Also when you go to the Natura website where do you click to see these??? When I go in any other way than by the links PA posted I do not see these??

I think we should all keep each other updated. If anyone buys a new bag/can of a Natura product, could you post whether it looks OK or whether it still has plastic crap in it? When I see a few months of good reports, I'll feel better about going back to CalNat. (Wish I could now, as she doesn't seem too fond of the other dry foods I've tried and she really loves the CalNat.)

I wonder what happened to Donna's batch that had the CA and acetaminophen in it. The contaminants had to come from somewhere - maybe further down the line? I know Natura makes their own dry food; does anyone know if they package it themselves too?

I wonder how Acetaminophen found its way into some foods.  Donna's sample was not the only one to test positive by ExperTox. 

I wonder about other chemicals also found by various labs (but most of these were in other foods, so that topic belongs on another thread)

I wonder about alot of things, but these lab reports address the larger part of the Innova issue.  As for the monofilament/fishing line/sutures looking strings that protruded from the pieces of kibble, could that have been from the type of feed bags I have seen, possibly used for some of the ingredients?  It's possible that packaging material could get into finished product.  I guess.

This week I will be talking to someone who has actually toured the Natura plant where the dry foods are made.  If anyone has questions that should be added to my own, either post here or pm me.  Posting here would be best, since we have our own little "think tank" going.  It also allows Natura to see what is on our minds.

I have to agree with Klondike . Why wasn't the vitamin pre mix tested for acetaminophen?

 They hace their manufacturing plant in Nebraska, maybe they'll come back and tell us if they produce and package all the dry food there.. They also have a research kennel there with dogs and cats. i wonder if any of them have been sick?

Mickey

That is an easy one, all animals, including humans, react differently to a stimulus. You could have a third cat that showed absolutely no problems what so ever, that would be really baffling.

We see that here with our dogs, some will have diarrhea while others don't, could be the heat, could be the water, could be the phase of the moon, who knows.

Remember don't switch foods constantly, that will give them the runs from that alone. Stay with what you are feeding until you get word from the vet and can verify what the problems are, then you can make a decision based on fact.

One thing I have seen from the food forums is that people are changing foods too often, try something for a few days, then change etc.

You have to give them some time on each food for them to stablize

db

I interpreted above (text changed to red, bold, italics by me, not Mr. Atkins) as meaning the premix was tested and also returned negative for acetaminophen.  Am I reading his post wrong?  Didn't see specific "vitamin mineral premix" listed by the labs, perhaps I'm missing something.  Could be a blond moment or senior moment.  Take your pick.

I know that the people at Naturapet and their competitors/colleagues are reading this so I want to be clear, I'm going to talk to you all like intelligent adults since I understand the stakes.

You are of course very aware of HOW you went about doing this testing. It was not an accident who you choose and what specifically you asked them to look for. That is to be expected. Your goal would be to disprove ExperTox's results. That is your short term communications goal. But I think we all know that you did NOT address the real question which was, "Something made our customer's pets sick, what was it and why did it happen?"

Your food, given to Donna's pets made them sick. What they ate is the variable here. I think we can agree on that (unless you want to go the accusation route which I sincerely hope you do not given all the incredible lengths that Donna went through to deal with you in good faith)

How you responded to Donna and your specific follow up shows clearly the focus was to shut down the criticism rather than address the real question.

I understand that posture. It is what your stockholders would expect you to do. Of course if you want to keep your customers happy you would probably want to find out the answer to that question. Why? So it doesn't happen again. Because making pets sick is not good for business. Maybe you have looked back up the supply chain and found the Chinese vitamin manufacturer that made the mistake. Maybe you found another chemical that you don't want to talk about but you quietly changed suppliers. Your lawyers would probably advise you to keep that quiet because that's what lawyers do. "Don't make any extra information available unless they ask, preferably under a subpoena!"

 And that is shown specifically when you look at what the UC Davis lab was ONLY requested to look for, Acetaminophen. Note: No request to look for cyanuric acid. Which was ALSO found in Donna's food sample.
Other tests might have come back, but you did not post the results. If not, why not? And of course the Midland test (who I believe is your regular lab) wasn't even looking for acetaminophen.

Now I note that ExperTox also tested a sample, clever move on your part.
So what does that mean, was ExperTox wrong on Donna's sample or were they wrong on your sample?  I'll expect you to throw out the "opened bag" gambit, where you make a subtle accusation at the honesty of the person who has shown time and time again that they are not trying to shake you down, yet simply wants the truth. This same gambit was used by P&G and Iams on Ben here at Itchmo. You throw the burden back on the consumer and work to discredit the lab. In my conversations with people in the industry this is considered SOP when dealing with these issues.

I want you all to know something.


You would know if the people who reported problems here on this forum were looking to shake you down if they acted like those people. They. Did. Not.

Yet you have chosen to treat them like false accusers rather than people who simple want to know, "What is it in your food that made my pet sick? Why did this batch make my pets sick when it never made them sick before?" They expected YOU to look out for their pets first because they thought that it would ALSO be good for your business.

So instead of working so hard to only DISPROVE results, you might have worked hard to answer the question, what WAS it that made the pets sick? Isn't THAT something that all the employees at Naturapet would like to know? Maybe it isn't something that has revealed itself yet, remember it took a while to find the cause of the Menu Foods recall one lab's results weren't replicated, yet the bottom line was SOMETHING was making the pets sick and killing them. That should be you goal.

This is an important distinction and one that must be made.  In a world with a working government that is designed to protect the food supply the FDA or USDA should be answering the question as an outside group, but sadly they have proved that only a major disaster gets them to act and then slowly and with the concerns of the business first and customers later.

At some time I'd like get into a discussion about testing methods done by all these labs the LACK of apples to apples sample comparisons and the issue of LG-MS vs GC-MS and methodology. I've had discussions with people in the scientific community about all of these, but first:

The issue of the "retain sample is a composite of the entire production run".

To be clear I'll call this the poison potato vs. the poison soup analogy.

Let's say you have a stew and you have some poison potatoes in it and the person testing the stew only takes a scoop of the stew without potatoes. Tested for poison it will reveal nothing. The potatoes are in discrete lumps and can be missed.

Now if you have a smooth bowl of tomato soup and the person testing the soup takes a scoop out of the soup and tests it for poison it will reveal the poison because the poison is probably evenly mixed throughout the soup.

So is the food more like stew or like soup? Did your test get the "poison potatoes" in the stew? ExperTox says they stand by Donna's results. Why the problem with YOUR sample? Why not do the same test with her samples?

 The sample of the product in question (and I've seen the photos) was more like stew, I've seen the lumps. So unless the "composite of the entire production run" shows the same lumps then you were testing the scoop without the "poison potato".

Everyone here understands the high stakes. We also understand the methods that companies will use to avoid dealing with the real problem.  Many of us live in the real world and can see through techniques designed to calm the consumers and not address the underlying issue.
 
The industry holds up the Johnson and Johnson company as the gold standard for how to deal with a crisis with food and drugs. Ironically it was their branded acetaminophen that had to be recalled. What few people remember is that at the time their actions were considered "over reactions" in the industry and I believe that they were first punished by Wall Street for doing a global recall. Many thought that they would never recover, but people KNEW by their actions that the people doing the recall thought first of the customer and then later about what the Lawyers would say and how the market would react.

I compare that response to how the pet food companies responded. Who does the pet food industry hires to defend them? How do they deal with customers?

I have confidence in Donna's word. I will stand by her and support her goal of protecting the health of her pets.