Fears grow on pet food - 5 foods nonrecalled listed repeatedly in vet reports

Local veterinarians who've tracked kidney ailments nationwide have tentatively identified five more foods, not at this point under any recall, that they plan to have tested as soon as possible.

The Veterinary Information Network, used by about 16,000 of the estimated 35,000 U.S. veterinarians, noticed the five foods kept recurring in vet-described disease reports, said Paul Pion, the Davis vet who co-founded the service. Pion said it would be premature to name the foods.

He hopes to get suspect food samples to the California Animal Health and Food Safety Laboratory at UC Davis to start testing as early as today. As the recall expands, "my sense is it's time for every manufacturer to go testing for melamine," Pion said.

The notion that melamine could be a deliberate additive -- not an industrial mistake -- arose as early as April 5, when Stephen Sundlof, head of the FDA's Center for Veterinary Medicine, said that the pet food recall could turn into a criminal investigation if investigators find that melamine was added deliberately.

Later, the New York Times reported that the Chinese company that supplied tainted wheat gluten to Menu Foods sought to buy large amounts of melamine through Internet trading sites.