In food we trust: what's being done to restore confidence?(EDITOR'S NOTE)

How many dogs and cats died as a result of contaminated pet foods early this year? It's become clear that we will probably never know. Last May, Michael Rogers, director of the Division of Field Investigations for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), said in a telephone conference that the agency received as many as 18,000 calls about the recalled foods, with as many as 50 percent "alleging" an animal death. "Cetainly as part of a longer-term process, the agency is going to b e evaluating this data, and we'll certainly come out with a final characterization of--in total the number of confirmed deaths associated with these recalled products," he said.

However, our efforts to determine how many people are investigating the reports that FDA received--or whether there are actually any people currently working on those reports at all -led nowhere. Every FDA spokesperson we encountered told us, "We'll release the number as soon as we know it."

Information released by other sources suggests that the final number will be much higher than the 17 or 18 cases that FDA accepts as positively confirmed. The Oregon state veterinarian, Dr. Emilio DeBess, states that he has received reports 127 "suspect cases" of dogs and cats who experienced an adverse response to eating contaminated food; this number includes reports of 49 deaths--20 dogs and 29 cats.

Also, the 20,000 members of Veterinary Information Network (VIN, an online, subscription-based education and communication forum for veterinary professionals) reported almost 1,500 cases ...