Beijing Joins Poison Inquiry As Us Hit By Cat and Dog Deaths

It has dominated the US media for weeks, is to be investigated by Congress, and yesterday it became an international incident: it is the American pet poisoning row.

Owners claim thousands of cats and dogs have been killed by poison in pet food. Pet food companies and the US Food and Drug Administration, however, put the death toll at a more modest 16.

The companies have ordered more than 100 brands to be withdrawn, amounting to more than 60m cans and packets. The FDA is investigating and suggested for the first time yesterday that the poisoning may not, as it first said, be accidental.

Stephen Sundlof, an FDA director, said it was investigating whether melamine, a toxin used in plastics and pesticides, may have been added to the food to boost protein and increase profits.

Congressmen have lined up to promise committee investigations. And yesterday, after accusations that the poison may have originated in China, the government in Beijing launched an inquiry into pet food safety, in particular a claim that contaminated wheat gluten exported to the US was responsible. Government officials in China said they had not found evidence of domestic poisonings, but would look into US government claims that the supplier of the tainted product was a company in Xuzhou, eastern China.

Pet owners have swamped the website Petconnection.com with details of their losses. The site says 3,242 deaths have been reported, of which 1,731 are cats and 1,511 are dogs, and more than 6,000 pets fell ill, adding: "If even a fraction can be confirmed, they show deaths far exceeding the FDA's count."

Last week, the FDA banned wheat gluten imports from China's Xuzhou Anying Biologic Technology Development on the grounds that the products contained melamine.

Quarantine authorities in China said on Monday that the country had never exported wheat or wheat gluten to the US. But there is a possibility that firms in China may have sold on products made in other countries.

"We are investigating," said an official with the press office of the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine.