Tainted pet food toll rises to 14; Vets, owners frustrated

Mystery over the possible source of contamination still hovers as the official number of animal deaths rose to 14 on Tuesday. Adding to misery, insufficient medical information behind the recall is making matters worse for owners and vets.

Swamped by calls and visits from anxious pet owners, veterinarians expect more scientific information to promptly treat animals that are sickened by the intake of tainted pet food.

"We have an unusual event that may involve a toxic product, but we don’t know what that product would be," Dr. Gayne Fearneyhough, head of diagnostic service at the Texas Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Laboratory at Texas A&M University said.

"There’s frustration when we can’t get answers," he added.

As many as one in six animals died in preliminary tests conducted by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, U.S. government official revealed.

Further adding to the first issued recall list of over 60 million cans and pouches of "cuts and gravy" style dog and cat food on Friday manufactured under 91 brands, Canadian based Menu Foods today extended the recall to another 9 brands.

The recall now covers almost 100 brands of pet food manufactured between December 3, 2006 and March 6, 2007 and sold under both store and major brand labels at Wal-Mart, Kroger, Safeway and other large retailers across the country.

Meanwhile, testing and reviewing of the manufacturing process at Menu still failed to identify the possible source of the contamination, Stephen Sundlof, director of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Veterinary Medicine revealed.

Preliminary reports suggest forms of mold toxin in the wheat gluten as the possible source of the disease. Wheat gluten is used as a thickener for the gravy in canned food, thus, not used in the manufacturing of dry pet food.

But analysts are not ruling out contamination from chemicals and other foreign substances as a part of the fiasco.

"We are looking at all possible contaminants," Sundlof said.