Pet Food Recall Category Archive

Even as an official recall of tires made by the Hangzhou Zhongce Rubber Company is about to begin in the United States, here in Canada we are learning that potentially a large quantity of these suspect tires have been distributed across Canada. There are no plans for a recall, and the importer insists that the tires are "fine".

The American importer of allegedly defective Chinese-made tires will initiate an official recall in the United States on Monday. The company expects that they will be able to replace 10% of the tires before being forced to declare bankruptcy. In the mean time, we'll wait to see if Canadians are driving on the same tires, and whether corrective action will be taken.

Two deaths are already being attributed to faulty Chinese tires. American authorities think over 450,000 faulty tires have been imported and might be on the road right now. Meanwhile, I had no problem finding a Canadian distributor of the suspect brands.

A reporter for the Brooklyn Daily Eagle wonders if the Colgate website listed on the counterfeit toothpaste boxes is itself legitimate. It might not be a great website, but the registration information seems legitimate. And I can't see how the aliasing could have been faked.

Health Canada has released an expanded statement with regards to toothpaste safety in this country. It is interesting. For one thing, Chinese toothpaste is out!

Health Canada has stated that the counterfeit Colgate toothpaste found in Canada is not the same as the product found in the United States. Health Canada has not said how it is different, though. While we wait, I can describe one interesting detail in the toothpaste in my possession that might explain just what is going on here.

It looks like FHT Enterprises, the company that allegedly imported to the counterfeit toothpaste that is now the centre of a Health Canada probe, specializes in importing cables and DVDs and video games.

First the Globe and Mail, then several radio interviews, and now two TV spots for CTV and CBC (Radio Canada). I suppose it's fair to say that the story of the counterfeit Colgate toothpaste I bought in Guelph has been noticed.

The fake Colgate toothpaste has turned up in Ontario and Florida and Kentucky.

I don't necessarily buy into this theory, but it does explain why the counterfeit toothpaste is in tubes that look completely correct, but why the cardboard outer packaging is littered with errors.

If this theory is true, however, it strongly suggests that the Colgate toothpaste tube I have contains diethylene glycol. It also suggests that it did not start out as a counterfeit.

Within a day of my call to Colgate Canada about the tube of toothpaste I picked up at the local dollar store, all the tubes have disappeared.

I just got off the phone with a very helpful customer service representative at Colgate Canada, and she confirms that this product is not theirs.

Update #1: Colgate Canada says this isn't their product and wants to get their hands on the tube.

Update #2: It looks like Colgate Canada is quietly picking up the faux toothpaste.

Update #3: The story has been picked up by the main stream media and is spreading quickly across Canada.

Colgate insists that it does not import toothpaste into the United States from South Africa. Any such products are counterfeits, and might contain diethylene glycol, a component of antifreeze known to be toxic to humans.

So I have to ask myself, why is it that Colgate imports South African toothpaste into Canada? Or is the toothpaste I am holding in my hand also a counterfeit? And is it poisonous?

Over a week ago I warned people to be suspicious of all toothpaste. The recall by the FDA covered only Chinese-made products, but I found an interview with a Chinese official in which he insisted that Colgate toothpaste was made in China. Colgate had said that this was untrue.

So was I wrong to be concerned?

It looks like I was ahead of the news by a week. A report today that contaminated Colgate toothpaste is being hunted down by American authorities. But as it turns out, it is counterfeit toothpaste. Authorities haven't determined the point of origin yet. Any guesses?

Breaking: Ersatz Colgate toothpaste in the United States might contain DEG. And I just bought a suspicious tube of toothpaste in my local dollar store in Canada.

The latest outrage from China is the export of toothpaste using a poisonous component of antifreeze, diethylene glycol, as a thickener. The FDA has blocked all imports of Chinese-made toothpaste into the United States.

The FDA also recommended that consumers with tubes of Chinese-made toothpaste dispose of the products immediately.

I use Colgate toothpaste, and I checked the label. Made in Mexico. Sounds fine, except for the fact that in this interview, an extremely senior Chinese Communist Party official, Cheng Siwei, brags about how Colgate toothpaste used by Americans is made in China.

Curious. And disturbing.

When Chinese toothpaste was discovered to be thickened with radiator coolant, authorities around the globe went on alert. The FDA has now discovered this poisonous toothpaste in the USA.

Mixing plastic component melamine in pet food.

Antifreeze diethylene glycol in cough syrop and toothpaste.

Deaths suffered by both animals and humans.

Imports from China have killed, and continue to kill.

Now Chinese monkfish is contaminated. And with one of the deadlist neurotoxins known to science. Tetradotoxin is best known as active poison in the deadly pufferfish.

Breaking: Ersatz Colgate toothpaste in the United States might contain DEG. And I just bought a suspicious tube of toothpaste in my local dollar store in Canada.

Brush your teeth...and die! Thanks to Chinese quality controls. On the other hand, the toothy grin on the skull-and-crossbones has never looked so bright and shiny.

The Chinese are terrified that the pet food scandal will cause their food exports to collapse in the face of angry Western consumers.

