From today's SMH - figured that some dog owners may also have cats...

"UNEXPLAINED chronic illness and death among Sydney cats has been linked to a gourmet imported pet food withdrawn from stores over the past three weeks.

A cat neurologist, Georgina Child, has put down five cats over the past week and treated or consulted with other vets about more than a dozen others suffering from paralysis.

Dr Child, who is based at the University of Sydney's veterinary hospital and the Small Animal Specialist Hospital in North Ryde, said the only factor that linked all the cats was a specialist pet food called Orijen, which is imported through a Canadian company, Champion Petfoods.

"There is a highly suspicious link because this is an uncommon expensive food in this country at the moment, and not sold in supermarkets," Dr Child said. "But all tests that have been done so far haven't given us an answer."

First symptoms included wobbliness or weakness in the animal's hind legs, which could then progress to the front limbs. The condition did not appear to be infectious, Dr Child said, nor typical of a nutritional deficiency.

"Most worrying is that the cats showed no signs [of illness] while on the food," she said. "It seems to be happening weeks or even months later."

The marketing manager of Champion Petfoods, Peter Muhlenfeld, confirmed yesterday the cat deaths had been traced back to Orijen's dry cat food, and the problem appeared to be restricted to Australia.

He said samples sent back by the Australian distributor had a "strange odour". The company is investigating whether irradiation upon entry into Australia was the source of the contamination.

The Oddy family of Dundas has lost two cats in the past week. "They were the children's pets; it's awful," Sarah Oddy said."

oh my gosh. i use orijen dog food. now i'm a bit worried.

Just to put your mind at ease,they have been unable to link the food to any cat deaths .Here is the official info from Champion Pet Foods-

Champion Petfoods is announcing the voluntary recall of its ORIJEN brand cat food
sold in Australia. Consumers are asked to stop feeding ORIJEN cat food and return any
unused portion to the place of purchase for a full refund.
Limited to Australia, this recall is based upon a number of cats within the Sydney area
taking ill after consuming ORIJEN cat food.
Champion Petfoods is working closely with the Australian veterinary community to
conduct a comprehensive and ongoing program of laboratory tests. Although results
are unable to link ORIJEN cat food to illness in cats, we are recalling our product as a
precautionary measure.
Due to the highly localized nature of incidents, the recall is issued for AUSTRALIA ONLY
and research efforts are now directed toward identifying local factors unique to Australia.
ORIJEN is made with chicken, fish and egg that are passed ‘fit for human
consumption’ in Canada and processed fresh. As these meats are included FRESH,
ORIJEN products sold in Australia are required by law to undergo an irradiation
treatment prior to distribution in Australia.
The irradiation requirement is unique to Australia.
Champion Petfoods is an award-winning, family-owned pet food maker. Our mission is
to produce the healthiest and safest pet foods on earth – a mandate in which our entire
staff are fully and passionately engaged. We are proud of our 25 year history of making
world-class pet foods.
For further information relating to ORIJEN or Champion Petfoods, please contact me
directly by telephone at 780 939.6888 or email at peter@championpetfoods.com .

Thank you for posting this. I don't know if it is a coincidence or not, but I had my cats on Orijen a few months ago and one of mine got sick after being on it for about 2 weeks. This is an 11yo cat who does not have good health anyway. I mentioned to the vet that his food had been changed but we did not feel this was the cause of his problems at the time. My other two younger cats, 1yo, had also been on the food and seem fine. I will keep an eye on them for any signs that do not seem right.

I had the old cat blood tested but nothing showed up in the tests. He had lost a lot of weight suddenly, and seemed very unwell. He is still a lot thinner than he normally is, but seems happier than when he suffered this strange bout of feeling ill. The vet still has no answers to his problems. He does not have the usual Thyroid or kidney problems that older cats often suffer from.

I mostly feed my animals fresh food. With the amount of problems that seem to be happening with commercial pet food lately, I am going to just keep with the fresh food. The only problem with this is that cats need different nutrients to stay healthy. These nutrients are added to commercial food, and I have known of people who have had problems with their cats from just feeding fresh meat alone.

