’s because the taxpayers of California support us,” Dr. Poppenga said. “The clients in the state of California are charged less.”

What about the lab’s results on the Special Kitty food?

“I can’t discuss those because Menu Foods is our client,” Dr. Poppenga said.

The company responds

In a written statement to ConsumerAffairs.com, Menu Foods said it will not publicly disclose the lab results on the Special Kitty food it tested.

“Menu Foods has provided a summary of the findings on its website,” the company wrote.

Menu Foods also said ExperTox’s results contained the date and time codes of the Special Kitty food it tested. That’s how the company knew which cat food to analyze.

“The California Animal Health and Food Safety Laboratory at the University of California Davis ("UC Davis") tested products with date and time codes in close proximity to those identified in the ExperTox (report) - ensuring the products tested by UC Davis were manufactured and filled from the same ingredient sources as those identified in the ExperTox report,” the company said.

“The ExperTox analysis was a composite of three different products manufactured on three different days. UC Davis' analysis was conducted on the individual products of the ExperTox composite analysis.”

Menu Foods added: “Acetaminophen was non-detectable in all three samples.”

The company said it has not contacted Carol about her cat food because of a federal court order issued in May.

“This court order prohibits Menu Foods from contacting the consumer regarding the pet food she had tested and the test results she obtained, UC Davis' test results, any pet food in her possession, and any other information related to her claim,” the company wrote.

Carol, however, has not filed a claim -- or taken any legal action -- against Menu Foods.

We also asked the company why it still had recalled pet food in its possession – and how it normally disposes these products.

“Menu Foods is a defendant in ongoing litigation related to the recall, and currently cannot dispose of recalled product,” the company wrote. “Prior to the March recall, Menu has never before been involved in a food safety recall and as such, has no experience in 'doing' anything with its recalled product.

"At such time as Menu Foods is permitted to dispose of the product recalled this spring, it will do so in accordance with FDA guidelines,” it said.

Meanwhile, Carol continues searching for answers about what made her cats so sick. She recently hired another lab to test samples of the Special Kitty food -- which she has stored in her freezer -- for acetaminophen and other toxins.

Time, however, is not on her side.

“Jessica is not doing well,” she told us Monday. “She’s starting to fail. She is probably not going to survive another month…it’s like we’re revisiting this all over again.”

Jessica first became sick in mid-February when Carol detected a strange odor on the cat’s breath.

“It smelled uremic, like a kidney dialysis patient,” Carol recalled. “We also noticed that Jessica was outside drinking water from a melting puddle. I remember commenting that we’d never seen either cat drink before. But Jessica was so desperate for water that she was drinking from a puddle outside.

“And then we noticed that she couldn’t stand on her own.”

Carol rushed the 15-year-old Tabby cat to the family’s veterinarian.

“He did a urinalysis and discovered her kidneys were failing,” Carol said. “We thought we would have to euthanize her. But our vet said that because Jessica seemed fine the day before, he wanted to presume this was something he could treat.”

For the next few days, Jessica received fluids, potassium supplements, the heartburn medicine Pepcid AC, and an antibiotic.

“We decided that if this didn’t work…if she was suffering…we wouldn’t continue with the treatment,” Carol said. But Jessica’s condition slowly improved.

“Her back legs were getting stronger and she seemed to be getting better. So we continued giving her more fluids and sticking with this same treatment program.”

Force-feeding

Carol’s vet also emphasized the importance of getting Jessica to eat.

“So I tried to force-feed her the Special Kitty food,” Carol said, adding this occurred a few weeks before Menu Foods announced its recall. “Jessica refused. I even poured tuna fish oil on the Special Kitty food to entice her to eat, but she walked away.”

Smudge, however, continued to gobble up the Special Kitty food. And on March 12 -- four days before Menu Foods announced its recall -- the Calico cat suddenly became seriously ill.

“She could hardly stand up, she was staggering, and her breath smelled foul,” Carol said. “I thought that she had whatever Jessica had…that maybe it was a virus.”

