Aflatoxin: the Cause of 100,000 Cases of Liver Cancer Per Year

Source: Truth About Pet Food

From a post at Food Safety Magazine: “…at the 2022 Institute for the Advancement of Food and Nutrition Sciences’ (IAFNS’) Annual Meeting and Science Symposium, Felicia Wu, Ph.D., discussed her recently published study about the rising prevalence of aflatoxin in U.S. corn…”

A concerning quote from the post regarding Dr. Wu’s presentation:

“Aflatoxin poses a public health risk due to its association with liver cancer, and aflatoxin is “the most potent, naturally occurring human carcinogen.” Approximately 100,000 cases of liver cancer are caused by aflatoxin per year…”

Dr. Wu’s statistic of “100,000 cases of liver cancer” per year caused by aflatoxin are human illnesses. If aflatoxins are the cause of 100,000 human liver cancers each year…how many pets are diagnosed with liver cancer each year caused by aflatoxins in pet food?

No Tracing.

Pet Food related illness are not tracked as they are in human food. While some veterinary clinics might document the pet food brand a newly cancer diagnosed dog or cat is/was consuming, (to our knowledge) there is no national database for veterinarians to track specific cancers potential link to pet food or pet food ingredients.

To further complicate tracing of pet food related cancers/illnesses in pets, some veterinary clinics pose a potential conflict of interest to collect data. Such as, a significant portion of veterinary clinics in the US (and globally) are owned by Mars Petcare – the largest manufacturer of pet food in the world. It’s unlikely a pet food owned veterinary clinic would link their brands of pet food to a pet illness.

Pet Feed Ingredient Quality.

Per the FDA: “Aflatoxins are produced by molds of the Aspergillus species. Aspergillus can grow on grains and seeds during growing season as well as after harvest during storage.”

Corn is THE most commonly used grain in pet foods. Based on a 2020 report from the Institute for Feed Education & Research…

…more than twice as much corn is used in cat and dog foods than any other ingredient.

Dr Jones comments

Aflatoxins are one of the most common reasons for Pet Food Recalls

In my veterinary practice I often saw dogs poisoned with Aflatoxins from moldy food/compost- they would come in being wobbly, and uncontrolled muscle tremors.

I have never heard of Aflatoxin being a cause of cancer, but it makes sense.

Yet ANOTHER reason to avoid commercial food, and in particular, Corn based food.