Another AAFCO meeting has concluded.

The future of AAFCO is in big trouble. The FDA recently backed out of its agreement to work with AAFCO on new ingredient approvals (more on that shortly), and the pet food manufacturers who are members of the Pet Food Institute are trying to push a bill through Congress that would ultimately put pet food under FDA’s exclusive jurisdiction and remove all state regulations on pet food. If the PURR bill passes, many state feed officials (who make up AAFCO’s membership) will lose their jobs – and AAFCO will have no one at meetings (since the majority of attendees are pet food related). At this meeting, it was clear that AAFCO members are concerned about the future.

It is an irony that the very people AAFCO has served most over the years – the pet food manufacturers who are members of the Pet Food Institute – may be responsible for AAFCO’s destruction.

It is troubling that FDA has already advanced elements of the PURR Act prior to the Congressional vote. It was disturbingly clear that the FDA Center for Veterinary Medicine’s ties to the Pet Food Institute are even stronger than in the past.

In a brief statement from the FDA on its new decision to approve pet food ingredients (by separating from AAFCO), Dr. Timothy Schell (of the FDA) explained that the previous system with AAFCO was in part due to the “Instability causes industry“He made no mention of the concerns we (consumers) have had with FDA for years regarding AAFCO’s flawed nutrient profiles, AAFCO-written government regulations that are behind a paywall, or the long-standing indifference to pet owners from (most, but not all) AAFCO members. Dr. Schell simply mentioned the problems plaguing the industry.

An example of what AAFCO has done and what the FDA is already adopting is the salmon feed ingredient “Antarctic krill meal” was discussed (voted for approval) at this last meeting. The ingredient was already approved by the FDA, AAFCO was simply adding it to its library of approved ingredients.

Although Antarctic krill meal sounds safe enough as an ingredient in salmon feed, the truth is quite different.”Antarctic krill meal – The intended use is in salmonid feed to enhance the pink to orange-red color of salmonid meat.” This ingredient is used to give farmed salmon the color of wild salmon. The ingredient may be colored so that farmed salmon fed with the colored ingredient have the same beautiful orange-red flesh color as wild salmon.

And… the ingredient Antarctic krill meal may (by definition) contain the following:

• ‘250 mg/kg ethoxyquin;
• 2 mg/kg lead;

• And 170 mg/kg astaxanthin.”

Remember: The farmed salmon that eat this ingredient are NOT just being used as animal feed. The salmon that eat this ingredient full of dyes, dangerous chemical preservatives, and a variety of heavy metals are also being served to you. Federal regulations (FDA) and now state regulations allow you to color the fish you or your pet consume.

During the Ingredient Definitions Committee meeting, Dr. Mary-Grace Danao of the University of Nebraska provided an explanation of high pressure pasteurization (HPP). Pet owners can read more about HPP from Dr. Danao here: https://fpc.unl.edu/petfoodworkshop

During the Pet Food Committee meeting, we learned that the pet food label updates – which took AAFCO over 10 years to complete – will not be implemented for another six years (and must be implemented by 2030). BUT there is a chance these label updates may never happen due to the (Pet Food Institute) PURR Act. We were told that some states are NOT adopting these AAFCO label updates because the future of state regulation of pet food is uncertain.

The most revealing and worrying event of the entire session occurred when the Committee on Animal Nutrition briefly discussed the urgently needed voluntary maximum limit for copper in animal feed.

Background: In recent years, science has proven that there is an increase in copper storage disease (liver disease) in dogs, and many scientists (independent of Big Pet Feed’s influence) are directly linking the increase in liver disease to pet foods, which have no maximum copper limit. Cat and dog food manufacturers can currently add any amount of copper additives they want (beyond the minimum required). Arguments against a maximum copper limit have been made for years – primarily by scientists representing the Pet Food Institute (though they are directly employed by Hill’s Pet Food). A working group was formed, chaired by Dr. William Burkholder of the FDA, and Dr. Burkholder personally declined to allow Dr. Sharon Center (a veterinary expert on canine liver disease at Cornell University who pushed for this discussion) to participate. The only consensus the working group was able to reach was an opportunity for pet food manufacturers to voluntarily limit the copper content in their pet food, allowing them to declare “limited copper content” on their label.

