Tests Find Rat Poison in Some Cat and Dog Products
By Donna St. George and Annie Gowen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, March 24, 2007
When Lucy died, she left behind both heartbreak and mystery. Robyn Heidary's pointy-eared pup was just 10 months old, a toy fox terrier who had always been energetic and playful, then abruptly grew ill and -- in spite of $8,000 in medical interventions -- succumbed two weeks ago at a Gaithersburg animal hospital.
Heidary, 22, said her grief turned to outrage last week when she learned about a nationwide recall of contaminated pet food. She rushed into her kitchen, threw open her cabinet and grabbed the cans of Lucy's food.
All were Nutro Ultra -- an expensive brand that boasts "Nature's Very Best Ingredients." As Heidary checked the cans, she wondered whether Lucy might have been poisoned -- a possibility that seemed more likely yesterday after the disclosure by New York agriculture officials that several samples of pet food tested were tainted with rat poison.
The toxin, a chemical known as aminopterin -- used in China and the Far East but not permitted as a rodent killer in the United States -- can cause kidney damage in dogs and cats. Even so, federal officials were cautious yesterday about drawing conclusions.
"We're very interested in the discovery of the compound, but we want to make sure all causes are ruled out before confirming one particular cause," said Stephen F. Sundlof, director of the Food and Drug Administration's center for veterinary medicine.
The FDA's investigation at two Menu Foods factories, in New Jersey and Kansas, is continuing, he said. The government has not ruled out the possibility of sabotage, he said, although he called the prospect of product tampering "low." One possible route for the contamination is the company's imported wheat gluten, which was not used in human food, he said.
A sense of urgency is building, with pet owners nervous about signs of illness in their dogs and cats, veterinarians treating sick animals and a class-action lawsuit underway. It started last Saturday, when Ontario-based Menu Foods announced the recall, which affects more than 60 million "cuts and gravy" cans and pouches -- not dry food -- sold under 95 brand names, including Safeway, Wal-Mart and Giant.
Paul Henderson, chief executive of Menu Foods, which requested the New York testing, said yesterday that the company was expanding its recall to "cuts and gravy" pet food regardless of the production date. He also said the company would take "responsibility" to compensate pet owners for vet bills if tainted food is to blame.
How many pets have died or been sickened is unclear. There are 14 government-confirmed pet deaths, but Sundlof said the FDA's centers have been flooded with 4,400 calls. "It's way too early" to determine the exact number of pets sickened, Sundlof said.
The Web site http://www.petconnection.com has been taking case reports, with a database that includes 1,100 dead animals. Even if half of those were definitively linked to the contamination, "it's still staggering," Heidary said.
At Suburban Animal Hospital in Arlington County, veterinarian Gary Schrader said that after learning rat poison could have sickened pets, he reexamined the ultrasounds of four cats brought in with renal failure in recent days. The records on all four showed a strange brightness around the kidney -- usually an indication of poisoning, Schrader said. Two cats have died, one has recovered and one is "hanging in there," he said.
"This is all very speculative. There is a hysteria about the food, and we are trying to get the facts together," Schrader said. "Last night and today, I felt myself not getting the information I needed, and I don't think anybody is -- this whole thing hit everybody by surprise."
He said his clients "are worried, and they should be. At first I thought this was just the normal hysteria you get from people hearing something like this, but it seems like a bigger deal than we thought before. That makes me nervous."
At Fairfax Animal Hospital, veterinarian Jerry Goldfarb tested three dogs who had been fed food on the tainted lists, but none had fallen ill.
In Easton, Md., Jasmine, a 9-year-old toy poodle, was put to sleep last week after she suffered kidney failure, which her veterinarian said probably resulted from eating tainted Iams cuts and gravy dog food.
The dog's death has left Becki Wilson's 2-year-old granddaughter devastated. "One of her first two words was 'Jasmine,' " she said. She said she was "sickened" that the food she served her dog for nine years might have killed her.
The poodle became ill March 12, and blood tests the next day showed acute renal failure, said Chad Hutchison, veterinarian at Community Animal Hospital in Easton. "The level of waste products built up in her bloodstream indicating her kidneys weren't working were off-my-chart high," Hutchison said.
Wilson sent $700 worth of veterinary bills to Iams in hope of being reimbursed, and she and her husband are considering joining a class-action lawsuit.
In Lucy's case, Heidary and her boyfriend paid $300 for a posthumous analysis of tissue, and the results showed Lucy died of kidney failure, secondary to either a decreased blood flow or toxin, said veterinarian Matthew Felrice of Quince Orchard Veterinary Hospital.
"Lucy was the first patient I thought of when I heard" of the tainted pet food, Felrice said. Although he could not be certain, because of issues with her first treatment in West Virginia, Felrice said, "It's very likely that there was some sort of toxin that caused this."
As she sat in her mother's Montgomery County home yesterday, Heidary was surrounded by photos of six-pound Lucy and the dog's favorite squeaky ball. Nearby were Lucy's medical records and the vet bills, which Heidary does not know how she will pay. She, too, is considering legal action.
Heidary recalled buying Lucy for $1,000 from a breeder, careful to make sure she had a healthy dog. "She was just my best friend," she said.
Heidary, a student at Shepherd University in West Virginia, said she always drove to Frederick to buy the higher-quality food by the case because she could not get it near campus.
When Lucy grew ill -- vomiting and dry-heaving -- Heidary took her to a veterinarian in West Virginia, and when that did not go well, she brought Lucy back to her parents' veterinarian in Montgomery. Felrice recommended that Lucy be taken to a critical-care hospital in Gaithersburg, where a week in intensive care cost more than $6,000.
Lucy seemed to be getting better for a time, then did not make it. "It was the worst time to lose her. She was just getting out of puppyhood, and we had really bonded," she said.
Staff writer Megan Greenwell and researcher Meg Smith contributed to this report.
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