--- title: China Petco Pet Food Scandal Is Just the Tip of a Toxic Iceberg description: Pet food retailers in the U.S. are pulling Chinese-made dog and cat treats from their shelves out of contamination fears canonical: https://time.com/107922/china-pet-food-contamination-recall-video/ author: Bryan Walsh article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-05-21T21:48:13.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-01T08:52:52.241Z article:section: Science og:title: China's food safety problems go deeper than pet treats og:description: Pet food retailers in the U.S. are pulling Chinese-made dog and cat treats from their shelves out of contamination fears og:url: https://time.com/107922/china-pet-food-contamination-recall-video/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte60325119a004aba/6986906f3bc999a4fa1a3977/china-dog-food-recall.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 4040 og:image:height: 2273 og:image:alt: China Pet Food Recall og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: China's food safety problems go deeper than pet treats twitter:description: Pet food retailers in the U.S. are pulling Chinese-made dog and cat treats from their shelves out of contamination fears twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte60325119a004aba/6986906f3bc999a4fa1a3977/china-dog-food-recall.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # China's Food Safety Problems Go Deeper Than Pet Treats > Sponsored content. 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Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/newsletters?i=9b0a8bcc-8107-41e1-a754-af9d843763c0&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1) ## Video: What Dog Owners Need to Know About China's Pet Jerky Treats [Watch (HLS stream): What Dog Owners Need to Know About China's Pet Jerky Treats](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/U34krOff.m3u8) (1:26)  _Published 2014-05-21. PETCO became the first national pet food store to halt the sale of Chinese-made treats on May 20, due to concerns over contamination -- but it won't be the last._  by [Bryan Walsh](https://time.com/author/bryan-walsh/)  ## Bryan Walsh May 21, 2014 9:48 PM UTC  by [Bryan Walsh](https://time.com/author/bryan-walsh/)  ## Bryan Walsh May 21, 2014 9:48 PM UTC PETCO became the first national pet food store to [halt the sale of Chinese-made treats](http://time.com/107311/petco-china-jerky-dog/) this week, due to concerns over contamination—but it won’t be the last. Already the rival retailer PetSmart has [announced](http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-petco-china-dog-cat-treats-20140520-story.html) that it will follow suit in taking Chinese pet treats off its store shelves. Over 1,000 dog deaths have been linked to problems with the imported jerky treats, but this problem goes back years. The Food and Drug Administration has been investigating thousands of reports of pet illnesses linked to jerky treats going back to 2007, most of which involve Chinese products, though there’s been a spike since last October. It’s still not clear exactly how the treats may be contaminated, or exactly how the products may be hurting the dogs and other pets that eat them. But this is hardly the first time that tainted Chinese-made food products have made the news. There was a [massive pet food recall](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007%5Fpet%5Ffood%5Frecalls) in 2007 that implicated Chinese producers, and there were worried that those ingredients could have made it [into the human food supply](http://www.cbsnews.com/news/alarm-bells-ring-over-china-food-imports/). There have [also been concerns](http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/12/business/worldbusiness/12lead.html) about lead paint on Chinese-made toys exported to the U.S. But any worries about contamination in Chinese exports pales compared to the danger that homegrown Chinese food poses to the country’s own citizens. Food safety scandals [are rampant](http://rendezvous.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/21/from-milk-to-peas-a-chinese-food-safety-mess/), and by some estimates as much as one fifth of the country’s [soil is contaminated](http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/04/18/304528064/china-admits-that-a-fifth-of-its-farmland-is-contaminated). Chinese who can afford it buy imported food whenever possible—and those who can’t just hope they’re lucky. Tainted pet food may get the headlines in the U.S., but food safety is far worse—for animals and people—in China itself. ## Transcript Petco announced it was going to remove all Chinese made chicken and beef jerky treats for pets from its shelves recently. This is something that should be very concerning for pet owners. Something like 1000 deaths have been thought to be linked to these contaminated treats. If you're a pet owner, what you wanna look out for are a few basic symptoms. If you see a lot of vomiting, a lot of diarrhea, that can be a sign that this could be connected to one of these contaminated treats. If you see a decreased appetite, decreased activity, that's another symptom that experts are saying could be tied to this. So if you see that, obviously you want to take your pet to the veterinarian, but you also want to look at where you're getting your treats from, where they're actually manufactured, because that's going to become a bigger and bigger issue in the future. Part of the problem with dealing with these complaints is that the illnesses are very uncertain and it's been very difficult for officials to directly connect any kind of contamination in the treats themselves to the kind of disease and illnesses that the dogs and cats have been reporting. The FDA has actually been investigating these reports going back to 2007. But the fact that PetCo is actually deciding to take those products off the shelves now proves enough evidence that something really, finally has to be done, and hopefully you'll see some change in the way that these products are actually screened. It's really up to the FDA, up to the US to try to screen those products, but right now there's no way near the level of funding or staffing needed to actually ensure the products coming from China or a lot of other countries truly are safe for your pets. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/107922/china-pet-food-contamination-recall-video/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/107922/china-pet-food-contamination-recall-video/"},"headline":"China's Food Safety Problems Go Deeper Than Pet Treats","datePublished":"2014-05-21T21:48:13.000Z","dateModified":"2026-10-01T08:52:52.241Z","description":"Pet food retailers in the U.S. are pulling Chinese-made dog and cat treats from their shelves out of contamination fears","url":"https://time.com/107922/china-pet-food-contamination-recall-video/","keywords":["Environment","China","Scandal","health","Food and Drug Administration","International","Contamination"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte60325119a004aba/6986906f3bc999a4fa1a3977/china-dog-food-recall.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Bryan Walsh","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/bryan-walsh/"}],"articleSection":"Science","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte60325119a004aba/6986906f3bc999a4fa1a3977/china-dog-food-recall.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"China Pet Food Recall","caption":"China Pet Food Recall","creditText":"Mike Clarke—AFP/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/science/","name":"Science"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/environment/","name":"Environment"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/107922/china-pet-food-contamination-recall-video/","name":"China's Food Safety Problems Go Deeper Than Pet Treats"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"What Dog Owners Need to Know About China's Pet Jerky Treats","description":"PETCO became the first national pet food store to halt the sale of Chinese-made treats on May 20, due to concerns over contamination -- but it won't be the last.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/U34krOff/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2014-05-21T21:07:47.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/U34krOff.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/107922/china-pet-food-contamination-recall-video/","duration":"PT1M26S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/107922/china-pet-food-contamination-recall-video/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```