UPDATE 8-24-07
  • A Beijing factory has been recycling used chopsticks and selling up to 100,000 pairs a day without any form of disinfection. Officials raided the factory and seized about half a million pairs of recycled disposable bamboo chopsticks and a packaging machine. China lacks a basic food safety law and the manpower to enforce food and drug safety regulations at home or for export, and this has resulted in unscrupulous business practices.
  • China is now accusing the U.S. of exporting substandard soybean shipments to China and has requested that effective measures be taken.
UPDATE 8-22-07
  • Bestro Chicken Jerky Strips, although not officially recalled, have been pulled from Wal-Mart shelves after a pet owner’s dog died after consuming the treats.
  • An autopsy conducted on the affected dog revealed that it died from massive bacterial infection, which was believed to be E. coli or Salmonella.
  • Similar reports from other Wal-Mart consumers across the U.S. have been called in regarding pets that have eaten these Chinese-manufactured treats.
  • Wal-Mart has directed all locations to remove Chicken Jerky Strips from Import-Pingyang Pet Product Co. and Chicken Jerky from Shanghai Bestro Trading from store shelves, and is also offering full refunds on returned treats.
UPDATE 8-16-07
  • Mattel is recalling nearly one million toys in United States due to use of lead paint and also due to risks associated with small high-powered magnets used in some of the toys.
  • All affected products were made in factories in China.
  • More than 300,000 of these recalled toys have already been purchased by consumers. For the list of recalled toys and for details on the recall, click here: http://www.mattel.com/safety/us/
  • This is Mattel’s 17th recall in 10 years.
UPDATE 6-8-07
  • FDA has found a poisonous chemical, diethylene glycol (DEG), in certain toothpastes imported from China.
  • DEG is used in antifreeze and as a solvent, and is a Central Nervous System depressant and potent kidney and liver toxin.
UPDATE 7-23-07

  • Castleberry's Food Co. of Augusta recalled more than 80 types of canned chili, beef stew, corned beef hash and other meat products in addition to the 10 brands it had recalled Thursday (7-19-07).
  • Brand names of the recalled products include Austex, Best Yet, Big Y, Black Rock, Bloom, Bryan, Bunker Hill, Castleberry's, Cattle Drive, Firefighters, Food Club, Food Lion, Goldstar, Great Value, Kroger, Lowes, Meijer, Morton House, Paramount, Piggly Wiggly, Prudence, Southern Home, Steak N Shake, Thrifty Maid, Triple Bar and Value Time.
  • The recall also includes four varieties of Natural Balance Eatables for Dogs (Irish Stew, Hobo Chili, Chinese Take-Out and Southern Style Dumplin's with Gravy). Castleberry’s co-packs for Natural Balance and has voluntarily recalled these Natural Balance processed foods due to a botulism outbreak.
UPDATE 5-29-07

  • FDA reveals that only about 1% of food products imported into the U.S. are inspected by them, and the fact that not every batch of domestic food can be tested points to the ever present risk.
  • Officials in Panama recently reported that they had seized toothpaste that had been tainted by diethylene glycol from China.  This toxin was used as an inexpensive substitute for glycerin. Last year around 100 people died from consuming cold medicine that was also contaminated with diethylene glycol. See links:http://www.nytimes.com/, http://www.newsdaily.com/toothpaste
The point, as expressed below, is that there can be no absolute assurance of food safety. The solution is to learn how to be more engaged in food preparation and not rely totally on packaged products.

PET FOOD RECALL UPDATE (5-8-07) - (To read previous post of April 20, click here)

