Texas Lab Discovers Human Painkiller in Pet Food

Will the pet food nightmare ever end? Apparently not. A Texas laboratory has found acetaminophen (aka Tylenol) in dog and cat food. The FDA is investigating, and one cat may have already died as a result.

The human pain medication is the fifth contaminant found in pet foods recently. It is toxic or lethal to pets, especially cats. At this time, it is unkown if animals have become sick or died from acetaminophen poisoning.

"We were looking for cyanuric acid and melamine, and the acetaminophen just popped up," Donna Coneley, lab operations manager for ExperTox Inc. in Deer Park, Texas, said. "It definitely was a surprise to find that in several samples."

Five dog food and cat food samples that were submitted to ExperTox by worried pet owners and pet food manufacturers contained varying levels of the pain reliever. The medication was found in conjunction with cyanuric acid, a chemical used in pool chlorination, according to Coneley. Varying levels of melamine, a chemical used to make plastics, were also found among the samples ExperTox tested. The contaminants were found in foods that are not among the more than 150 brands recalled since March 16. Disturbingly, the highest level of acetaminophen was found in a dog food sample submitted by its manufacturer. Coneley declined to identify the company but said its officials were given the results "well over a month ago."

That company should have -- but did not -- notify the FDA, which first learned of the acetaminophen findings after pet owners posted lab reports on the Internet.

I don't know about you, but I want to know which pet food company it is! Acetaminophen and cyanuric acid were both found in cat food submitted by Don Earl, 52, of Port Townsend, Wash. Earl's 6-year-old cat, Chuckles, died in January. Earl was suspicious of Chuckles' Pet Pride food because his other two cats refused to eat it and because Chuckles, strictly an indoor girl, had been healthy prior to her death.