05/12/2023
**copied from an earlier post regarding toxic levels of heavy metals found in Purina Pro Plan Salmon and Rice dog food. Please consider not feeding it to your dogs**
I wanted to comment about the Purina dog food and give what information I have at this point in time. I am the owner of the dogs who are sick from eating the affected bag of Pro Plan that both Dede and Kelley have posted about. I am not fake news. I am a real person whom both Dede and Kelley know. I spent some time considering the pros and cons of sharing my experience, because I knew there would be a lot of backlash, questions, and debates started. The fact is, I have sick dogs, and my veterinarians and the head toxicology doctor at Kansas State University agree that my dogs are experiencing signs and symptoms associated with eating the Pro Plan that was tested, and re-tested and proven to contain levels of all 4 heavy metals that are unsafe for ingestion. I spoke with the head of toxicology today. He is in communication with the FDA to work towards a recall. His greatest concern is that there will be many dogs affected, and veterinarians will miss the connection, as our pet veterinarians are taught to test and look for infectious disease, and the more common illnesses that mimick heavy metal poisoning. Heavy metal poisoning is rare, and not commonly tested for. The correlation to food is not first suspect. This alone will make the process long and difficult.
Some of you are wondering the first symptoms and duration before showing symptoms. It varied. My mom's dog ate the affected food for just 5 days before being hospitalized with pancreatitis. She's an older dog, 12, and had a history of uti's so the docs are saying that her bodily "filters" were already compromised, making the heavy metal toxicity take hold quicker and present itself in that way. She's been hospitalized for 9 days thus far. It's unknown if she will recover.
My dogs at home ate the food for 3 weeks. One standard poodle presented with ataxia and seizure. Another, just yesterday, had her eyes rolled back in her head and had injection of the scalera, very badly. Her eyes stayed this way off and on and some again today as well. She also threw up 3 times in the night. Each of my 7 affected dogs has randomly thrown up during the day and/or night. Never food, it's more white foam and liquid. Thallium is the suspected culprit for much of this, although they have been poisoned by lead, arsenic, and selenium as well. The toxicologist says it's consistent with thallium. Gastric upset can happen with several.
Dog Food was tested twice. Two samples, each from different bags. The result on top is the "bad" bag. The results below are from another bag I opened of the same variety. It tested normal. As you see, the results were very different.
I scoop food directly from the bag. It was never stored in any container other than the original bag. I did keep the bag as well, per toxicology doc advice.
Blood and urine have both been submitted.
A claim has been started with Purina. (Although I got a generic response, and no one has checked up with me.)
Toxicology has notified the FDA.
Some people are checking batch/lot numbers. This is a great idea. However, this early in the investigation, there's no way to know how wide spread the problem could be with other flavors/varieties, how many bags, etc. I asked toxicology specifically if he thought Purina's other foods could be affected, and he could not give an answer. Obviously, we don't know enough about the how, when, and where... So all I'm hoping to do is to share my experience, and maybe have people keep the food in mind if your beloved dog(s) present with illness. The symptoms can vary greatly and often heavy metals are over looked.
I did not want to identify myself, but that was done for me, so I don't mind if any of you have questions, you may ask me directly.
