Against The Grain Dog Food Recalled For Possible Euthanasia Drug Contamination

[douglas9]

Bad news, puppies: More canned dog food has been found to have the sedative and euthanasia drug pentobarbital in it. Another small pet food brand, Against the Grain, has recalled one of its products because it may contain beef contaminated with the drug.

While the Evanger’s recall was triggered by the sudden illness of four pugs in Washington state, one of which died, there have been no reported illnesses linked to Against the Grain brand foods. The recall is meant to stop that from happening.

What you should look for in your cabinet are cans of Against the Grain brand Pulled Beef with Gravy Dinner for Dogs. The lot number will be 2415E01ATB12, the expiration date December 2019, and the last half of the can’s UPC will be 80001.

Here’s the thing, though: The food in question was distributed to stores in Maryland and Washington in 2015. How long do people keep pet food cans around? Do you stock up years in advance? Most pet owners probably don’t.

Food Safety News observed that while the two recalls are officially unconnected in the recall notices, the co-founders of Against the Grain are the son and daughter of the owners of Evanger’s, who appear to still also work for their parents’ company. A reverse lookup of the phone number provided for the recall shows that it belongs to Evanger’s.

https://consumerist.com/2017/02/15/against-the-grain-dog-food-recalled-for-possible-euthanasia-drug-contamination/

[Kittycow]

1. How would the euthanasia drug even get in there? ?

Last edited Fri Feb 17, 2017, 06:27 AM - Edit history (1)

Thanks for the heads up. Poor doggies.

[get the red out]

2. Probably

From God knows what protein source.

I feed my dogs Fromm right now, but once considered Evanger's a good brand and used the canned food as a topper sometimes for my very picky girl's kibble. I'm glad I haven't done that in quite a while (having the new puppy wanting to steal her kibble increased its value substantially, LOL).

[Rhiannon12866]

4. This article attempted an explanation

I just ran across it and was going to post it here, but then I saw an article about the recall had already been posted.

<snip>

So the obvious question: how does pentobarbital end up in dog food?

Pentobarbital caused a scare back in the 1990s, Cathy Enright, CEO of the Pet Food Institute, an industry group representing companies who produce 98 percent of all American pet food and treats, told Gizmodo. Veterinarians noticed that the euthanasia drug seemed to be losing its effectiveness, and soon realized that the dogs had developed a resistance to it by eating it in their food. Consumers feared their sweet Fido was snacking on dead friends.

In 2002, the Food and Drug administration released an analysis demonstrating that yes, some pet food contained pentobarbital, but that it was probably from cattle, and furthermore, the exposure was not harmful—no more than four micrograms per kilogram of body weight per day. “A dog would have to consume between 5 to 10 micrograms of pentobarbital per kilogram of body weight” to approach harmful levels, the analysis concluded.

Suppliers have tried to reduce the amount of pentobarbital in their food by using higher-quality ingredients. The PFI said its all of its members are committed to using meat and plant based ingredients good for human consumption, for example.

Evangers and Against the Grain Pet Food are not PFI members. The two companies are run separately but share an office, and the former company manufactures some of the latter company’s products, Brett Sher, co-owener of Against the Grain, told Gizmodo. “We received some bad meat, contaminated meat unbeknownst to us,” said Sher. “We purchase wholesome beef from USDA-inspected plants. We never thougth that there would be a potential for that.” Evanger’s FDA recall notice continues: “All Evanger’s suppliers of meat products are USDA approved. This beef supplier provides us with beef chunks from cows that are slaughtered in a USDA facility. We continue to investigate how this substance entered our raw material supply.”

<snip>

http://gizmodo.com/dog-foods-recalled-over-concerns-of-euthanasia-drug-con-1792410095

[Kittycow]

5. Thank you so much for finding the article when I was too lazy !

I don't have a dog at this time but I was so puzzled about how the drug got in the food. I do have a few cats and I think Evangers was mentioned on the Avoid List as well.

[Rhiannon12866]

6. I was so glad to see you posted it! I thought it was pretty important!

I actually read it on a Tweet and had a tough time finding the right one. But yours gives the same important news and you posted it earlier, my article was almost a day old. And the one I posted was more of a follow up, hence the attempt at an explanation of how it might have happened, though they still don't seem to really know...

And my dog eats what his vet has recommended, he and my cat both eat Wellness

[phylny]

3. This is why I make my own dog food.

I started after buying two different, high quality bags of dog food only to have them recalled. Our Cavalier King Charles Spaniel was so sick that she ended up going to Virginia Tech's veterinary facility for two days.

I have the financial means to make this, which I know everyone doesn't. The dogs love the food, their coats are glorious, their weight has stabilized, and the vet constantly comments on how healthy they are.

10 pounds raw ground beef or turkey
18 hardboiled eggs (cooked, run through food processor)
One bottle of either lick-o-chops or fish oil (from Dinovite) - I tend to use fish oil as lick-o-chops is too calorie-rich for our female - see below
2.5 cups Dinovite
(you can add rice to this, I do not as my female dog would put on too much weight)

Mix, make into 1/4 cup patties, freeze. My dogs get one pattie in the morning (thawed) and one half at night.

I am a customer and have no relationship with Dinovite.

[douglas9]

7. FDA Cautions Pet Owners and Caretakers Not to Feed Certain Evangers or Against the Grain Canned Pet

February 17, 2017

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is advising pet owners and caretakers not to feed their pets certain lots of Evanger’s canned Hunk of Beef or Against the Grain Grain Free Pulled Beef with Gravy canned dog food after unopened cans from both brands were found to contain pentobarbital, a barbiturate.

