*BUMP*

I guess this is no longer happening?

Bug did a tremendous amount of hard work.
Contact was made with Susan Thixton.
And now all is quiet?

For purely selfish reasons, I liked it better when Bug was investigating and doing all the hard work.
I had my pen in hand all ready to make my donations......

Yes, I did a bit of legwork and no, we didn't decide on a lab. I'm still waiting for my local university to get back to me about the lab they are developing (due at the end of May). I spoke with my scientist friend at the national microbiology lab (graduate of Cornell) who will contact me if she finds a good lab for our purposes. She has been far removed from dealing with other labs since the federal lab IS the best lab in the country (which does not do work like this).

I was going to contact the lab PEI to, at the very least, find out if we can get a proximate analysis done for not too much cash (it has very good pricing).

Susan hasn't gotten back to me yet about the non-profit status of the organization she was putting together. From the research I've done so far, there are a lot more labs available for us to use in the US, but the problem lies with finding one that doesn't service the PFI.

One bit of information I found was from speaking to a representative of a company that many PFCs use for screening their food. They use a proprietary method of determining whether a food contains toxins. If it is deemed that the sample submitted contains elements that are of a toxic nature, it is given a grade (on a scale) that denotes that further testing is recommended. They have been using this method successfully for many years to determine toxicity in feed for animals which will eventually wind up in the human supply chain.

It's a very interesting method, but not accredited, though they are seeking that from the FDA. It initially sounds good, but the fact that a lot of PFCs use them is not good news for a group that wants impartial testing. It will be a science to watch to see if, in fact, their method gets government approval.

So, I haven't fallen down on the job, but I am finding limited resources in my neck of the woods either because the labs won't deal with anything other that big industry or veterinarians or because the PFI uses them and we don't want a conflict of interest. So, still searching.

I don't want to deal with labs in the US from here because that would become complicated for me -- shipping, customs, etc. If someone wants to become my counterpart in the US, we could continue exploring our options with American labs in addition to ones in my country.

Thanks for still being interested.

Hi Auntie Crazy,

Yes, I'm aware that Don is doing this as PFPSA. I would put out the question, then, why isn't everyone on this forum working through PFPSA? I'm completely fine if everyone wants to donate to and send their sample to this organization. My issue is that I am not a US resident and there are often obstacles to sending pet food across the border. I can easily do my own testing here with the resources I've found if others opt for PFPSA.

PFPSA is a very small organization with a very limited budget and even more limited time.  They have to pick and choose what they test very carefully, for maximum effectiveness in using limited resources.  Therefore, it is not possible for PFPSA to test everything that people might want tested.  HTH.

We have donated to Don in the past,and when someone here has a food being tested by him. He is also involved in a nasty,drawn out lawsuit against Menu Foods & that takes up a lot of his time. I don't think he has the time right now to coordinate larger testing. Maybe we should contact him & ask.

5CatMom is very very very active and generous supporter of PFPSA.  The limitations of PFPSA is not enough funds to test more petfoods.  I think PFPSA did an incredible job testing the Nutro stuff and uncovering for us just how much zinc was in Nutro. 

If we were to have some testing done, we should coordinate wth PFPSA to make sure that we are not testing the same petfood - we need to make our funds stretch.   Ichmo could test one brand or type of food and PFPSA could test another. 

So it looks like we need to contact Don. I have taken the liberty of zipping him an email and asking him to review this thread.

A.C.

Hi, everyone, thanks for your patience!

Don replied and said he'd be happy for additional help! He said his greatest needs are:

- Assistance with email traffic
- A webmaster to update the site and send out newsletters
- A grant-writer
- An attorney who'd be willing to give advice
- and, of course, financial donations to keep those tests going.....

Please, everyone, go to his site and click his "contact" page to send him an email with whatever resource you can help him with.

Go, Don!