Pet poisons: FDA suspects deliberate contamination

The theory that Chinese manufacturers spiked food with melanine to increase its apparent nutritional value now has FDA support:

Spiking theorized in pet deaths | Chicago Tribune

... Stephen Sundlof, chief veterinarian for the Food and Drug Administration, said melamine, which has turned up in more than 100 brands of cat and dog food, may have been used to falsely boost the apparent nutritional content of rice protein.

'That's still a theory but it certainly seems to be a plausible one,' he said.

In other news deaths are increasing in South Africa and contaminated feed has been fed to pigs. So melanine has probably entered the human food chain in a few places in the US.

Meanwhile, the Chinese government is declining requests for FDA visits and at least one US pet food manufacturer has sworn off any future Chinese sources.

We're going ahead with plans to make our own pet food.

How would a pet food company get our confidence back? They'd apply for permission to sell food for human consumption. They wouldn't actually sell the food for humans, but that would bring them into full FDA scrutiny. Then they'd provide a human-oriented version of their product for snacks at board meetings. If a company did all of that, I might be inclined to trust them ...