The poisson story is only a distraction to hide the real culpit.
Let suppose that someone by accident or real intention added some poisson to the food, what happens? It will depend on the amount of poisson.

A large amount of poison will kill the pet in few minutes and it will affect all the pets that consumed the food, this is something that didn't happened.

A medium amount of poisson will not kill the pet, but the pet will have all the evidences that is something wrong with him, so it will be a flood of people going to the veterinares with their pets.
This also was nothing that happened.

It only remains a little amount of poisson. A little amount does nothing, but it has a cumulative effect. The effects will only appear after sometime of the use of the poissoned food and also will depend on the pet, someone can be more resistant or inmune and another more sensible.
As I said before, the poisson in this case to produce some notable effect it must be consumed for a long period and this creates a big problem in the poisson theory:
It requires that not only one shipment was poissoned by accident, it requires that all shipments and production was poissoned for a long period of time!!!!

In resume it looks more as some responsable chemical used was added or its amount increased at least one year ago,  produced a cummulative effect and when the amount of cases present at veterinaries increased in a very big proportion raised the alarm signal that something must be wrong with the food.

Quote - Menu Foods seem to be doing all the right things in this situation. They aren't hiding behind their lawyers. They are taking full ownership of the situation and are paying all medical costs for those animals affected.  The company is taking a huge financial loss, because even safe products have been pulled off of the shelf.

CYA.  No company voluntarily does anything unless they're up against the wall.  It might be that someone in the company did something to the food process.  That's a lot of dog and cat food to mess with which would make you wonder what is the difference between Iams and the generic crap they sell in the grocery store.  Different label.  Same crap.  That's pretty much what I told Iams otherwise if it's a different blend it wouldn't have the same crap in it.

Could be the equipment was used for something else and there was residue left behind when it was next used for squirting into those cans and packets.  Maybe somebody is using the facilities on off hours for illegal purposes.  Sounds like a bad mystery.

The main plant, I think, is in Canada.  There's also one in Ohio.  The place where I got my bad Iams from was Ohio.  I'd suspect them more than Canada.  Lot of disgruntled and nasty people there (as well as where I live), but a lot of work on one person's part.  It was discovered back in December or January.  Boy, they sure took their time reporting it to the public, didn't they?

Pets expect you to take care of them, feed them, and love them.  They return unconditional love no matter what.  You can't be responsible for the content of the food you give to them, but the product should be genuine, not filled with dangerous chemicals or anything that is life threatening to them.  You have a trust in the makers of the food.  When they betray that trust (which they have), then you have to take independent measures to substitute for their nourishment by other means.

My grandmother told me she had cats and dogs on the farm and they didn't have the canned pet foods we have today (this was back in 1908.  She lived to be in her late 90's and was born in the 19th century).  They gave the animals food scraps and many lived well beyond their years.  Her daugher, my mother, said the same thing.  Might not be nutritious, but are the cans we buy for the dogs and cats?  I've picked bones from 9 Lives tuna fish cans (not on the recall list) before feeding to my cats.

If consumers don't start bitching and taking a stand, then next we'll be eating garbage from cans.  Actually, garbage from a trash can might be safer than what we're eating now.  Ooh!  We won't go there.

Now onto other things:

What do you tell a cat that insists on drinking out of the toilet when he has a nice pet fountain full of cold water (he loves cold water) with ice cubes and cole water in the reserve.  This same cat likes to "dry off" the shower curtain after someone takes a shower.  Is this strange or what?  Drinking toilet water can't be that good.  I do flush several times to make sure the residue is gone.