  • Although pet food recalls have expanded to many more brands, Wysong has not been affected.
  • The problem has been traced to a Chinese manufacturer who was adulterating ingredients with melamine in order to raise analytical nitrogen values and capitalize on “junk” melamine they had no other use for. Cyanuric acid has also been recently identified as a contaminant. It is thought by some researchers that the combination of these two chemicals may result in the potent toxicity. http://www.nytimes.com/.
  • This unthinkable and irresponsible act has most certainly destroyed our confidence in China. Our feeling is that any food product now coming from China should be held in suspicion unless proven otherwise. We have reviewed all Wysong formulations and believe all of our ingredients are safe. We will use not imported ingredient unless we can have absolute assurance of quality. Where possible we will use only domestic sources. If there arises any reason for us to suspect any ingredient, regardless of its source, it will be tested to assure purity.
  • The only Wysong foods that were made at Menu were the Au Jus all meat canned varieties, with the exception of the rabbit variety, and the Chicken Stew in Gravy and Beef Stew in Gravy. None of those formulations contain gluten and none of our lots of those diets were made at the Menu plant after the contaminated gluten came from China. The only reason we used Menu rather than our own manufacturing is because they had a capability we did not yet have available in our own facilities. If you have concerns about any food made at Menu, there are many other Wysong Diets to rotate to, and of course we always repeat that fresh, real, grocery ("human") foods should also be used for companion animals.
  • If some of the claims regarding Menu’s behavior in this matter are true—that they knew of danger long before alerting the public, that an official cashed out stock before the public was alerted, that they killed animals in feeding tests, etc.—that would be unconscionable. We have written to them and asked that they directly respond to these charges and will post them when we hear back. On the other hand, we do not feel it appropriate to judge anyone without gathering all the facts and giving them a fair hearing. If they and other companies have been defrauded by their Chinese suppliers, then that is another matter. (Their reply and the facts revealed in testimony before congress are found here recall_congress.shtml.)
  • Prior to this event melamine was not a known threat in the food supply and there was no reason for pet food companies to test for it. That is why it caught the industry by surprise.
  • Manufacturers seeking to avoid any ingredients from China are finding it very difficult to do so. Many ingredient manufacturers in the U.S. have been driven out of business by Chinese competition. Shopping for “made in the U.S.” in the ingredient market has become as difficult as finding non-Chinese products at Wal-Mart. China will be crippled from these events and U.S. manufacturers are learning that “least-cost formulation” is not the smartest way to healthy nutrition.
  • We have received a tremendous amount of complimentary as well as angry mail in response to our previous post. We encourage communication and very much appreciate any facts or logic that can be presented that would help us increase the accuracy of anything we have said or will say. For a recent New York Times article on the situation visit http://www.nytimes.com/.
What follows is somewhat of a philosophical discussion of the recall problem. If you want to know how to avoid other inevitable disasters in the future, then the following will be helpful.

To understand our position on this important issue you must understand that Wysong is truly unique in the entire food industry. Although we are perceived as just another company trying to sell products, our purpose is not to see how much profit we can make. We are a family owned company with our name on the line. We are led by in-house doctorate level professionals and are doing our best to put ourselves out of business. By that we mean that we see our company as if it were a doctor; the function of any good doctor is to keep patients healthy and put themselves out of business. If you follow Dr. Wysong’s Optimal Health Programs for either pets or people, you will see that you need not purchase any packaged foods—even Wysong’s—to achieve best health and be as safe as it is possible to be from toxins such as melamine.

Since health begins with knowledge, we see education as our primary function. In that regard we try to tell the truth as we see it with a view to the long term health of people and animal companions. We are not a marketing and PR company. With regard to products, the only reason we research, develop, and manufacture them is because we do not trust products coming from companies with no true health or nutritional expertise at the helm that seem to operate solely for the purpose of profit. The pet food industry is replete with such companies.

With that said, if you notice a tone of frustration in our communications, it is not because we think we might lose buyers of our products or that we are trying to hide anything. It is because we know people have it within their power to be far less vulnerable to such disasters but by and large are not taking advantage of it. By following the Wysong Optimal Health Program pets would be protected against all but the most lethal dose of a toxin concentrated in a single feeding.

Unfortunately, the industry, regulators, and the public tend to see problems as isolated events that need an immediate solution and an easily identifiable enemy. So the problem (enemy) is found and a remedy made. Then it is hoped that all will return to ‘normal.’ But stopgap measures are not the way to health.

For example, it was only about a decade ago that thousands of cats were maimed and died as a result of feeding premium brands-- thoroughly tested, and stamped with approval by regulators as being “100% complete and balanced.” It turns out they were deficient in the essential amino acid, taurine. In another recent case, animals died as a result of mycotoxin poisoning from a mold growing on grains.

In the taurine case, the problem was remedied by adding taurine to diets (primarily made in China, incidentally). In the mycotoxin case, the problem was solved by proper testing and storage of grains. The present melamine problem will be solved by removing the toxin from ingredients.

Although immediate crises are easily repaired, fundamental solutions are more elusive. Also, there is resistance because change means rethinking one’s philosophical premises. And people do not like to change their minds. So susceptibility to dangers like melamine remains.

