It is not accidental. You suspected that all along. Pets are lost because of melamine and because of greed.

David Barboza and Alexei Barrionuevo filed a report from Zhangqiu, China. “The melamine powder has been dubbed “fake protein” and is used to deceive those who raise animals into thinking they are buying feed that provides higher nutrition value.

“It just saves money,” says a manager at an animal feed factory here. “Melamine scrap is added to animal feed to boost the protein level.”"

link: Additive that tainted U.S. pet food is commonly used in China ***

Apparently, this is common practice and has been happening for years. One wonders how many pets, over the years, have died prematurely because of greed.

*** It seems that the article at this link has been removed. It is available on The New York Times site: Filler in Animal Feed Is Open Secret in China or here. Thanks to all those people who contacted me about this problem.

Catherine Forsythe
Director of Operations
FlyingHamster: http://flyinghamster.com/

[tags]pet food, recall, deaths, cats, dogs, china, melamine, greed, catherine forsythe[/tags]