Alabama firm recalls dog biscuits

Sunshine Mills Inc., an Alabama firm that sells dog biscuits at a number of retailers including Wal-Mart Stores Inc., became the latest -- and maybe the last -- to join a list of manufacturers that have recalled pet products made with contaminated wheat gluten , the Food and Drug Administration said yesterday.

The agency also said Menu Foods Ltd. , the company that last month triggered one of the nation's largest pet food recalls, is expanding its voluntary market withdrawal that has already recalled 60 million cans and pouches of wet pet food.

The dog biscuits were sold under such names as Ol' Roy Peanut Butter Biscuit, Nurture Chicken & Rice, Pet Life, and Lassie Lamb and Rice Biscuit.

The FDA said it has tracked down the suspect wheat gluten, imported from China , inspected the firm that imported the thickener and those that purchased it, and can now say with "confidence" there is no evidence, to date, to suggest it entered the human food supply. The wheat gluten was tainted with melamine, a chemical used as a fertilizer and to make plastics.

This week, the FDA said the suspect gluten wound up at plants that manufacture food for humans as well as pets. "We're not aware of any leads that warrant follow up," Michael Rogers , director of FDA's division of field investigations , said yesterday.

Since Menu Food's recall began March 16 , the FDA has gotten 12,000 complaints, assigned more than 400 employees to the investigation, and tested 430 suspect samples. ChemNutra Inc. , of Las Vegas , imported roughly 1.7 million pounds of wheat gluten from Xuzhou Anying Biologic Technology Development Co. , one of its Chinese suppliers. ChemNutra said it shipped the product from its Kansas City warehouse to three pet food manufacturers and to one distributor that it said only supplies pet food companies.

The FDA said 55-pound paper sacks of wheat gluten that ChemNutra imported tested positive for melamine , in some cases at high concentrations. "Between 5 and 10 percent of the product that was sold as wheat gluten was, in effect, melamine, " said Stephen F. Sundlof , director of FDA's Center for Veterinary Medicine.

After the FDA traced ChemNutra's tainted wheat gluten to Sunshine Mills, the company agreed to withdraw dog biscuits that it markets at grocery stores, pet food specialty stores, and such retail stores as Wal-Mart.

For now, the FDA has confirmed 16 pet deaths connected to melamine, but Sundlof acknowledged "this is a number we recognize is nowhere near the reality."

Scientific literature only covers the industrial chemical's minimal toxicity in rodents . Because wheat gluten is used sparingly in finished pet food products, cats and dogs were exposed to lower amounts than rodents. That could mean that melamine is more toxic for dogs and cats, or is simply a more obvious chemical marker that hints at more elusive poisons in the tainted shipment. Regardless, the FDA believes all of the bad wheat gluten will soon be off store shelves. "Barring any unforeseen new information, we should have it all wrapped up," Sundlof said.

But some pet owners are still jittery, including Kimberly Miller, a Holden woman who bagged all her Husky's pet treats that contain wheat gluten, expecting one day they will be recalled as well.

Miller said the sad memory of her cat, Nikki , remains fresh. The calico suffered kidney failure after eating Price Chopper wet cat food. "She just kept getting weaker and weaker and weaker . . . and she would stumble. She would fall. Then, she couldn't jump any more. She'd try to jump and miss and fall," Miller said.

Menu Foods later recalled the food Miller's cat ate.

The FDA "might have found all of the wheat gluten. But is that really the only contaminant?" she said.