The site reports:

Since the end of November at least 20 dogs are believed to have died in Beijing, Shanghai, Nanjing and Hangzhou from liver complications. Some pets died within 10 days of showing symptoms.

An agent of Shanghai Yidi Pet Co Ltd, a Shanghai dealer of Optima food, admitted that a “severe quality problem” was found in the batch, and they were recalling the products.

Yidi said pet owners should return the contaminated food to be exchanged for other brands.

Yidi purchased the batch of Optima dog food from a Taiwan supplier, according to an agent who declined to be named.

An imported feedstuff registration list posted by China’s Ministry of Agriculture shows that the Optima dog food’s production enterprise is Australia-based Doane International Pet Products.

But Tan said her purchase order said the food was made in the United States. “American-made Optima is a very famous brand. That’s part of the reason I chose it,” Tan added.

The confusion over where Optima is actually made is rampant in the Chinese forums discussing this as well – with most claiming Optima is made in Australia – but Optima’s Web site clearly indicates that it is “Made in U.S.A.”

Optima is owned by Doane International Pet Products, as the SH Daily reports, however where SH Daily says it is Australia-based doesn’t jive. According to the company’s history, the company was originally based in Missouri, but moved to Brentwood, Tennessee, after a merger in 1998 with Windy Hill Pet Food. This corresponds with both the company’s Web site registration, as well as Optima’s address. No mention of Australia at all.

I’m generally not one to go looking for conspiracies or cover-ups, but if SH Daily is right and China’s Ministry of Agriculture shows Optima pet food coming from Australia – there is a massive failure in the transparency of the distribution chain.

When this all started (December 22, 2008) I e-mailed Optima via their Web contact form:

My name is Ryan McLaughlin and I am a Canadian living in China.

I have a one year old golden retriever and since we got her last February we\’ve been feeding her Optima Puppy Formula (alternating chicken and lamb).

As I\’m guessing you\’re well aware, the local media and message boards are filling with reports that Optima food is killing dogs due to contaminants that are causing liver failure.

My wife is Chinese and so has been following all this in Chinese, as well as in dialog with our local Optima dealing pet shop, but I\’ve not seen anything online about it.

So, to be blunt about it, are you killing my dog?

Ryan McLaughlin

The e-mail was sent to Optima’s sales department, which seems to use the address sales@nappinc.com (nappinc.com domain expired December 28, 2008) and then was forwarded to Shirley Yu from an e-mail using the domain effem.com – which appears to be connected to Mars, Inc.. Her reply:

Dated December 26, 2008
Mr. Mclaughlin,

What you described in your mail surprises me. Optima pet food is produced in US and only sold in Taiwan around the world. As a business representive of Optima pet food in Taiwan, we have never been allowed to export any pet foods to PRC either from Taiwan or US.

For your information, Optima had been launched in Taiwan for over 10 years, and never have lethal cases reported. Optima is the top 4 brand in Taiwan market and famous for it’s superior quality and palatability. If you have queries about petfood you bought in China, I would suggest you to directly contact the retailer which you buy products from.

Best Regards,

Shirley Yu

My response:

Dated December 26, 2008
Hi Shirley,

When you say “Optima pet food is produced in US and only sold in Taiwan around the world” are you saying that Optima isn’t exported from the US to any other countries but Taiwan? As that seems to contradict what the Optima Web site indicates.

You said you are a business representative for Optima in Taiwan – but did not indicate your company, nor your title at the company.

According to the OPTIMA literature we received from our local pet shop, it lists Natural Pet (in Taiwan) as the distributor for Optima. Are you the only Optima distributor? Natural Pet’s Web site (www.naturalpet.com.tw) very clearly shows Optima as a brand they distribute and shows distribution to Shanghai, Beijing and Nanjing in the People’s Republic of China.

Our dog has since been diagnosed with exposure to aflatoxin from Optima brand dog food here in China and is in critical condition, not expected to recover. If someone is selling Optima dog food (widely) in China, particularly poisoned dog food, I would think that your company, Optima and Doane would know or want to know about it.

Ryan

To date I’ve still not received a reply from Shirley, nor from CCing the message to the sales@nappinc.com address.

At the end of the day, I really don’t expect this convoluted path to lead anywhere, nor do I believe that Optima, Doane, Natural Pet, Shanghai Yidi Pet Co Ltd, or whoever the fuck is actually responsible for killing my dog to owe up to the true responsibility of that action. How can they? Money? Apologies? None of it will bring back Addie. None of it will fill that which they have taken away from us. And really, none of it will ever allow me to forgive them.

Tomorrow we meet with the distributor to come to some sort of compensation agreement. Part of me wants to fight as hard as I can and reign what fire I can down on the parties responsible for killing a dog I loved so deeply, but another part of me looks forward to being able to lay this all to rest so we can move on and begin to heal.