Thanks for that info 4paws. I hope that it is not the food that caused the deaths of the cats. I did like the cats being on this food, the younger ones looked great and they all seemed to enjoy it. My old boy is not in good health, so hopefully it was just a coincidence.

Have cats from other states been affected by the food as well? Just interesting that they all appear to be from the one state. Maybe the cause isn't the food but something else within NSW.

Wonder if it has Melamine in it? and comes from China? Poor pussies.

Gee there have been a lot of cases of "off" pet food in the past months.

Tested clear of melamine and the ingredients are all locally sourced (Canada).

Sags

The symptoms sounded remarkably like tick paralysis, but you would assume they checked for this.

Faaaarr out - I have been investigating getting the Orijen dry food for my cats. Thank goodness the postage costs were too high.

RIP poor kitties

Georgina Childs is not a 'crackpot' Vet either. I'd be taking her views seriously. She is one of Australia's leading neuros.

My cat's had wobbly back legs for a few weeks.
First we thought she was just off her food because she didn't like the taste, changing to Orijen. Then we thought the weight loss might have been because of having new foster Terry around. Then one day we noticed her wobbly back legs - looked like very early tick paralysis, but didn't find any tick and didn't have the glazed eyes or get any worse in a hurry. So we assumed it was a bit of an injury from playing with dogs, and after a couple of days took her to the vet. They gave anti-inflams and wait a week, but no better. So x-rays, but no sign of any probs, so cortisone and anti-biotics while waiting for toxoplasmosis blood tests. That was clear, so off the anti-bios and keep up the cortisone to see how she goes. Another ten days later (last Saturday), she's still wobbling, in fact when she runs her legs fly around all over the place and sometimes completely collapse. No other symptoms - wee, poo, food (which we starting changing back to Iams some weeks ago, but only completely ran out of last week) all ok. So vet says keep going on cortisone because they have no other ideas, unless we want to pay up to $1500-$2000 for 'contrast dye' type xray(?).

So now I'm trying to get my vet to ring Georgina Child, anyone at Sydney Uni, anyone at Small Animal Hospital - and then ring me back. It's so frustrating, the specialists only want to talk to my vet, and my vet hasn't rung me back yet. The vets are rotating through holidays so it's actually three vets including a locum, with three totally different ideas, that have seen my cat.

Sorry, this is turning into an epic, but I'm really frustrated that firstly the recall was over a week ago according to my pet food supplier, but I've seen no notices not to feed the food.

And we don't know whether anything can be done to help my cat - should she have other drugs, will she get worse suddenly, might she get better, should we stop the cortisone????

Poor kitty.

Interesting that you say the specialists only want to speak to the Vets. I have found Georgina very approachable by telephone. Maybe it is different with a current client though??

I hope everything is ok for you. I'll be sending you all the good luck and good health vibes I can for your moggy.

Thanks (on Rocky's behalf) for the good wishes, Puggles.
I couldn't get past reception at the SA hospital or uni, but I'm guessing they got a lot of calls today. There have probably been a couple of meetings with lawyers today too!
I will be getting a bit more assertive about it tomorrow. If cats are being pts because of this, I want some consideration for mine now. She's a nice kitty.

Have you actually tried to speak with Georgina though in Sydney?

I asked to speak to her, but didn't get past reception, who asked me why I was calling and said they'd be happy to talk to my vet.
I'll try again tomorrow.
I've worked with scientists/engineers all my life. I'm hoping that she will want to know about my cat, just to satisfy the true enquiring mind.

Well crap, if it's doing harm to cats.. then it would seem logical that it might affect dogs too... I feed my dogs Orijen... Now I'm worried!

My cat developed a numbness in his limbs, couldn't walk, was admitted to hospital on a drip, blood tests, xrays, antibiotics etc etc - nothing conclusive. This news is the closest we've come to a possible reason BUT he doesn't eat any commercial pet food.
He is walking now but can't jump and can't purr. He is fussier with his food but seems ok and happy in himself. Such a mystery. He gave me a fright.

