Pet Food Recalled In 23 States, Company Waits Two Months Before Telling Public

There’s a certain mentality among workers, whether union or non-union and that is, if you’ve been warned ahead of time regarding the possibility to follow the instructions as you’ve been assigned as such or to heed the warning signs, you heed them, right? Let’s say the worst possible event happens, so you tell the most immediate supervisor and the situation can be remedied before anything else horrible occurs.

As it is important in all work situations, I’d say it’s probably this is most important when it comes to manufacturing and food processing facilities, no matter what the product is, like say meat packing or automobiles.

Diamond Pet Foods in Meta, Missouri is one such company whose employees apparently don’t believe in such things. Their plant in Gaston, South Carolina is one fine example of not heeding that early warning, such as the possibility of receiving contaminated corn that contained aflatoxin.

Aflatoxin is a naturally occurring toxic chemical by-product from the growth of the fungus Aspergillums flavus on corn and is well-known to cause liver damage in dogs.

Diamond Pet Foods knew about the trouble as early as September, 2005, but I honestly don’t believe that it took them two months to get themselves together and suddenly decide to tell the public about it in late, December; December 20, to be exact with an official press release that can be found on their website, along with several related items on the tainted food(www.diamondpet.com).

When a death of a single dog was linked to their product(s) and subsequently 22 more dogs died shortly after publicizing the news and 18 more dogs fell ill from the toxin according the Food & Drug Administration (FDA), it seemed as if little press was given to the situation. In fact, I’ll go one step further; there was never any mention of a recall of this pet product that I ever heard on nation radio news or saw online until the Chicago Tribune ran a wire story regarding the recall on December 31, a newspaper in a state that was unaffected by the recall.

That’s nearly 11 days after the fact! Why did it take company officials more than two months to alert the public about this contamination within their own products, that is fast becoming a liability issue with pet owners? It takes 23 dog deaths for the press to cover this? That’s ludicrous!

Now, you have to wonder with a blood-thirsty American press so bent on sensationalism to sell newspapers, didn’t pick up on this story earlier? I don’t think “the holidays” would be a reason to keep them from reporting it.

This recall of pet food, according to an Associated Press (AP) story dated January 14, says “The maker noticed it was suddenly receiving more contaminated corn a month before some apparently eluded testers and got into the food, a company executive said.

"Diamond Pet Foods said employees were warned to test closely for a naturally occurring toxin called aflatoxin, but the sampling methods probably missed a pocket of it in one of the shipments, said Mark Brinkmann, the company’s chief operating officer…”

Missed a pocket, Mr. Brinkmann? Gee, the deaths of 23 dogs means nothing but a “missing a pocket”? How nice of you.

The AP story continues: “The company typically rejects one or two truckloads of corn each year because of aflatoxin levels exceeding federal limits, Brinkmann said. But in September, the company began identifying the fungus on one or two truckloads of corn each week and rejecting the loads, he said. The Gaston, S.C., plant receives about 12 shipments of corn a week, he said.”

Company officials believe the contaminated corn entered production in October. Supposedly a new test was implemented on November 30, before Diamond even realized the contaminated food already had been shipped.

September? You knew this was going on it September and you didn’t warn your employees or your testers? You didn’t punish them? Or did you slough it off, like most giant corporations do when they get into big trouble, thinking it wouldn’t get this bad?

This past week, according to AP, Diamond “narrowed the batches of potentially toxic dog food to two varieties: Diamond Maintenance Dog and Diamond Premium Adult Dog with "Best By" dates of April 3, 4, 5, and 11, 2007.”

Although the recall affects mostly the east and south, at least two Midwestern states were affected; Michigan & Ohio, Illinois was not part of the recall.

The other states include: Alabama, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Vermont, Virginia and West Virginia.

Symptoms include loss of appetite, yellow white of the eyes, yellow gums, and yellow in the belly or areas where hair is very thin, severe, persistent vomiting, combined with bloody diarrhea, discolored urine and fever. If your dog has experienced any of these symptoms, see your veterinarian immediately and also see a lawyer.

And here I thought that America was the greatest country in the world, but alas and again, stories like this prove me wrong. Can’t afford to kill your dog with tainted dog food? Try chocolate, it’s a heck of lot easier and cheaper.

Don’t let the corporate dirty rats get away from this one! Sure heads will roll, but you take back what you dish out to begin with! After all, this is America; land of the free and home of the non-stop lawsuit!