Posted by: sarasotapet on: September 5, 2009
By Katie McLain
September 5, 2009
A study conducted in June of this year revealed eight national brands of dog food contained fluoride in amounts between 1.6 and 2.5 times higher than the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) maximum legal dose in drinking water and may put dogs’ health in jeopardy.
Fluoride is a naturally occurring mineral found in the Earth’s crust, rocks and soil as well as in bone meal and animal byproducts, which is the likely source of the contamination in this study. All eight brands contained one or more of chicken by-product meal, poultry by-product meal, chicken meal, beef and/or bone meal. A smaller amount of fluoride came from fluoridated tap water used to prepare the food at pet food plants.
Once ingested, fluoride accumulates in the bones. Topical application of fluoride is an effective way to prevent tooth decay, but excessive fluoride intake is thought to contribute to mottled teeth (dental fluorosis), weakened bones, reproductive and developmental system damage, neurotoxicity, hormonal disruption and bone cancer.
The most telling effect of the non-regulated status of dog foods lies in the numbers. Annually, there are 8000 reported cases of osteosarcoma (a rare but deadly form of bone cancer) in dogs in the United States. By contrast, there are only 900 human cases reported annually. That calculates to nearly 10 times as many osteosarcoma cases reported annually in dogs versus humans. While this is hardly damning evidence, it does seem to point to a correlation.