But Carol’s vet discovered another -- much more serious -- problem. Smudge was in renal failure.

“He said she was much worse than Jessica was and he didn’t think that she’d last through the day,” Carol said. “He said it looked like she’d gotten into some antifreeze. But he did a test and that proved it wasn’t antifreeze poisoning.” The family took aggressive measures to save the 13-year-old cat. They authorized their vet to follow the same protocol he used to treat Jessica.

Slowly, Smudge started to improve.

“Our vet said he didn’t know what was going on with Smudge,” Carol said. “He was baffled. And I think I asked him if it could be something we were feeding the cats.”

Suspicions confirmed

Carol’s suspicious were confirmed a few days later.

“I was watching the news and heard about Menu Foods’ recall and that the food was causing renal failure in pets.”

Carol said she immediately contacted Menu Foods, but the company didn’t respond.

“All Menu Foods was publicly telling pet owners to do was save their receipts. But this wasn’t about money. It was about saving our pets and nothing was happening.”

Carol also contacted the FDA -- several times.

“I offered to give the FDA my cats’ food, but they said they didn’t want it. I told them I have the food that’s on the recall list and I also have two really sick cats. I begged and pleaded with them to test my food, but they didn’t want it.”

Apathy at FDA

At one point, an FDA employee even chastised Carol for calling.

“The person who answered the phone said ‘why are you calling me about this.’ What really bothered me was how these agencies could be reporting information about the pet food recall if they weren’t taking any information -- at least not from me. I didn’t expect this from the people who supposedly were the investigators on this.”

The FDA finally returned Carol’s calls – but only after she sent numerous e-mails and contacted Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse.

“Five minutes after contacting the Senator’s office, I received a call from a woman at the FDA,” Carol said. “She told me my previous messages apparently didn’t get through.

“This whole experience has been so frustrating. It’s like being on a merry-go-round and I keep going to back to square one. And all I really wanted was for someone to test my cats’ food.”

That someone turned out to be The Pet Food Products Safety Alliance, a new organization created to raise public awareness of pet food safety issues.

That group hired ExperTox to test Carol’s food. Spokesman Don Earl called the lab’s findings significant for two reasons.

“To my knowledge, this is the first time acetaminophen has been detected in the presence of melamine,” said Earl, who has extensively researched this issue since his cat, Chuckles, died in January. Chuckles went into kidney failure after eating Pet Pride cat food that wasn’t included in the recall.

ExperTox’s results also added to the growing list of pet foods that have recently tested positive for acetaminophen, including:

• About a half-dozen samples of pet food tested in May. ExperTox did not disclose the brands of those foods because of a confidentiality agreement. But Earl confirmed that two of those samples were Menu Foods’ Pet Pride "Turkey and Giblets Dinner" and Pet Pride "Mixed Grill” that he sent to the lab for analysis. Menu Foods and the FDA disputed ExperTox’s findings. But we learned the FDA couldn’t confirm it tested the same lots and brands in which ExperTox detected the pain medication.

• A sample of pet food -- identified as CANIDAE dog food. ExperTox, however, said the sample arrived in a Ziploc bag and it could not confirm the pet food was a CANIDAE product. The lab's customer, who was not identified because of a confidentiality agreement, listed the sample as CANIDAE pet food on ExperTox’s forms. CANIDAE denied its products contain acetaminophen, but said it would test samples of its food for the painkiller.

ConsumerAffairs.com asked the FDA what action the agency will take in response to ExperTox’s findings of acetaminophen in Carol’s cat food. A spokeswoman told us the agency “does not comment on pending legislation, litigation, or citizen petitions.”

The FDA, however, suggested that Carol contact the agency’s Consumer Complaint Coordinator about getting her food tested.

Carol took that action in October and said the FDA initially responded. But she hasn’t heard from that agency in more than six weeks.

Battling with the FDA and Menu Foods, however, aren’t Carol’s immediate concerns right now.

She’s focused on keeping Jessica comfortable. “Like I said, Jessica is probably not going to survive another month.”

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