Really?! Wow, I have not visited Georgina since she has been at the new clinic and she last saw my epi boy, Mone, over 12 motnhs ago and yet I phoned a month or so back to speak to her about his seizures and she happily returned my call. I can't recall being quizzed too much by reception only that I was calling about my dog.

Perhaps I said he was a patient of hers though??

My cat is getting orijen, I got a new bag about 2 weeks ago.
I think I'll call them tomorrow and ask for it to be replaced with something else.
My dog is also on orijen, is that considered safe still?

I've only just had a chance to do some googling.
The catworld forum has a thread - this has been known about for some time, weeks even.
Some vets have been talking about it for months.

My poor poor kitty always comes second to the dogs, I'm so sorry. She's nowhere near as sick as some I'm reading about - hugs to the catlovers struggling with this.

Have you guys done some research on irradiation of food??? Why on earth does dried cat food have to be exposed to a radiation field????

Is the irradiation of food permitted in Australia?
Under the Food Act 2006, Standard 1.2.3 of the Food Standards Code prohibits the irradiation of food, or ingredients or components of food, unless a specific permission is given. The specific permission may impose conditions relating to matters such as dose, packaging materials, approved premises or facilities.
Foods permitted to be irradiated are specified in the Standard and include certain kinds of tropical fruit, herbs, spices and herbal infusions, in accordance with certain conditions for that food specified in the Standard.

Wasnt the big problem with Nutro something to do with radiation?

I am not a 'cat person' but don't like seeing or knowing of any animal suffering and am also sorry for those who obviously love their cats having to go through all this worry and heartache.

I'm not adding anything here that is of any scientific nature or anything, and it could be that it is going to come across as quite 'dumb' .... I'm only speaking aloud some thoughts that have been milling around in my mind over the past weeks. And that was before I even knew of this epidemic which seems to be mounting against cats. So, out with it .... the thought, that is. I've been thinking about the drought we've been in and the critical water shortages and the efforts people are making to try to conserve water usage. I've been thinking about the 'grey water' retention - eg. buckets in the shower; washing machine water; etc. etc. and also wondering how many of us actually 'store' that water beyond the recommended 24 hour period before we use it on our lawns or to flush the toilet or whatever. And then I've wondered what and how much bacteria is building up and what it might build up to.

It's not that I'm being paranoid about it but with more and more people getting on the 'wagon' so to speak, there's got to be a build up of it.

All of this thinking came about mainly because since my new puppy came home nearly 4 months ago, I've had to be careful about him not having access to the buckets of water from the shower and I could only imagine it would not bode his tummy well.

So ok .... how does this tie in with the thread topic? Well .... it's a long shot and surely it would be an obvious thing that the specialists would have already covered - and maybe their tests would have revealed anything that might have been caused by bacteria. But who am I to know? But is it anywhere near remotely possible that the cats have been getting access to grey water and being affected by it? "Why not dogs, if this is correct?" I hear people ask. I don't know. Maybe dogs are not as sensitive to it - maybe they would need larger doses/exposure to it than cats? Maybe cats can get to it where dogs can't. ???

I think I'm really going to regret and be embarrassed by putting this thought up and out there. And maybe after I've posted it, it will sound so silly to my own ears (eyes) that I'll remove it. But it is something I've been pondering.

Erny, I like your lateral thinking Nothing should be discounted!

Thank goodness I don't feed my cats Orijen (although I had been considering it) but it does make me wonder if it's a batch thing - you know, Australia got sent a particular batch which was contaminated in the country of origin somehow.

Erny, you have just put forward a logical idea, we have been racking our brains also.
Mum even came up with lead paint poisoning but he hasn't been licking paint. lol My boy is an inside boy, we don't have grey water collection so he can't access it. The water bowls are changed every day and food bowls hot washed after each meal. We had blood tests results come back that indicated no sign of infection - blood cell count(??). To be honest, I'm mystified but just soooo happy he didn't deteriorate further. How heartbreaking for the people who have lost their cats.