What they don't get is that China primarily exports lies. We ought to close the doors until that changes.

Yet more horror stories about Chinese exports killing hundreds, if not thousands. But this time we're talking about children being given antifreeze by parents who thought they were being given cough syrup. Why? Because this sort of antifreeze tastes sweet and is cheaper than glycerin. Too bad diethylene glycol is deadly.

Millions of people have eaten food tainted by Chinese melamine.

Millions.

The light-hearted title belies a serious escalation in the food contamination story. Chickens have been fed pet food tainted with melamine.

The use of melamine as a means of selling substandard grain glutens as high quality stuff has been standard practise in China for years. Then so has been making soya sauce out of human hair instead of soy beans. And so is bleaching noodles white by using lead.

The list goes on. Time to cut the list short, I think.

Humans have eaten food contaminated by melamine. Does everything change now?

If a grain or soy derivative says "Product of China", Canadian border officers will assume that it's contaminated until proven otherwise.

Scientists think they might be able to explain why melamine, a substance that is not known to be toxic, but that has been found to be contaminating pet food linked to the widespread kidney failures in pets, might have been responsible.

China has blinked, and though unwilling to admit to being the source of the problem that has sickened and kill thousands of pets who ate contaminated pet food, government officials are promising to fix the problem.

News that another importer got melamine-contaminated rice protein from China means that there are almost certainly more pet food recalls coming. That means more lawsuits, and that means more impetus for legislative changes to the patchwork system of food inspections currently existing in the United States.

With the pet food recall situation getting worse, not better, maybe we need to reconsider the risks inherent in the large scale importation of food. With that in mind, consider the value of a Green idea, the 100 Mile Diet.

Chinese authorities are maintaining the position that their country's food exports are safe, and not responsible for the pet food melamine contamination that has been detected on three continents. Meanwhile, the web is acting as a conduit for information, getting around Chinese censors.

More Chinese food is contaminated. More animals are getting sick. Evidence people might have been exposed. And high-level rumblings of a wide-ranging ban on Chinese agrcultural imports.

The FDA is considering the possibility that foreign substances are being added to Chinese foodstuffs in order to falsify protein content readings and other factors that would then increase the value of the product.

Another brand of pet food is being recalled, and again it is for melamine. But before you think that this confirms the melamine theory, there are so many differences between this situation and Menu Foods that one would think that this eliminates melamine as the culprit.

The problem with pet food continues, weeks after the main culprit, Chinese wheat gluten contaminated with melamine, was taken out of the picture. Bizarre coincidence, a sign that the wheat gluten was more widely distribured than thought, or more disturbingly, that it wasn't the feed at all, and that the problem is still out there.

Cornell scientists have found a second contaminant in pet food sample. But they don't know what it is, or how it got there. Meanwhile the Chinese refuse to help, even as we learn about the high rate of rejection of Chinese food at US ports.

Could illegal immigrants, or their advocates, be the ones behind the pet food poison crisis? Assuming this turns out to be a deliberate act, it is interesting to note that these groups have a particular rage aimed at America's population of companion animals.

An ABC affiliate is reporting that the Food and Drug Administration is considering the possibility that the contamination of the pet food was a deliberate act.

The Chinese government is weighing in on the pet food contamination that has been linked to imported wheat gluten. Not surprisingly, the Chinese are insisting they were not responsible.

The media seems satisifed to blame melamine for the deaths of cats and dogs who were fed contaminated food from Menu Foods. I think we're moving too quickly.

Some people think there has been progress with regards to the pet food contamination that has caused Menu Foods to recall huge amounts of product from store shelves. Now a new compound, melamine, has been named. But after some research, I'm confused. Melamine just doesn't seem to be nearly toxic enough to be responsible for the deaths of the animals reported so far.

The pet food poisonings that have struck across North America has been tentatively linked to imported Chinese wheat gluten that was contaminated with aminopterin, a rat poison that is not used in Canada or the United States. But this is not the first time bizarre and dangerous Chinese rat poisons caused pain and suffering in the United States. In 2002, a 15-month-old girl suffered permanent damage from a rat poison whose primary ingredient is so dangerous that scientists aren't even sure what the lethal doses are.

Aminopterin is still the prime suspect in the food poisoning that has claimed the lives of over a dozen pets, and quite possibly hundreds. Suspicion keeps coming back to the wheat gluten used as a base for the preparation of these foods by Menu Foods. The wheat gluten was imported by China, so I started reading some background on Chinese agricultural practises.

The application of pesticides has been descibed as "irrational" as recently as last October.

The story of the poisoned pet food has not progressed much since the revelation that the poison aminopterin is almost certainly the culprit. The question remains. Just how did the wheat gluten get contaminated, if indeed that was the source?

Pet owners across Canada and the United States are worried that they've been feeding their dogs and cats poisoned food. Today, that poison, aminopterin, has been blamed for over a dozen animal deaths, and more are likely to be blamed on the contamination. The company that made the food, Ontario-based Menu Foods, is trying to understand how the poison, which is not licensed for use in North America, got into the supply chain. While we wait, I'm going to indulge in some irresponsible musing about who would stand to gain from this.