Pet Food

Federal marshals with a search warrant visited the Joliet, Ill., distribution center of Petco Animal Supplies Inc. on Thursday, seizing animal food products that were allegedly contaminated. The seizure came one day after the government filed a lawsuit and obtained the warrant to seize products at the warehouse operated by the San Diego-based animal food and supply company. There are no known public health risks posed by the pet food and no incidents of human or animal illness have been traced to the products, U.S. Atty.

Charitable organizations providing aid to people evacuated from Southern California wildfires say that their greatest need is for cash gifts to sustain supply lines of food and to maintain counseling and relocation services. Donations of pet food also are being requested. Volunteers who want to help out at emergency shelters should contact agencies such as the Salvation Army and the American Red Cross before showing up at the facilities, officials say. The goal is to ensure proper training, maintain security and distribute staffing where it is most needed.

Whole Green Catalog 1,000 Best Things for You and the Earth Edited Michael W. Robbins Foreword by Bill McKibben Introduction by Renee Loux Rodale: 390 pp., $29.99 It's about time. Modeled on the "Whole Earth Catalog," this compendium of products, easy on the Earth, ranges from kitchenware to cars to pet food. Lush and stylish, the book lists everything you need to make you want to go off-grid: sustainable skateboards, products to help you recycle, appliances, biofuel and cashmere.

A Las Vegas company and its owners have pleaded guilty to distributing a tainted ingredient used to make pet food that reportedly killed thousands of animals. Sally Qing Miller, 43, her husband, Stephen S. Miller, 56, and their company, ChemNutra Inc., pleaded guilty to some of the charges contained in a Feb. 6, 2008, federal indictment. The indictment alleged that the Millers and ChemNutra, along with two Chinese companies, brought wheat gluten tainted with the chemical melamine into the U.S. It was then sold to pet-food makers.

A company that made contaminated pet food that killed dozens of dogs nationwide will pay $3.1 million in a settlement with pet owners, an attorney said Friday. The pet food, which contained aflatoxin, a harmful substance produced by a fungus, was manufactured at Diamond Pet Foods Inc.'s plant in South Carolina.

A Las Vegas food import company, two Chinese businesses and the companies' top executives were indicted Wednesday by a federal grand jury in connection with their parts in a tainted-pet food scandal last year that sickened or killed thousands of dogs and cats, the Justice Department said. The announcement by John F. Wood, U.S.

A compound related to a common nutritional supplement has been identified as the contaminant in a blood-thinning drug imported from China that sickened hundreds of frail patients in the U.S. and is suspected in a number of deaths, federal officials said Wednesday. The substance mimics the real drug -- heparin -- in standard safety tests and may have been deliberately substituted for the genuine compound somewhere along the line to boost middlemen's profits. It could also have been added through a mishap or some kind of misguided experiment.

Companies that were sued over contaminated pet food linked to the deaths of perhaps thousands of dogs and cats have agreed to pay $24 million to pet owners in the United States and Canada. The settlement is detailed in papers filed late Thursday in U.S. District Court in Camden, N.J. It still needs a judge's approval; a court hearing is set for May 30. "The settlement attempts to reimburse pet owners for all of their economic damages," said Russell Paul, a lawyer for the plaintiffs.

PetSmart Inc., Petco Animal Supplies Inc. and five other companies won preliminary court approval of a $24-million settlement of consumer lawsuits for selling melamine-tainted pet food. The ruling by U.S. District Judge Noel Hillman in Camden, N.J., tentatively settles about 100 suits in the U.S. and Canada. A final approval hearing is set for Oct. 14.

A judge in Camden granted initial approval to a settlement in which companies that manufactured or sold contaminated pet food would compensate pet owners for all costs related to the death or illness of their dogs and cats. Under the deal, pet owners in the United States and Canada would be notified of the settlement by June 16 and would have until early December to submit claims. A final hearing on the $24-million settlement is scheduled for Oct. 14. The settlement doesn't pay pet owners for pain and suffering from injuries to their pets.