I wonder if these companies can be held on criminal charges? I just can't believe they added things without the knowledge of those that contracted with them.
It is such a shame. I thought all I had to do was not buy a product that contained those ingredients that are in question...boy, I was wrong.
There could be a very limited numbers of canners, or kibble makers, producing pet food, under all of these different labels. I worked at a fruit cannery,during the summer, in my school years, and can remember labeling fruit under many labels, including S&W, among many others. It depends on who purchased that lot.
This just said that the limited number of canners, and kibblers, servicing the pet food industry, all purchased the contaminated gluten from the same place. The additive melamine was added, either in China, or by the importing distributor in Las Vegas. The addition of melamine apparently was done intentionally to raise the protein level of the product, to sell it at a higher price. The scary part is that the addition of melamine, to all kinds of food products, has been going on, for some time. It took time for, it's use, and the effects of same, to come to light. I have very little doubt in my mind, that if the pet food companies truely test feed their products to their own test animals, they would have known immediately that there was a problem. Crystals begin being formed in the kidneys of animals within hours of eating the toxic products.
There was a name vet that said that dead pets, with kidney failure, that their kidneys were filled with these crystals caused by the reaction of uric acid, with melamine, and one other additive; I have forgotten the name of it.