 On 7 May, however, Barbara Powers, president of the American Association of Veterinary Laboratory Diagnosticians and a professor of veterinary diagnostics at Colorado State University cautioned "There's something more going on than just the mechanical blockage.Because you wouldn't see so much necrosis (cell death) and inflammation.”

On 2 May, in further inquiry into the source of the cyanuric acid in the contaminated ingredients and the toxic effects of the chemical combination, Richard Goldstein of the Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine, in response to reports the contaminant might be "melamine scrap" left over from processing coal into melamine, hypothesized