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How a Penniless Consumer Advocate Took on a Billion Dollar Empire
When I walk into the Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO) conference hall, packed wall to wall with the world’s biggest names in the pet food and animal feed industry along with state feed officials and federal regulators from both the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Centers for Veterinary Medicine (CVM), I wonder: How did I…
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FDA Warns Darwin’s: Clean Up Your Act or Face The Regulatory Music
A damning FDA warning letter sent to Darwin’s Natural Pet Food this week tells the raw pet food company clean up its act or face the regulatory music. The company is being given fifteen days to shape up or ship out after the agency has repeatedly warned the company about significant pet food safety fails. This news follows on the…
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Inspection of Darwin’s Reveals Revolting Conditions, Complaints of Ill and Dying Pets
A new report on Darwin’s raw pet food company uncovers a virtual “laundry list” of violations and repeated complaints of sick and dying pets. An inspection report provided to Food Safety News reveals a multitude of food safety violations and hundreds of complaints. Despite hundreds of accounts of sick and dying pets, Gary Tashjian, the owner of Darwin’s Natural Pet…
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The FDA answers pet parents top questions about pet food and animal drugs
Confused about cat food, perplexed by your pet’s puke, freaked out about pet foodborne illness, need the dope on animal drugs? Thankfully, our friends at the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Center for Veterinary Medicine (CVM) have been hard at work creating a fab new webpage for frazzled pet parents. It’s important that you get your answers straight from the…
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Will the FDA uphold the sanitary transportation of pet food?
That depends. Don’t hold your breath though, because like most of the new proposed Food Safety Modernization Act rules relating to pet food and animal feed, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is holding pet food to a lesser standard than human food. But you probably want to know why such a rule is important and why the FDA has…
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Poisoned Pets speaks at FDA meeting on proposed animal food rule
Last Friday I was honored to have the opportunity of speaking at a public meeting held by the federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in Sacramento regarding the recently proposed rule that many hope will make sweeping changes to animal food regulation under the Food Safety Modernization Act. The meeting – the third and final such gathering around the country to…
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White House Guts Food Safety Modernization Act, Testing Nixed
News of cuts in the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s draft food safety rules the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) stunned food safety advocates when it was revealed this week that the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) gutted the FSMA on the q.t. Food Chemical News broke the story that cuts made by the OMB to the FSMA…
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FDA Announces Final Rule on Administrative Detention of Food
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today announced a final rule amending the criteria for administrative detention to prevent potentially unsafe food from reaching the marketplace. Evidence vs. Belief Under the new criteria, FDA can order an administrative detention if the agency has reason to believe that an article of food is adulterated or misbranded. Before the passage of…
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It’s About Time: FDA Finally Posts Milo’s Kitchen Dog Treat Recall
Nearly a week after the initial announcement that Del Monte was recalling their problematic Milo’s Kitchen brand dog treats was made, the FDA finally got around to posting it on their Recall, Market Withdrawals, & Safety Alerts page. Johnny on the Spot? Not. At long last…Drum roll please…The official FDA notice: Milo’s Kitchen® Voluntarily Recalls Chicken Jerky and Chicken Grillers…
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FDA Unveils New PETNet System to Track Pet Food Related Incidences: FAIL
FDA Moves at Glacial Speed to Assist Pets A plan, 4 years in the making, finally came to fruition with the FDA’s announcement of the creation of PETNet, Pet Event Tracking Network, a warning system designed to help State and Federal agencies communicate with each other. Yup, that’s right, they didn’t know how to communicate to each other before the…