Is irradiation likely to be a problem for the Orijen cats? can you get a bad batch of over-nuked food?

Is Orijen the only imported food that is irradiated? I can only assume that the dog food is subjected to the same treatment. Might have to switch back to Eagle Pack.

AHH Poop poop! Loki is on Orijen!! I went to order another bag yeasterday and couldn't get it anywhere now I know why! He has only had 3/4 of the one bag and seems fine. I'm chucking it and going to get something else tomorrow morning. Floyd and Maxie are on it too and now i'm worried about them. If the cat food is dodgie could the dog food be too??? Maybe it's time to change to Royal Cain?

Perhaps don't 'chuck it'? Hopefully Loki will be fine. But as this illness is being discovered weeks and even months after cats have been on Orijen, I wonder if part of the problem is that owners have not had the food stock available for it too to be tested.

Very good idea Erny! I will keep it for sure just in case. Thanks!

She suggested my dog had a brain tumor and have exploratory xrays/surgery when all he really had was toxoplasmosis which a course of antibiotics fixed. A neuro-specialist should recognise toxoplasmosis symptoms instantly. I've only needed to see one dog with it (mine) to know I can now with every dog.

The second time I saw her years later was when he developed diabetes and she told me there was nothing I could do prevent the rapid long-nerve degeneration in the lower back and limbs, so I went on the internet and found methylcobalamine (vitamin B12) studies in Japan showing it helped regenerate these nerves in human diabetics. So I bought some and it did and my vet insisted I take the dog back to show her the improvement. I declined and told him to pass on the links to the studies I found on the internet which I'd given him if she was interested. It's her job (for which she charges well for) to keep up with the latest developments, not mine to do it for her.

Her opinions are far from gospel.

My cat turned his nose up at the Orijen sample pack I tried with him. Maybe he could smell the 'odour'. So he stayed on the Royal Canin. So why would Orijen be different to Royal Canin or any other imported dry food that has been irradiated?

And if the Orijen cat food turns poisonous with irradiation, why doesn't the Orijen dog food? I'm feeding my pups Orijen and now I'm concerned.

One thing I've noticed about Orijen is the packaging plastic is different to other foods. It's thicker and softer. Maybe it reacts with the radiation.

PS. The petfood shop told me a few month ago they don't stock the Royal Canin tinned cat food because it doesn't survive the irradiation, so they don't import it.

PPS. I've noticed the Royal Canin dry cat food is lighter in colour in the most recent packs. Is this irradiation recent?

I've seen Katdogs' kitty, and she's very wobbly on her back legs, but otherwise seems totally happy and healthy. It's quite distressing to see this sweet cat wobbling about - but she's a toughie, and doesn't let it stop her chasing lizards and such... *grin*

I suppose what Katdogs is looking for is some sort of answer to whether poor Rocky will get worse, get better over time, or stay the same forever. It would be totally heartbreaking to know that there is absolutely nothing that could be done to stop the progression of this degeneration - especially if it may be linked to a purportedly excellent food source that owners have bought for their furry family members.

I remember when I used to feed my dogs an expensive premium brand of kibble, and we got a batch that caused all sorts of digestive issues and nasty scouring. I ended up throwing out about 18kgs of a 20kg bag, and started feeding my babies a cheaper brand... my babies are now very happy and healthy, and have never had any adverse reaction to the cheaper brand - so we will be sticking with it...

T.

Believe it was part of a batch that went to other countries who have had no issues at all. It does appear to be localised to Australia which is why they are looking at what is done differently here.

Not every food is irradiated. Artemis is not, just one of many. I understand it is something to do with the very low cooking heat used with Orijen that alarmed the powers that be in Australia into irradiating it.

And yes, to answer someone earlier, Nutro had a brief problem with irradiation causing the food to change its smell in a couple of its products.

Sags

Hey Sagittarian can you tell us which brands are irradiated and which ones arent?

Short answer. No.

There doesn't appear to be any requirement for a food that is subject to irradiation to be labeled as such - either for pet or human consumption.

