Why Don't We Know That Tainted Pet (Dog and Cat) Food Is Nothing New?

[Ed. note: As Ole Blue the Heretic, whose blog is here, notes in comments quite accurately: "The FDA protects large corporations esp. the pharmaceutical companies." Anyone who fails to recognize and accept this truth does so at their own peril.]

I happened to notice that I was getting hits here on the blog from various news sites about the massive pet food recall. Going backward, I noticed something rather interesting and extremely disturbing.

While currently the focus is on potentially contaminated pet food that was manufactured for and distributed by Menu Food Item Fund (check their recall list here) between January and March, there were pet deaths for other labels back LAST year. Many of them, in fact.

Here's a CBS story from December about Diamond Pet Food, for example, and here's the (ever useless *&#&(@#) FDA notice about it for containing something called aflatoxin.

A few things have struck me since I first learned of the recall last Saturday:

1. Don't EVER believe the FDA is there to protect any of us (goes without saying, right?)
2. How could these deaths go on so long with still no idea WHAT is in the tainted food that shuts down renal function (most pets are dying of kidney failure/shutdown)?
3. If a terrorist group wanted to do an excellent "dry run" of how to scare the bejesus out of the American population AND how to contaminate the human food supply, they'd do it first through pet food (and, of course, the Bush Administration would not be interested because these aren't the terrorists that help the energy companies get sweetheart deals - notice they did nothing about the Anthrax Avenger)
4. Why is the media not paying attention? And they aren't; not much. Now they report 100 dogs dead, for example, when I've heard anecdotal estimates of that many dogs dead in Vermont alonel