I am working on a letter to Nutro requesting reimbursement of my vet bills. Do you think the lab reports and my vet invoice will be enough for them? I have done this once before with Hartz flea stuff when it made another of my cats really sick as soon as we put it on her-had to rush her to vet and give her a bath-she slowly recovered and called Hartz and had to send in vet bill and it was reimbursed to me.

The lab report does not list any safe ranges of these substances. Oki is only 7 lbs-very small cat, she was only 4 lbs when I brought her from the Caribbean last year.  So maybe it affected her worse than say a 12 lb cat?

One sample had 0.031 ppm of ethoxyquin, another had 30 ppm of histamine and 1.36 ppm ethoxy, the other 0.033 ppm ethoxy-these were Nutro salmon and tuna samples and the store samples they picked up also had both of the chemicals.

what should I do with this information? could it have caused my cats problems?

Hi Everyone-I just got the lab results from the food Oki ate and got sick from the NYS Ag & Markets office

ethoxyquin and histamine were found in them - is this normal?? could these have made her sick?

that was all that was found that they tested for

yes she is adorable-she cries so cute for food and loves to curl up on clothes-she is very dainty. They actually call all cats in the Caribbean a Caribbean mix but she definitely is siamese in there!
She is eating like a champ, active, etc-back to her old self. Definitely do not regret getting her here.

Here are some photos of Okizaki.
Here name is actually a strand of DNA or something-my ex was in pharmacy school when we got her, hence her name. She is the cutest little thing-only 7 lbs now.
She always seems pretty clean back there.
The food she ate were the pouches not the cans so could that still be potential?

Hi Everyone-just heard from my vet on the urine culture-apparently this was all e coli-could have come from anywhere-my cats do go out in my fenced backyard, could be the litter box, etc.

Antibiotics for 4 weeks. Ummmm.

Okizaki is doing awesome! Eating dry, wet, baby food, everything and drinking water-back to herself thank god. My doctor only said the creatinine was high-all others were pretty normal I guess. Still waiting on urine culture. Starting to feed her wet food at night and trying to get my 17 yo to eat it too but she doesn't show any interest. All 5 cats LOVE Eagle Pack Duck & Oatmeal though so I may switch my dry Authority to that.

Thanks everyone for all the advice, info, etc. I will definitely keep reading this forum. What a great resource!

I have heard that but in my experience they seem to have more diarrhea on wet, of course now I"m just plain scared of wet food, it seems dry is so much better for their teeth, and of course there is the cost. It it so much more convenient with 5 cats to feed dry food and even my 17 yr old has great teeth-she has only had them cleaned once and the rest who are 4-8 yrs old have never had their teeth cleaned and no problems at all. 

I have to admit their coats were much nicer on Science Diet than they are on Authority.

Thanks everyone. Her name is Okizaki. She is from Tortola. I met her on the beach there while on vacation. Picked her up and she fell right asleep in my arms, I cried. Thought she was blind-her eyes were barely open and she was skin and bones. Came back home and couldnt stop thinking about that little girl-she was the worst I've seen in the Caribbean. Most were fed by the resorts which is good. So took a month of arrangements and $100's in phone calls to the restaurant where she was and a local vet and Delta to get her here to me. Amazingly she lived the ride in cargo on the plane in the middle of February! She got to me at 4 lbs., almost no hair on her back half due to flea infestations and possible FIV+. She is now over 7 lbs 1.5 yrs later, nice full coat, 2 eye surgeries and now the poor thing had to go thru this.
I'm also a volunteer/Board Member of a local, no-kill, free-roaming cat shelter. Cats are my life!

Update: My kitty is home yahoo!!! I bought a vitamin paste and she couldnt get enough of it and bought some wellness canned food which she didn't care for but got her to eat some mixed with baby food and she drank a ton of water. She seems much more herself. As far as the vet, he's not convinced its the food but certainly said its possible.

Here is what he has done:

IV Fluids
Urinalysis which turned up all the bacteria
Urine Culture based on the above results-still waiting to hear on that
CBC & Chemistry Screen-Creatinine was 2.7, everything else wasn't bad he said-pretty normal
Cefazolin injectable-I think an antibiotic
He sent me home with Orbax once a day for 30 days

All for the price of $500!!!!  Thank god for credit cards.

Right now his feeling is its a kidney infection. I mentioned the pancreatitis but he said usually the WBC is really high and her's wasn't
She may also be FIV + which could be playing a factor. I brought her back from the British Virgin Islands and its unclear whether a FIV vaccine was given to her or not but we are assuming she is +.

I'm just so happy she is home and curled up in her bed.

Now what dry food do I switch to if any. Should I stay with Authority dry?  With 5 cats its fairly affordable for an all natural food.
Not sure what to do. I'm so paranoid of this whole food thing.

Well I gave the woman all 3 packages-I told her I was concerned but she said she was going right to Petsmart to buy more of the same lots and then straight to the lab so it should be ok.

I guess my little girl is more interested in the goings on at the vets but still isn't eating much at all but he said I can probably take her home later and I'll just force feed her if I have to.

Well all 3 packets have different expiration dates so...

I've never fed wet food before (except for prescription Hills when needed)-this was the first time and I dont think I ever will again!
 
Now I'm reading the Authority dry I've been feeding them may not be so good!  I have 5 cats so I need something affordable but I want safe! I thought Authority was both! Now I don't know what to feed them!  They always had great coats and teeth on Science Diet but I got scared with the recalls.

As far as the kitty who lost his voice-no he wasn't crying for her-it just started all of a sudden.

NYS Ag & Markets has an inspector coming by my work this am to pick up my remaining packets of food to test them but it will take up to 3 months to get the results. I'm a little scared to hand over all my evidence-what if it gets lost, etc.?? A littler nerve racking to do it but I guess I dont have a choice.

Still waiting to hear back from yet on how my little girl is doing this am but I'm going to mention the pancreatitis thing.

Thank you everyone for the info!

As far as blood work i know her creatinine is 2.7 so I know it isn't bad-he said rest were pretty normal. She does have tons of bacteria in her urine too so they added antibiotics to her IV.

I went there last night armed with shrimp, tuna, deli meats, and baby food-they have all kinds of cat food and tuna in her cage-all untouched. I did get her to eat baby food and eventually mixed in some cat food with it and got her to drink some water with much prodding.

She still felt like she had a fever to me.

When my vet calls this morning I will mention the pancreatitis and see if we can add appetite stimulants. He was also going to call the Ag & Mkts office and tell them he suspects the food so they will test my food for me. I cannot afford a few hundred to have it tested especially on top of what this vet bill is going to be.

Before giving her this Nutro, all my cats have been eating Authority dry food for the past year and Science Diet before that.

The other strange thing that has happened is my one other cat who also had some of the food has lost his voice and he was always very loud-he opens his mouth but nothing comes out. Could be just coincidental but I worry.

Deb