Cats - Canaries in the Coal Mine of Household Chemical Toxicity?

[mjfrombuffalo[$]]

Hyperthyroidism in cats - increase coinciding with increased use of PBDE in household items. PBDE, the flame retardant, also shows up in canned cat food

[MiracleMax]

Wouldn't want our cats to be flammable, now would we?

[hadassahchana[$]]

In cat food?? Is something wrong with us, or what?

One of the reasons I bought the couch set I did is becaue of the lack of flame retardent in it. It even came with a warning lable, since it's not stuffed with foam soaked in the flame etardent. I know that many of us refused to let our babies sleep in flame-retardent sleepware. Anything that leaves welts and makes my eyes water like those clothes did were not going on my babies. That article is really scary. I am thinking that the whole 'better living through chemicals' is not so good.

[mjfrombuffalo[$]]

more scienc-y story

Their analysis found that PBDE content of canned fish/seafood flavors, such as salmon and whitefish, was higher than dry or non-seafood canned items. Based on the analysis, they estimate that diets based on canned food could have PBDE levels 12 times as high as dry-food diets. The researchers indicate that pet cats might be receiving as much as 100 times greater dietary PBDE exposure than American adults.

Now here's the funny thing. Astro, my cat with hyperthyroidism, ate ONLY dry cat food... UNTIL he was diagnosed with hyperthyroid and lost a lot of weight! And of course he likes the seafood flavors best. I don't think there's much PBDE in my furniture since it was mostly all built before 1930. He *does* like to lick the wood furniture though.

[eris esoteric]

Seafood isn't good for the cats anyway. I don't feed it to mine because of that.

But man, does Stranger LOVE her tuna flavored treats. Almost as much as cheese.

[hadassahchana[$]]

From the Dolittler blog - her take on hyperthyroidism and PBDE's. I love this blog, and I think she makes a lot of intersting points in this article.