i searched and didn't find this posted anywhere.

Quote :

"The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is investigating a Texas laboratory's finding of acetaminophen in dog and cat food, an agency spokesman said Monday. "We're very interested in being able to test these samples ourselves to determine the levels of those contaminants," said FDA spokesman Doug Arbesfeld. "What's significant is these things are there. They don't belong there." The pain medication is the fifth contaminant found in pet foods during the past 2 1/2 months and can be toxic or lethal to pets, especially cats. It is not known if any animals became sick with acetaminophen poisoning, or died from it. "We were looking for cyanuric acid and melamine, and the acetaminophen just popped up," Donna Coneley, lab operations manager for ExperTox Inc. in Deer Park, Texas, told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review yesterday. "It definitely was a surprise to find that in several samples." At least five dog and cat food samples submitted by worried pet owners and pet food manufacturers contained varying levels of the pain reliever, she said. Only the food, not individual ingredients, were tested. The medication was found most often with cyanuric acid, a chemical used in pool chlorination, Coneley said. Varying levels of melamine, a chemical used to make plastics, also were found among the hundreds of samples ExperTox tested, she said. The contaminants were found in foods that are not among the more than 150 brands recalled since March 16, Coneley said. The highest level of acetaminophen was found in a dog food sample submitted by a manufacturer, she said. Coneley declined to identify the company but said its officials were given the results "well over a month ago." That company should have -- but did not -- notify the FDA, which first learned of the acetaminophen findings after pet owners posted lab reports on the Internet, Arbesfeld said. "With any poison, it's the amount that matters." said Dr. Wilson Rumbeiha, a Michigan State University pathologist who is working with the FDA on the pet food contamination investigation. His lab has screened for acetaminophen but found none, he said. The highest level of acetaminophen found by the Texas lab -- 2 milligrams per gram of dog food -- is a large amount, Rumbeiha said. That is eight times what a 10-pound cat could safely consume, he said. However, a 20-pound dog would have to eat more than 6.5 pounds of food in 24 hours to be poisoned, unless it ate the same contaminated food daily, Rumbeiha said. A still-unmeasured amount of acetaminophen and cyanuric acid were found in cat food submitted by Don Earl, 52, of Port Townsend, Wash., whose 6-year-old cat, Chuckles, died in January. He said he was suspicious of two flavors of Chuckles' Pet Pride food because his other two cats refused to eat it and because Chuckles, strictly an indoor girl, had been healthy."

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/s_510984.html

i originally found out through a Petfood Industry magazine email i got earlier today but their website is having issues so i couldn't link to their article. i can't find any list of affected brands. cats are especially sensitive to acetaminophen and it can easily kill them.

the Petfood Industry email said:

Quote :

"Acetaminophen found in petfood - Petfood from multiple brands recently tested positive for acetaminophen, the common pain-reliever drug found in Tylenol, according to a laboratory in Texas. Both wet and dry dog and cat food samples contained a low concentration of acetaminophen, Donna Coneley, a spokesperson for ExperTox of Deer Park, Texas, told Pet Product News International."

[Edited on June 14, 2007 at 5:58 PM. Reason : ]

6/14/2007 5:55:16 PM

Codeine found in my white styrofoam cup

6/14/2007 5:57:22 PM

that's not good...cats swell up like crazy with tylenol

6/14/2007 5:58:34 PM

got Patron in my cup

6/14/2007 6:07:36 PM

HEY CHIT CHAT: YOU'VE LOST A COUPLE OF YOUR IDIOTS

Quote :

"Stay On-Topic - Try to stick with the topic. If you have something important to say that doesn't relate to the topic, then start a new topic. If you have something useless to say, keep it to yourself."

\/ i don't recall asking why you said it...

[Edited on June 14, 2007 at 6:10 PM. Reason : ]

6/14/2007 6:09:01 PM

i said it because its true

6/14/2007 6:09:38 PM

any indication of which brands specifically?

6/14/2007 6:45:34 PM

Quote :

""What's significant is these things are there. They don't belong there.""

rofllll.

6/14/2007 8:57:23 PM

I have a theory that cheaper brands of pet foods have ALWAYS had this crap in them. It's just that we're now beginning to regulate and find it all. I mean, previously, the FDA didn't give a shit about pet food, whatever cheap random crap could be found was thrown in it.

6/14/2007 10:13:39 PM

whoever authorizes shit like this going into pet foods ought to be hung in public.

6/14/2007 11:38:37 PM

well at least your pets wont get headaches

6/14/2007 11:46:07 PM

i just don't understand why it would be there at all...

6/14/2007 11:51:59 PM

from the wikipedia article "dogs":

Quote :

"Human medications should not be given to a dog as a substitute for their regular medication as some can be especially toxic, especially paracetamol/acetaminophen (Tylenol)"

6/15/2007 1:51:04 AM

yeah, there's no good reason acetaminophen should be in pet food. there's no way a pet food manufacturer was using the same equipment to manufacture drugs, and got some carryover...

and to the "cheaper brands have always had this" comment - why the hell would a generic company want to add cost by adding drug ingredients to dog food??? acetaminophen would by far be the most expensive ingredient in a dog food formulation...

6/15/2007 2:33:58 AM

Quote :

"well at least your pets wont get headaches"

haha that shit made me lol

6/15/2007 2:37:46 AM

how would tylelnol aka acetaminophen end up in fucking pet food?????

6/15/2007 2:42:57 AM

the lab that found it isn't releasing the names of the manufacturers due to a client confidentiality agreement.

nevermind the fact that people's pets are getting sick/dying.

6/15/2007 8:30:23 AM

Quote :

"how would tylelnol aka acetaminophen end up in ******* pet food?????"

They make it in the same plant? Better check your tylenol for cat food.

[Edited on June 15, 2007 at 9:12 AM. Reason : -]

6/15/2007 9:12:27 AM

Quote :

"and to the "cheaper brands have always had this" comment - why the hell would a generic company want to add cost by adding drug ingredients to dog food??? acetaminophen would by far be the most expensive ingredient in a dog food formulation..."

You completely missed my point. Entirely. I don't know how the fuck tylenol would get in there. I was referring to malamine and all the other random crap they've been finding in there. Hell, we find shards of plastic in the chin's bedding and I know someone who found a fishing hook in theirs.

To add to that, it's HIGHLY unlikely acetaminophen was purposely put there. Turd. It would likely have been in a powdered form and somebody probably confused it for some random by-product powder they put in the food. It's probably a huge mix-up.

These kinds of things sadly just aren't regulated. They've also been having these problems with imported foods.


[Edited on June 15, 2007 at 11:44 AM. Reason : merf]

6/15/2007 11:41:11 AM

still why would a dog food manufacturing plant have ingredients for fucking tylonol

6/15/2007 1:32:04 PM