Some background:  The recall issues, the many companies involved, the withholding of information, the lies, the cover-up, the fact that SO MANY PEOPLE are not aware of this recall and the ramifications for our pets is blowing my mind today.

So I called my Mom, who has 25 years on Capitol Hill and is a really smart cookie.  I asked her what our next concerted effort should be.  She specifically said Congress is taking what action they can, they are informed, having hearings, etc., That's all they can do.

Her very educated recommendation is this:

1)  Contact the Department of Justice Criminal Division requesting a complete criminal investigation into all actions by the companies involved.  We need to be very specific here with examples of criminal behavior.

***Please note:  we are not asking them to check out the FDA.  We are going around the FDA at this point.

2)  Contact the American Veterinary Medical Association and DEMAND that they:

     a)  Keep veterinarians informed by mail and website updates of every bit of information they can find on the issues involved in the recall, including any latest news in the treatment of these poisoned animals.

     b)  That the AVMA require each vet to send out a letter to EVERY customer announcing the pet food recall with details of symptoms, locations of comprehensive lists.

***Please note:  If the AVMA does the above two things, then we have effectively dealt with the big concern of so many pet parents being uninformed.  We will have also dealt with the problem of so many vets being uninformed.

Of course, it's much simpler for everyone involved to make these into post cards or send faxes given the mail delays involved.  Also, the mailed letters need to be specific in nature but different enough to warrant a good look at each.

So tell me what you think about this. 

Good ideas.  I especially like the Justice Dept. idea and we would need to be very specific on what we want them to investigage. 

I think it is worth a try to contact the AVMA and discuss with them ways they can help get the word out to pet parents. I am sure the AVMA cannot require vets to send out letters.  And not all vets are members of the AVMA.  In addition, I have not thought that the AVMA has been as "on top" of this fiasco as they should have been.  Nor have many of the state associations either.  I realize that it caught them unaware.  But, as a vet tech, I was left feeling very alone when all of this broke because the information I needed for our staff or our clients and patients was not made readily available to us.  I have spent hours and hours haunting the internet for information and thanks to sites like this one and petconnection and the diagnostic labs, I was able to get up to date info 24 - 48 hours ahead of AVMA and have been able to keep up with the latest and greatest.  AVMA is getting faster and the information they have posted now on their website is excellent, but I still get the info ahead of them.  Our state association has given us little to nothing to work with.  We got one notice from them faxed to our office a *week* after the first Menu Foods recall and *nothing since.*  In our little clinic, it has been one person's busy fingers on the keyboard that has kept us and our clients up to date.  I'm sure that scenario has been played out over and over again across the country.

Excellent ideas!!

In addition to contacting the AVMA, not instead of, I also encourage everyone to contact their local VMA.  For example, there's one for both the state and county where I live.  They all have websites. Check out what, if anything, they've done to keep their vet members informed, then ask that they do something radical, such as keep their members up-to-date.     Argh, I'm just so sick of the lack of action and/or slow response by these organizations.

These are fantastic ideas.  I'm starting with my local state VMA.  Found their website and will be calling them tomorrow, also emailing them.  They haven't updated their site as far as recalls since their initial posts on March 19th referring members, public to AVMA. 

I, too, had to advise my vet office regarding some of the recalls.  Thank goodness they have at least one tech there who is computer literate and is checking for information.  They do post some notices in their office.

I'm praying for all your pets.

Everyone who comes in to our clinic is asked what they are feeding their pet, if they have switched foods what were they feeding before, what treats....  Some people look at me as if I'm asking for their firstborn child, but then they loosen up when I start telling them about the recent recalls.  Just about everyone has heard about them, but most are not even close to being up-to-date.  A mere handful have been following the recall news closely.

I've programmed our veterinary software to create a searchable database of what foods people are feeding, so that when a food is recalled, we can do a search for it and come up with those patients and the client.  Then we can notify them of the recall and suggest they come in for testing.

This is just one thing that each vet clinic could do and it really doesn't add that much time or effort to taking patient histories or transcribing medical history.  It did take me a little bit of time to figure out how to program the software, but that was a one-time effort.

spocko,

I like the Association of American Feed Control angle.  I guess the reason PETA didn't get much of a rise out of them was because they were asking for someone's head on a platter   Maybe we need to be more realistic.

There is definitely a chain of events, I would suggest they are criminal actions, in this mess.  Someone knew something from the get go and I don't only believe it was the Chinese importers.  Nailing this down with clearcut, specific instances in the key to getting these letters read.  spocko, I'm not one of the researchers over at PC but I know you have been, steve, mal, e. Hamilton and some others.  Your suggestions for this part would be imperative.

I also think that the AVMA might not be able to demand vets send out letters, but they can "suggest" which is a helluva lot more than they have done up to this point.  BTW, who is the other organization if vets are not members of the AVMA??

I tried posting a link to this suggestion on petconnection and it got lost in the ethernet.  I'm gonna try again.  The more suggestions, the better to find a clearcut decisive plan of action.

I do believe that this needs to be a concerted effort, much like the postcards, with a specific requested course of action.

Other veterinary organizations at a national level are Veterinary Information Network (vin.org) and American Animal Hospital Association (aahanet.org).

VIN has been active in this from the start.  And AAHA did send us a letter about the recalls (about a week after the first recalls, then not much after that).

MD, great! Thank you.

I've sent letters, faxes and emails all day to try to get somebody to make sure the 20million chickens aren't released back into the recycle bin for pet foods. We don't need one iota more of melamine put back into the system.

Ann