It took a while -- but at last, the poisoned pet food scandal has given rise to a decent conspiracy theory. This writer has noted a rash of stories from China exposing restaurants that have attacked competitors by spiking their food with -- wait for it -- rat poison. See here and here. Back in 2001, one disgruntled cook at a middle school in Shanxi province used this method to send 86 students to the hospital.
Could such madness operate at a higher level? Does this theory explain how rat poison made its way into the wheat gluten?
Even if you view this theory with skepticism, the afore-linked stories on the Chinese poisoning "craze" make for pretty frightening reading on their own. I should note that the rat poison in those cases was tetramine, which is apparently a lot easier to come by in Asia than it is here.
We don't really know what caused renal failure in cats and dogs in the U.S.; aminopterin, previously identified, may not actually be involved, and melamine may be just a marker. Tests on mice indicate that tetramine ingestion can cause "reduced renal cytoplasmatic vacuolization," along with a lot of other nasty effects. This medical article reveals that one human victim of tetramine poisoning suffered "rapid deterioration in renal and liver function" among other symptoms.
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