Ultimately, I know that if I travel down this road of seeking retribution and justice, no matter what I am able to do, I will only find disappointment.

First, she’s de-energized but still fighting. She’s having a really hard time keeping any food (and/or pills) down, and is quite nauseated most of the time. We’ve routinely been giving her shots to help with the nausea, and that seems to alleviate it for a while, but hasn’t much helped her appetite (we’re now feeding her baby formula/food as a quick and easy way to get nutrients and protein into her).

Additionally, one of the key drugs is S-Adenosyl methionine (SAMe), which is a horse-choker of a pill that seems barely digested even after waiting 6-8 hours before being regurgitated. Apparently there’s an intravenous version for humans, but none of the vets are able to get their hands on it.

Speaking of vets, we’ve switched from Cao Lang Feng down by the Suzhou Zoo to Wang Wang Gong Guan (汪旺公馆) here in SIP. The closer proximity is a bonus, but the choice was hardly ours. After going to Vet Cao for the last few days, when Maggie went there yesterday the staff explained that if we wanted to stay we’d have to pay the approx. 1500 RMB/day because the dog food distributor had cut off payment there.

Rather confused by this turn of events, the story we got from Vet Cao was that the cheap-ass distributor didn’t want to pay the high costs associated with the “premium” care at Cao Lang Feng Animal Hospital – largely considered the most well-equipped vet in Suzhou.

The distributor (predictably) had a different opinion. He told Maggie that Cao Lang Feng had been using this aflatoxin exposure as a big payday. He accused Vet Cao of ordering unneeded and excessive testing and expensive blood transfusions as a way to beef up the bill – which he knew the “clients” wouldn’t have to pay for. He then also said he’d heard that Vet Cao was overheard saying to a friend, “When else am I going to get a chance to make this money from them?” The distributor seemed pretty bothered by this, as he had a long relationship with the animal hospital. He also added that at least one dog brought in with this problem had died not from the liver damage, but because no one was caring for the dog while it was having an IV.

It’s impossible to say who is right, and so rather than bother ourselves with that unanswerable question, we are keeping focused on maintaining the quality of care that Addie needs. We went to Wang Wang yesterday and checked out the place before committing to the switch, but we had already developed a decent opinion of the place based on recommendations from friends and the fact that this was the animal hospital that tracked down someone to make an 11pm house-call the first night when Addie had the allergic reaction to her meds.

Admittedly, Wang Wang seems like a smaller operation and the staff seem quite a bit younger – but we’re pretty happy with the change. Despite being the “biggest and best”, Cao Lang Feng seemed very cold, dreary and depressing. The staff were curt and none of the vets ever said anything but that we needed to prepare for Addie’s death. Wang Wang, on the other hand, seems warm, bright and the staff (perhaps because of their un-jaded youth) seem to genuinely love and care for animals.

They also gave us hope – and that’s something we really need. We accept that aflatoxin exposure is most often fatal. We know that Addie is going to have to be a damn lucky dog to survive, and even if she does she’s going to have a long road to recovery, which is not likely to ever be “full recovery”. We know this. But it’s not the knowledge of this that’s going to drive us to stay up all night administering IVs, cleaning up her vomit, encouraging her to eat, forcing pills down her throat, and trying through it all to keep a positive attitude in hopes that it will carry over to her.

The other awesome thing about Wang Wang is rather than stress Addie with nerve-straining and vomit-inducing car trips down to the vets office, they’ve sent out a staff member to give her plasma transfusions, deliver the IV meds, and check up on her right in our home.

The toughest bit in all this though is making sure Addie’s got the right meds. I’ve not got the first clue about proper medicine, but I’m also willing to bet that most staff, at any vet’s in Suzhou – or indeed China – has much idea about how to best and specifically treat aflatoxin exposure. The drugs they’re giving her seem to support this, as they all tend to be generic liver failure drugs – helpful, but not necessarily specific enough.

Thanks to the Internet, I came across an article by Eva Furrow, VMD, entitled “Toxicology Brief: The critical care of aflatoxin-induced liver failure in dogs“. It, along with a few other sources, extol the virtues of Milk Thistle, but none of the vets we spoke with here have heard of it.

We took it upon ourselves to track down the stuff. Calling around to pharmacies we weren’t able to find anyone that carried it, but Maggie tracked down the name of a Chinese manufacturer and then went to the pharmacy and asked to see any drugs (natural or pharmaceutical) that help with liver disease – sure enough she found a pack of Milk Thistle pills.

As I mentioned in my post “Why self-medicating is an essential China expat skill“, self-medicating makes me nervous, but trusting that over-worked and under-paid staff at an (animal) hospital have mine or Addie’s best interests in crystal clear focus also makes me nervous.

Milk Thistle is also relatively harmless/safe to administer, so hopefully it helps.

Anyway, lack of sleep has me rambling here. I think I’ll go see what Maggie and the girl from Wang Wang are talking about in the other room.