Sickening news to share…more jerky treats from China are back on store shelves. Waggin Train is back. Milo’s Kitchen is back. Purina/Waggin Train meetings with FDA. And even a connection of Waggin Train to Simmons Foods – the present owner of former Menu Foods. This just keeps getting worse.
Breaking News (kidding)…
The Entire Country of China Stops Feeding Poultry Antibiotics Illegal in the US! That’s right, millions of poultry farmers in China have all agreed to stop feeding their birds drugs that are illegal in the US…only because US pet treat companies want them to. Pet jerky treats have completely changed the farming methods in the entire country of China!
If you believe that…I have some ocean front property in Arizona to sell you.
It is with great sadness to report – more jerky treats from China are on store shelves right now. Waggin Train chicken jerky imported from China have officially returned.
How could this happen?
Executives of Purina (parent company of Waggin Train) met with FDA approximately one month after the New York Department of Agriculture found high levels of illegal antibiotics in Waggin Train jerky treats and the treats were removed from store shelves. FDA website – Past Meetings with FDA Officials – provides the following information of a meeting in February 2013:
Purina Representatives in attendance at this meeting:
Chris Cowell Director, Regulatory & Scientific Affairs Nestle Purina PetCare
Adrian Palensky, Vice President Quality Assurance Nestle Purina PetCare
Larry Thompson, Senior Research Scientist at Nestle Purina PetCare
The topic of that meeting? We don’t know – we can only speculate.
Executives from Purina met again with FDA a couple of months later – June 12, 2013…
Purina Representatives in attendance at this meeting:
Chris Cowell Director, Regulatory & Scientific Affairs Nestle Purina PetCare
Adrian Palensky, Vice President Quality Assurance Nestle Purina PetCare
Ed Vanyo, Vice President, Technical Services at Nestlé Purina North America
Nina Leigh, President, Waggin’ Train
Keith Schopp, Vice President, Corporate Public Relations Nestlé Purina PetCare
Larry Thompson, Senior Research Scientist at Nestle Purina PetCare
The topic of this meeting? Speculating again…we can guess the topic of Waggin Train was at least part of the topic of this meeting – since the President of Waggin Train was in attendance.
A little over four months from this second 2013 meeting of FDA and Purina/Waggin Train, the first new shipment of Waggin Train jerky treats arrived in the U.S. – 10/15/2013.
Something else…
The new Waggin Train jerky treat website states: “New Waggin’ Train Jerky Duos and Waggin’ Train Smoky Jerky Snacks are made in the U.S. with chicken sourced exclusively in the U.S. from a single, trusted chicken supplier.”
Who is that “single, trusted chicken supplier”? Purina/Waggin Train told me (1/23/14) this was “proprietary information”.
The new Waggin Train jerky treat website also states: “New Waggin’ Train Chicken Jerky Tenders are made with real white meat chicken in China, where we now source our chicken exclusively from a single, trusted chicken supplier, which is part of a U.S.-based company.”
Who is that “single, trusted chicken supplier”? Purina/Waggin Train told me “Simmons Foods”.
Simmons Foods is the parent company of Simmons Pet Foods. Yes – the very same company that purchased Menu Foods. Menu Foods was the manufacturer of hundreds of different brands of pet food responsible for the deaths and illnesses of thousands of pets in 2007.
I asked the FDA what the current illness and death count is report to FDA linked to Chinese jerky treats. Received from FDA today (1/23/14):
“I can tell you that we received about another 1500 case reports (many of them historical) in response to our Dear Vet letter in October. Our first priority in reviewing those cases was to identify the current or recent cases that were under the treatment of a veterinarian, so that we could select ones that we wanted to focus on for follow-up–ones that we thought would be most likely to yield high quality scientific data that would be helpful to the investigation. Because of that focus, we have not completed entering all the particulars from those 1500 case reports into our database and do not yet have updated numbers to share.
I can tell you that, out of this effort, we have had the opportunity to perform necropsies on 16 dogs, 14 of which are complete. Of those, 6 had kidney disease, but 8 had other causes of death like widespread cancer, Cushings disease, mushroom toxicity, abscess or internal bleeding secondary to trauma.
We hope to have updated numbers in the coming weeks.”
And don’t forget – the FDA told the world in October incorrect levels of antibiotics were found in the treats. The FDA stated illegal drugs were well below risk levels. Through Freedom of Information Act – we discovered numerous tests found drugs well above risk levels. Opposite of what FDA told the world. By the way, the FDA has continued to ignore the Freedom of Information Act request sent to them.
One more note. Renate Reimschuessel – the FDA representative in attendance at both of the above Purina/FDA meetings – is the scientist that told a grieving pet owner the FDA can’t help her find why two of her four cats died – but told this pet owner “if your other cats die send us their bodies – FDA will pay for shipping”.
Just sickening.
Wishing you and your pet(s) the best,
Susan Thixton
Pet Food Safety Advocate
Author Buyer Beware, Co-Author Dinner PAWsible
TruthaboutPetFood.com
Association for Truth in Pet Food
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