There are thousands of potential toxins—both synthetic and natural—that can find their way into foods and there is no conceivable way of testing for them all. Every time consumers buy any food for themselves or their pets, trust is extended. There is simply no way to remove that wild card of ‘trust’ and that is why we present the industry-critical information we do in Don’t Be Fooled and have devised the Optimal Health Program. The more information you have, the less trust you need to extend and the less vulnerable you will be.

Certainly any company who has willfully misled the public and knowingly put them in harm’s way needs to be punished. But identifying such a culprit does not solve the underlying problem for pet owners who have come to believe they should feed one food meal after meal, day after day. Not only do they put their pets at risk of toxicity but pets also succumb to the epidemic of chronic degenerative diseases (arthritis, dental disease, obesity, cancer, autoimmunities, increased susceptibility to infections, skin problems, etc.) that are plaguing the pet population. Millions of pets are being maimed and dying from these problems but nobody (other than Wysong) is breathing a word about it or identifying what the true cause is—the exclusive feeding of processed pet foods under the belief that they are “complete and balanced.”

A similar situation of ignoring fundamental causes exists in the burgeoning medical care industry that focuses on naming diseases and treating their symptoms. Over 3.6 trillion dollars are now spent annually and yet modern medicine’s iatrogenic and nosocomial dangers result in more deaths than any other cause. See: Why Modern Medicine is the Greatest Threat to Health. No focus is spent on what causes health and what can truly prevent disease. The result is that the system will continue to burden the economy and people will continue to suffer at its hands.

This tendency to not address fundamental causes and only deal with effects was highlighted so dramatically by the public’s and the media’s reaction to hurricane Katrina. People railed against the dikes, racism, President Bush, insufficient money, poor response—but everyone seemed to ignore the fact that a city built below sea level next to an ocean and in a hurricane alley only invites disaster. The 100% complete myth, and people feeding a singular food day after day to their pets (something they would never do to their children or themselves), is a nutritional city built below sea level.

Many objected to the intimation in our past post that people must share some blame for what befalls their pets and that Wysong was being defensive, insensitive...and much worse! We are not. Our entire lives are spent focused on what can be done to bring health and happiness to people and animals. We spend thousands of hours in free educational efforts, write books, provide free health newsletters, maintain an extensive educational website, have an entire staff that teaches people how to feed using non-Wysong products, support a wide array of humane and philanthropic activities, build unique processing facilities that require manning round the clock to produce raw shelf-stable foods. Almost every one of us goes home to at least one beloved animal companion. But rather than just grieve, we are trying to do something about the situation that allowed this disaster in the first place. All human problems begin with wrong thinking so that is what we are focused on and trying to convey to people who will open their minds to it.

When the melamine tragedy has passed, pet owners will still face danger if they continue to seek one “pure” food to feed meal after meal since it is impossible to know if any food is absolutely safe (http://www.aol.com/news). That is why we have been teaching people a better way to feed for the past 25 years. Nobody who has followed that advice has been victimized by the present situation, nor were they by taurine deficiency and mycotoxin poisoning. They will also be highly unlikely to be vulnerable to future dangers.

Our advice is centered on Dr. Wysong’s discovery over twenty years ago that the “100% complete and balanced” claim is a myth and that pets and humans should be fed as they are genetically designed. That means to select foods intelligently, vary the diet, use supplements, and fresh food augment—not hunt for the one perfect food to feed meal after meal based on “no” this or that claims, percentages, “super” ingredients, or other marketing lore not grounded in logic, fact, and science,

This Wysong method of feeding reduces the exposure risk of a toxin and gives the body an opportunity to detoxify. It also affords the best opportunity for receiving the spectrum of nutrients needed. To learn more about how to do this, obtain a copy of “How To Apologize To Your Pets.” To learn the truth about pet foods, get a copy of “The Truth About Pet Foods,” by Dr. Wysong.

To sort through all the misleading claims about pet feeding and health see: Animal Research and Information

So who is really responsible when pet feeding goes bad? Certainly anyone who knowingly brings harm is without excuse. But everyone, including the pet food industry, regulators, and pet owners who have bought into the feed-only-one-food-in-a-bowl, “100% complete” myth, must rethink pet feeding or more disasters will surely occur.

The only true victims who have not been given any choice in the matter are our companion animals. That is most sad of all, so they are who we will continue to speak up for by providing real solutions.