Yet when this proposal to limit copper on the label was discussed at AAFCO, scientists at the Pet Food Institute (in this case, Hill’s Pet Food) continued to argue against it. A few months before AAFCO was scheduled to vote on the issue, scientists at Hill’s Pet Food published a paper claiming that their research showed that pets “Copper concentrations in the liver” were not problematic. Dr. Leslie Hancock – co-author and Chief Medical Officer of Hill’s Pet Food – explained:Although there is an increase in copper concentrations, this is not clinically significant.”

(Dr. Leslie Hancock, who noted documented increases in copper concentrations in the livers of pets, was also a member of the AAFCO working group. To read the full report from the AAFCO working group, click here.)

However, Dr. Hancock’s published work was retracted because unbiased scientists (not employed by Hill’s Pet Food) found significant flaws.

When the article was retracted, AAFCO was able to discuss the issue again because the author(s) of the erroneous article were part of the AAFCO Working Group. This new discussion occurred in the Animal Feed Committee session at this recent meeting. BUT the discussion lasted only a few minutes, despite several comments urging AAFCO to re-vote and deem the science presented by Dr. Hancock to be erroneous.

Dr. Karen Donnelly of the FDA shut down the discussion almost immediately. Dr. Donnelly refused to allow another vote on the voluntary limit on copper concentration on the label. And it was clear that Dr. Donnelly had already informed the scientists at Hill’s that there would be no new vote. At every other AAFCO discussion on copper, Hill’s veterinarians have been present at the meetings, ready to argue against limiting copper concentration (based on their flawed science). But this time, they were nowhere to be seen. It was clear that they already knew. It was clear that Dr. Karen Donnelly had informed them that she would prevent any further vote on the issue.

AAFCO – led by FDA’s Dr. Karen Donnelly – refused to allow pet food manufacturers to voluntarily limit the amount of copper in their food (using the “limited copper” label that would alert pet owners to potentially safer levels of copper). With this extremely biased action, AAFCO and FDA proved to industry that flawed science works. Submit a bad paper with flawed science and you’ll get what you want.

If a pet owner would like to share his or her opinion with Dr. Karen Donnelly of the FDA regarding a voluntary limit on copper (with label disclosure) in pet foods, her email address is [email protected].

And then, at the end of that final meeting – the Pet Food Committee meeting – Stan Cook of the Missouri Department of Agriculture, co-chair of the Pet Food Committee, informed attendees that he would be retiring from the Pet Food Committee in a few tearful (for him) minutes. While some in the audience may have been moved by his words, my thoughts went to the employees who worked at a Missouri pet food plant that Mr. Cook and others at the Missouri Department of Agriculture inspected and took no action against (Mars Petcare, Joplin MO). As Mr. Cook tearfully spoke of how much he will miss his friends in the industry and at AAFCO, my thoughts went to the many employees of that pet food plant who have died over the last 11 years as a result of exposure to phosphine gas (from fumigated ingredients), mycotoxins, diacetyl, and other contaminants ignored by the regulator (18 employees died over the last 11 years, most were in their 40s and 50s when they died). My thoughts went to the employees who are still sick today because not a single regulator protected them or the pets that ate pet food produced there.

Please note that not all state feed officials/AAFCO members are heartless. Many…or rather some…actually care about regulating animal feed as the law requires. They often try to do their job as their job requires, but are limited by industry influence (control) on regulation.

Was this our last AAFCO meeting? I honestly don’t know what the future holds. But I can say that I have serious concerns about the FDA already working with the Pet Food Institute, and I fear that FDA’s close ties to industry could make things much worse if FDA takes over pet food regulation alone. It was clear from the actions and words at the meeting that FDA and the Pet Food Institute have already decided what the future holds, and we can safely assume that it will NOT be good for our pets. (More on this topic coming soon.)

We wish you and your pet all the best.

Susan Thixton
Advocates of pet food safety
Author buyers beware, co-author dinner PAWsible
TruthaboutPetFood.com
Association for Truth in Pet Food

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