I will contact each of our suppliers and ask the question and am happy to post their answers once I have them.

Sags

Thatd be great thanks Like you said in the other thread all foods for humans or animals that are irradiated ought to be labelled so people know what theyre buying

I'm just back from taking Rocky to see Georgina Child.
Yep our kitty got the same problems as all the other cats that Georgina has seen. She said that the manufacturer has been very helpful in trying to work out what's going on, and it really does seem like it's just an Australian issue, somewhere in the import/transport/storage system. Gamma irradiation affecting the packaging is a likely cause, but they really don't know yet.

Some affected cats have been on Orijen for ages, some not for long at all. Some haven't eaten it for weeks. Some have deteriorated very quickly, others seem stable but only one really has shown any improvement (and that was with no particular treatment, just time).

So I'm just crossing my fingers about my kitty. However, she is a lot worse today than she's been. One of her back legs now takes a while to turn back to flat on the foot when deliberately curled over (if you've seen neuro tests you'll know what I mean). The one good thing is that she still doesn't realise she's sick.

It was my understanding that all food (human or not) imported into Australia is gamma-irradiated, just to differing degrees according to the 'cooked-ness' and/or ingredients of it. I don't have a reference for that, though.

I hope she'll be ok.

That sounds similar to the long-nerve deterioration which comes with diabetes as I mentioned in my previous post. Basically the longer nerves in the lower spine and rear legs shorten and hence the synapse gap between them increases so the electrical signals are not travelling between the nerves as it should. Is your cat's meowing sounding a little hoarser? The long-nerves are in the the throat and vocal chords too.

You can try methylcobalimine (basically pure vitamin B12, not the standard B12 you buy in chemists) if you can find some to help speed the nerve regrowth and close those gaps again back to normal. Or get a B12 shot from your vet.

This has gotten me thinking - maybe whatever's affecting these cats are making them vitamin B12 deficient, either directly or via affecting the pancreas. Someone mentioned gamma irradiation destroys vitamins? The food could simply have zero vitamin content.

Just found this on the Champion Pet Foods website. http://www.championpetfoods.com/orijen/Aus...mer_Release.pdf

Obviously it seems the cats are only affected. But if the cat food gets irradiated, doesn't the dog food get the same treatment? That doesn't seem to be affected though. I imagine it's in the same sort of packaging.

oh dear poor cats. I am wondering if I should continue my boy with Orijen eventhough there are no reports of dog food causing problems. so what is safe in this world now

So they're no longer selling the Orijen cat food in Australia because of the irradiation issue. That doesn't address the question if there is the same issue with AQIS irradiating their Orijen dog food.

I put Loki back on Royal Canin Siamese today. Maxie is now on the RC Mini but Floyd will have to be changed over slowley because he is still a pup. I'm not taking any chances with the dogs they are too precious and the whole thing spooks me. My thought is if the cat food is bad do to the irratiation there is a good chance the dog food is too. I have always liked RC but thought I'd give Orijen a go because of the grain free ect. ect.

So there is no long term prognosis at this stage Katdogs? That has to be a big worry...

Here's hoping that sweet Rocky will defy all the odds and get better soon...

T.

No Nutro didn't meet the import guidelines so thats why we can't get it into Australia.

I'm in 2 minds with this - is there a difference in packaging between the cat and dog food?
All animal products (which both of these would fall under) would be gamma irradiated at 50kgrey.
The majority of food imported into Australia has to receive treatment - our quarantine standards are the highest in the world and its also why we have some of the best agricultural products in the world too.
Gamma would be the only treatment option I can see for this product.
I now refuse to eat a lot of imported produce because of the treatment it undergoes with methyl bromide.

Have been advised The Orijen dog food has been tested and is totally safe

Thank you 4 Paws.

"Have been advised The Orijen dog food has been tested and is totally safe" 4Paws

No dogs have come down with any symptoms so far so it sound right. But, i didn't think they know exactly what the connection is yet. They think its the irradiation. What would they be testing for?