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Hill’s Silently Slips Another Lot of Dog Food into the Massive List of Recalled Dog Food Due to Toxic Levels of Vitamin D
UPDATE (May 21, 2019) Hill’s Pet Nutrition’s recall of their Hill’s® Prescription Diet® i/d® Digestive Care Chicken & Vegetable Stew Canned Dog Food, 12.5 oz, SKU 3389, batch code 102020T21 finally made an official appearance today on the FDA’s Recalls, Market Withdrawals, & Safety Alerts webpage. Hill’s explains that the new addition to the list of already expanded list of recalled dog foods due to dangerous levels of vitamin D in it involves “a single can date/lot code within an already recalled case of dog food was inadvertently omitted from our recall list.” UPDATE (May 16, 2019) According to Hill’s, the reason for the surreptitious recall was because it was a lot…
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Cargill Recalls Southern States Horse, Livestock Feed for Excess Level of Aflatoxin
Cargill Inc. pulled nearly 300,000 pounds of animal feed from the market over the past three months due to elevated aflatoxin levels; a toxin found on moldy crops that if ingested can kill animals. The recall, announced Tuesday by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, includes chicken and cattle feed, as well as some sheep and goat feed, including the Triple 10 Horse Feed, all sold under the Southern States brand. Cargill has removed all the product from retail shelves and contacted some customers, asking them to throw away the affected product. The recalled products were distributed in Georgia, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia.…
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FDA Pulls the Plug on Policy Guides Which Allowed 4D Meat in Pet Food, But Admits it Might Still Get a Pass
The FDA made the historic announcement yesterday that they are withdrawing three of their most loathsome Compliance Policy Guides (CPGs), including the ones that allowed pet food manufacturers to use diseased animal tissue in pet food and animal feed with impunity for decades. The agency is pulling the plug on the three policies which allowed for 4D (dead, dying, diseased and disabled) animal tissue in pet food and animal feed, specifically CPG 675.400 (“Rendered Animal Feed Ingredients”), CPG 690.300 (“Canned Pet Food”) and CPG 690.500 (“Uncooked Meat for Animal Food”) The FDA says the reason for their withdrawal of the policies was that they were “outdated,” adding, they were in violation of part…
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Deadly Bacteria Found in Raw Pet Food. Again. Should We Be Worried? Hysterical? Or Just Plain Bored.
There was a small recall of raw pet food last week at Thorgersen’s Family Farm, one which I almost overlooked. Until I read the notice. Something about this recall was different. Maybe it was the way they wrote about the danger of Listeria monocytgenes, how they laid bare the horrifying effects: fatal infections, stillbirths. And it reminded me of the stories I had been reading lately, of the heartbreaking tragedies, and the shattering devastation of listeriosis; babies dying in their mother’s arms; mothers giving birth to premature and stillborn babies. It was the memory of those heart-rending stories that prompted me to look beyond this recall and examine the possibility – however remote…
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How Hill’s Secrets and Lies Hid a Catastrophic Failure That Led to the Illness and Death of Dogs Worldwide
When Hill’s Pet Nutrition, the world’s top manufacturer of prescription pet foods, found that some of their dog foods contained lethal amounts of vitamin D, the company hid the problem leaving veterinarians and consumers ignorant of the severity of the crisis. Hill’s, a company whose empire was built on treating the maladies of sick dogs and cats, failure to test high-risk ingredient before being used in their Science Diet and Prescription Diet pet foods caused the premature and preventable death of dogs in the more than 80 countries. THE IRONY Hill’s troubles began, ironically, with a sick dog: A pet parent whose ill dog was diagnosed as suffering from vitamin D toxicosis reported…
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Nestle Purina Recalls Cat Food for Foreign Material; Rubber Pieces Found in Canned Food
Nestlé Purina PetCare Company is recalling Muse wet cat food Natural Chicken Recipe in Gravy in three-ounce cans because the cat food could contain rubber pieces in it which may present a potential choking hazard. They became aware of the issue after receiving complaints from pet owners who found the rubber pieces in the product. The company claims to have made changes to their process, so this should not happen in the future. The affected products were distributed nationwide and available for purchase at pet specialty and e-commerce retailers. We have asked our retailers to remove these affected products. You can identify the product by the UPC, production code and “Best By” date…
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Darwin’s Refusal to Cooperate in Dog Food Recall Triggers FDA Action; Food Poses “Serious Threat to Human and Animal Health”
UPDATE: April 4, 2019 The owner of Darwin’s, Gary Tashjian, defended his position for refusing to cooperate with the FDA by providing the agency with the company’s customer information saying that doing so, “would violate its consumer privacy policy.” The company told the agency they had alerted their customers directly and there was no need for a public notification, but because Darwin’s refused to cooperate, the agency followed protocol which was to notify the public of the recall, saying, “in the absence of an adequate public notification by the firm or confirmation from the firm that it has promptly and effectively communicated the recall to all customers, the agency may issue…
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Hill’s Expands Recall After Finding Toxic Levels of Vitamin D in More Dog Foods; FDA Request Leads to Expanded Recall
U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is alerting pet parents and veterinarians about potentially toxic levels of vitamin D in additional varieties of Hill’s canned dog food in an expanded recall. Since the initial recall, the FDA has become aware of additional reports of vitamin D toxicity in dogs that ate certain canned dog foods manufactured by Hill’s Pet Nutrition and marketed under the Hill’s Science Diet and Hill’s Prescription Diet – other than the ones previously recalled. After receiving reports of dogs exhibiting signs of vitamin D toxicosis after being fed Hill’s dog foods, the FDA requested that Hill’s test samples of foods it had produced that were not part of the…
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How a Vitamin and a Mistake Led to the Downfall of Hill’s
No one knew how deadly a vitamin could be before the recall of Hill’s Science Diet and Prescription Diet dog food was until dogs started getting sick. And some dogs were dying. No one could comprehend how something – as innocent as a vitamin – could be so deadly. It started as most recalls do with a single complaint. When the FDA got the report, they notified Hill’s Pet Nutrition that something was wrong: a dog fed their food was exhibiting signs of elevated vitamin D. Hill’s later confirmed elevated levels of vitamin D due to a supplier error and on Jan. 31 the company recalled 25 varieties of Hill’s canned dog food.…
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FDA Warns Pet Parents About the Toxicity of Vitamin D Following Multiple Recalls of Dog Food for Excess Vitamin D
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is warning pet parents about vitamin D toxicity in dogs following the recent recalls of multiple brands of dog food for excess vitamin D. They caution that extremely high levels of vitamin D can cause serious health problems in pets, which can lead to kidney failure and even death. HILL’S SCIENCE DIET, PRESCRIPTION DIET DOG FOODS The FDA warning comes after Hill’s Pet Nutrition’s announcement of a worldwide recall of twenty-five different brands of its Hill’s Science Diet and Prescription canned dog foods. It’s worth noting that the recall was prompted after the FDA became aware of a report of vitamin D toxicity in a dog that…