I want to add something, it can add some important clue.
I live in Brasil and the pet's food only appeared here about 15 or 20 years ago, the switch from natural to artificial food was slow and in the beginning were very few pet shops.
As the number of people that used pet's food increased so it was the number of cases of kidney problems (what a coincidence!!!!).
It reached the point that all the veterinaries agreeded that the pet food had a component responsable and so appeared in the market new and more expensive products most of them imported that were free of problems and were recomended by the veterinaries. The other products responsable for the problem continued to be sold without any problem!
So it were two braches of products, one "healthy" and expensive and the other that were not recomended by veterinaries.
The important point is that some pet food had a component that created kidney problem and many cases of death, and this has existed from the first moment of artificial food.
Now enters my experience and observation. When I started to use pet's food I wouldn't give them something bad for their health, I used the "healthy" food marks so proclaimed by the veterinaries.
But what I have observed was that many cats began to have kidney and skin problems, so the so "heathy" marks were no so "healthy", so it was not a question of mark or price, all the foods created the same problem.
As the problem was not generalised and only affected some cat and not all, what I did was to alternate artificial with natural food for the problem be minimised.
But there is something very curious that I've found: For about two years I am giving to the pets the most cheapest food that exist and not the most expensive and "healthy" so well spoken by the veterinaries.
The curious thing that I found is that I have not observed any problem with my pets in the last two years and they eat almost artificial food, the same I cannot say about the other more expensive and "healthy" food.
The only explantion that I have why the "unhealthy" is really healthy is that the chemical responsable of the problems is an imported product. As the product is imported it becomes an expensive component (you must take into account all the import process, the resale and all the cumulative taxes of the goverment). So the imported component becomes to expensive to be used in a cheap product, the net result is that this component is not used in cheap food and only used in more expensive pet foods turning the "healthy" food into really unhealthy.
This cannot be applied to the US/Canada because the responsable product is not imported and can be very cheap to be used in any food.

here is the problem with most (most, not ALL) commercial petfoods.   Just look at the labels and you will start to understand.   For cats, as I mentioned earlier, they are carnivours.  The eat meat and cannot process complex or even simple carbohydrates.  Most cat foods contain high amounts of carbohydrates.  Why?  Simply put it adds bulk, nothing more.  Become efficient at reading the ingredient list on lables.   They are not always truthful, but you will get an idea pretty quickly if kitty really needs this food.  Most cats live just fine (and better!) with canned tuna in water, or canned chicken in water that you'd use to make a sandwich.   With that i'd suggest highly "greens", most pet food stores carry "cat grass" you grow in a pot on your counter for them.

Dogs may eat out of the trash, that doesn't mean its good for them.   Yes dogs are nature's "Pick up crew"......... sort of.   They do scavenge, but as for clean up comittee, any zoologist will tell you, thats hyenas who've adapted themselves and their stomachs to even eat the worst rotten food and survive.   Domesticated working and house dogs are so removed from nature they can't actually exist as scavengers.  Have a dog with a "tender tummy" and you'll begin to see it for what it is.  In effect, we've bred the stomach out of them.

The number one dog food additive that will shorten the length of the life of your dog, ask your vet, is CORN.  Check your label.   Why is corn so bad?   Three reasons:

1:  Corn is not digested in any way by a dog, it passes right through.  Eat some corn on the cob and watch in the bathroom a day later.  This is not speculation, its fact.

2.  Corn has absolutely NO nutritional value to a dog.  It is used for bulk to make volume in the bag or can, thats all.  This is "space" that should be filled with the protein and amino acids they need.

3:  The BIG one.  Pay attention.  85 percent of all dogs are ALLERGIC to corn.  You can wipe out, in one stroke, bad dog breath, dental problems, soft gum disease, skin allergies, loss of hair, weakness and "wet dog smell"........... simply be erradicating corn from their diet, period.

Corn is used by many manufacturers simply because its plentiful, cheap (dirt cheap), and gives enormous volume to a bag of food.   Though there are other alternatives, why they arent used is a mystery, because most of them too, are also inexpensive.  Rice, Oatmeal, and barley.

If your dog has any of the above, especially balding patches, or occassional skin "hotspots" I highly recommend changing to a food with no corn in it and watch the miracle happen.

However, again touting the best ways to feed an animal, is sometimes unrealistic.   The best advice is to give your pet the BEST food you can possibly AFFORD.  Touting one brand over another "BUY PEDIGREE!"........ or "ONLY HOME COOKED!" is not really helping anyone.  In one forum someone begged the populace to use "Hills science diet", as any other food was sacrelidge.   I hated to inform him and do the legwork to get him the site, but he was advising people to use a food that was cited several times for using meat from rendering plants that included euthanized housepets.

People are touting foods or suggesting them, simply because they are "not on the list".  Yet some they are suggesting use the cheapest ingredients known, and some that are absolutely horrible for your pet.  I wouldn't feel comfortable now advocating ANY pet food at all.