Alert! Alert!

Menu Foods which makes dog and cat food that was the subject of a nation-wide recall last week has now recalled ALL of its dog and cat food brands. This expands the initial recall. The FDA website has been updated today to say that "consumers who have any of the products subject to the recall should immediately stop feeding them to their pets."

Tests have discovered rat poison in some of the recalled cans. The substance in the food was identified as aminopterin, a cancer drug that once was used to induce abortions in the United States and is still used to kill rats in some other countries, according to New York State Agriculture Commissioner Patrick Hooker.

For more information on the brands and specific products check out this FDA site.

If you own a pet or know of someone who does, you owe it to that animal's safety to check out this recall. In a previous post, we provided details of the Menu Foods website where you can find more information. Here is the website for Menu Foods again.

In information obtained from Menu Foods, the FDA learned that Menu Foods conducted "tasting trials" of the pet food on cats and "nine cats died died during routine taste trials conducted by the company."

Now what we wonder is whether there wasn't a better way of determining that the pet food was contaminated than to feed it to NINE cats?

UPDATE AND CORRECTION: Menu Foods in a press release this afternoon indicated it had not recalled all of its dog and cat food brands, as was earlier reported in the news media and here. The recall remains limited as stated in this press release issued this afternoon.