Pentobarbital is a drug that is used in animal euthanasia. It should not be in pet food and its presence as detected by the FDA in these products renders them adulterated.

The FDA was unable to determine from available records whether any other Evanger’s or Against the Grain products made with beef contain any of the beef that went into the recalled products. Additionally, the agency concluded an inspection of the manufacturing facilities on February 14, 2017, and noted numerous significant concerns with conditions found at both the Wheeling, IL and Markham, IL plants. These are initial observations and do not represent a final agency determination regarding the firm.

Following discussions with the FDA, Evanger’s initiated a voluntary recall on February 3, 2017, of certain lots of its 12-ounce Hunk of Beef canned dog food: 1816E03HB, 1816E04HB, 1816E06HB, 1816E07HB, and 1816E13HB, all with an expiration date of June 2020.

In the course of the investigation, the FDA tested two cans of Against the Grain brand canned Grain Free Pulled Beef with Gravy dog food manufactured in the same facilities as Evanger’s products and using beef from the same supplier: these samples also tested positive for pentobarbital. On February 9, 2017, after conversations with the FDA, Against the Grain voluntarily recalled lot 2415E01ATB12 BEST DEC 2019 of this product. The company issued a public notice about its recall on February 13, 2017. To date, the FDA is not aware of any pet illnesses associated with the Against the Grain product.

http://www.fda.gov/AnimalVeterinary/NewsEvents/CVMUpdates/ucm542265.htm

[Sunlei]

8. In 2007 my young dog died from acute renal failure from the fake chinese protein added to many

many, many North American major canned pet foods.

Once the FDA is recalling any pet foods, it has to be a very bad contamination because animal foods don't have much if any quality control.

I suggest never feeding the same brand of canned animal foods over a long period of time, except for the prescription foods from your veterinarian. They have the better quality control

The sources for pet food meats from slaughter houses, one can't have much trust in quality.

Pets get all the left-overs that are condemned for humans to eat. it's pretty rotten stuff placed in the flash frozen box for the pet food corporations to buy. It's very easy for the slaughterhouses to throw in hundreds of pounds of 'other meats' like _________. (use your imagination).

Then we have the rendered who take in dead animals, rotten packaged grocery store foods, tons of 'spent laying hens' used up (drug filled) race horses, downer animals, euthanize animals, left-overs from hunters meat processes places and render it all down into "meat and bone meal" and fat for soaps and such. They don't un-wrap the food packages, take the flea collars off the black bagged dead pets, test the dead horses for lethal to pets chemicals.

Heck China even poisoned their own infants with the same melamine that killed my dog. Slaughter houses even send horse meat contaminated with ivermection and banamine (common horse meds very, very TOXIC to pets & humans) directly to other countries for humans to eat. Meat companies have even been caught with DNA tests mixing in these cheap meats into other more expensive meats like 'beef'.

Thank you for posting the warning. Heres the wiki about the 2007 melamine poisoning. If not for Banfield reports I think the pet food industry would have never been caught.

One of the largest veterinary hospital chains in the U.S., Banfield, has released statistics on the recent rates of pet kidney failure. Banfield's veterinarians treat an estimated 6 percent of the nation's cats and dogs, and their findings provide "the most authoritative picture of the harm done by the tainted cat and dog food," according to the FDA. Based on analysis of data collected by more than 600 hospitals and clinics in 43 states, out of every 10,000 cats and dogs seen in Banfield clinics, three developed kidney failure during the time pet food contaminated with melamine was on the market. They reported 284 more cases of kidney failure in cats than the expected "background rate," corresponding to a 30 percent increase. During that period, the Banfield vets saw 100,000 cats. reference https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_pet_food_recalls

[douglas9]

9. Evangers VP: Dog Food Recalled For Euthanasia Drugs Contained Horse DNA

An executive at pet food company Evanger’s, which recently recalled its own and Against the Grain beef canned dog food due to drug contamination, recently admitted to a Washington state newspaper that the recalled food contained horse DNA. The company has thus far blamed these issues on its meat supplier, but this is not the first time Evanger’s pet food has included an animal meat that wasn’t advertised.

This week, the woman who discovered the contamination spoke to her local newspaper, telling the story of what happened. Her four pugs immediately became ill, and one died in veterinary intensive care.

The paper also interviewed Michael Sher, company vice-president and part of the family that owns Evanger’s.

“We don’t have pentobarbital in our plant,” he told The Columbian. “We don’t have any poisons in our plant.”

However, he explained that analysis showed that the drug was in the food, and the company found cattle and horse DNA when testing the food. The company blames its meat supplier (still unnamed) and, confusingly, the FDA.

https://consumerist.com/2017/02/22/evangers-vp-dog-food-recalled-for-euthanasia-drugs-contained-horse-dna/

[Sunlei]

10. Thank you for the DNA update, like I said in my post above- USA has a problem with 'meat supply'

This contaminated meat, especially from thousands of 'put to sleep' pet and race horses is to easy for slaughterhouses to slip into pet AND Human food supplies.

It's to tempting, very profitable for meat suppliers to meet their quota by adding in/mixing in a couple thousand pounds of highly contaminated and almost free dead horses with the 'beef' order

Even the common wormers like ivermection are highly toxic to some dog breeds. Many common medicines are toxic to humans. I think meats like ground beef should all be DNA tested off the grocery store shelves, same with ground meats for our schools and prisons. It should be a felony for a meat supplier to provide contaminated meat.

Livestock auctions (thousands across the usa) are the main source for a meat supplier to pick up a couple thousand pounds of toxic on the hoof meat for 10 cents a pound or less, slaughter the poor animal and mix it into their dollar a pound 'beef'