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The Ithaca Journal - Ithaca, NY

By Jay Gallagher
Gannett News Service

ALBANY — Ten days after the New York state food-testing lab seemed to have made a breakthrough in a mysterious wave of pet deaths and illnesses, the finding hasn't been confirmed — a situation the lab director called “troubling” Monday.

“Our finding is significant,” said lab director Daniel Rice. “Whether it was the cause of illness in pets remains to be determined. Right now I guess we don't think this is a closed case yet.”

Rice and other New York and Cornell University officials announced on March 23 they had found traces of a rodent poison known as Aminopterin in two samples of wet cat food manufactured by Menu Foods of Ontario, Canada.
Menu Foods recalled more than 60 million cans and pouches of wet dog and cat food after reports of pets dying after eating it.

But over the weekend, three other pet-food makers announced they have recalled other products. And the federal Food and Drug Administration, which hasn't found Aminopterin in pet-food samples it has tested, suspects the contaminant to be the chemical melamine, which is used as fertilizer and also in making plastics. It was found in wheat gluten imported from China and used by Menu Foods and other makers, the FDA says.

But it is unclear whether it is toxic enough to kill pets.

The FDA says so far the deaths of 15 cats and one dog have been attributed to food poisoning, but thousands of other complaints have been registered.

The New York State lab, housed in an office park on the outskirts of Albany, is continuing tests to try to nail down the cause of the contaminations, Rice said.

He added that rodent poison may break down when exposed to light, which would remove it as a potential cause of the pet deaths. He pointed out that it hasn't been determined yet whether Aminopterin caused the deaths of the pets.

Even so, the poison “is a substance that should never be in pet food,” said state Agriculture and Markets spokeswoman Jessica Chittenden.

“We believe our finding was significant,” Rice said. “We believe the finding of melamine in food was significant. But right now the pieces don't all fit together. We're still trying to answer a lot of questions.”

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