FDA Information Regarding Beneful Complaints

The way in which Consumer Affairs operates is an open invitation for abuse: by Consumer Affairs who profits from businesses defending the “complaints”, “complaints” submitted by product competitors, “complaints” submitted by consumer affairs employees posing as consumers, the list goes on.

For this reason I do not feel Consumer Affairs can ever remain objective as long as they profit from negative reports.

A more insidious problem the “complaints” create is the hysteria that these unreliable complaints could generate.

When I saw that the Examiner picked up CA’s Beneful story – I was very disappointed.

What really bothered me was CA escalated the Beneful “complaints” to a full article covering the subject.

As Susan said, without adverse event reporting to the FDA/CVM the system has no opportunity to be effective. It is the best system we have, so consumers should use it and not waste their time submitting to quasi-official consumer reporting websites like CA.

Personally, because of the potential for abuse, and the profit they garner from these so-called adverse events, I would like them to be exposed for the extortionists they are. I would like CA to change their sleazy policy or be shut down. I wonder what the FTC has to say about these kind of schemes?

I’ve been feeding my toy poodle Beneful soft and kibbles for his entire 7yrs. He’s never been sick a day in his life. These accusations are total BS!!

So, since you’re writing an “objective” article about the issues with the Beneful line of Purina products, I assume that you attempted to contact pet owners who reported issues with the food line to Purina. Funny, though, that you didn’t mention any information that you gleaned from those conversations.

Well, you are hearing from one of those pet owners now. I lost my beloved rottweiler, Chloe, two weeks ago. She died in my arms after a week of vet visits and tests. Her symptoms included seizures, vomiting, bloody diarrhea, bloat, lethargy, and raised liver enzymes (off the chart levels). She was miserable. Actually, miserable is not nearly strong enough of a word to describe the torture this wonderful, loving dog suffered.

Before she got sick she was energetic, playful, and healthy. After we bought her the latest bag of Beneful she started vomiting, she became very lethargic, and stopped eating her food. She would eat any treats we gave her, but not her food. Because of that, we suspected the issue may be the food, so we bought her a bag of a different brand. Unfortunately, it was too late. Beneful had done its damage. She wouldn’t even attempt to eat the new food.

We called the vet and the FIRST thing we mentioned to them was the possibility of the food being the issue. Since there was NO RECALL on the food, the vet dismissed this as a likely cause. They started a series of tests on her. They did a barium test and saw that her stomach was so inflamed that no food could pass through it; the exit point was all but closed off. Food couldn’t pass, and liquids barely trickled out. Her colon was also “spastic” and extremely irritated. The vet said she had never seen anything like it before.

After a few days of tests and medications they still didn’t know the cause and were making guesses as to what might be causing her illness. We ended up having to make the heart wrenching decision to put her to sleep on January 3 because she was so miserable, and at that point would not even drink water anymore.

Earlier this week we saw the article you mentioned that laid out the Beneful issue, and we relived the situation all over again when we saw that all of her symptoms were listed in that article. We are now working with the vet who treated her to assess the situation and Beneful’s part in our dog’s death.

You may want to dismiss the claims that people are making, but unless you want to have the lives of all of these dogs who are getting sick and/or dying on your head, I wouldn’t continue to spread your ignorant assessments and character assassinations on the internet, which may give a false sense of security to pet owners who still feed their dogs Beneful. While their dogs may not have gotten sick YET, that does not mean that they won’t. After all, we had our Chloe on Beneful for a couple years. She didn’t get sick UNTIL she got sick and died. Get it? Just because it hasn’t happened YET doesn’t mean it WON’T!

Also, just because people haven’t reported the issue to the FDA doesn’t mean it’s not real. I contacted Purina via Facebook, but have not gone farther than that yet because I want to be well informed when I do. Also, from what I understand, people are being encouraged to report the issue to Consumer Affairs, and not necessarily the FDA. I posted about it on my Facebook page and got TONS of feedback from friends about their dogs, or family/friends dogs who had gotten sick from eating the brand, and several of them died.

Ask yourself why you choose to defend Purina, who just recently had to recall several lines of treats. If those lines were found to be bad, why do you still automatically assume that Beneful is fine? That makes no sense. Ask how long it took Purina to recall those lines. Ask how many dogs had to get sick and DIE before they finally pulled them. Ask how many dogs Purina will allow to suffer and die before they finally recall the Beneful line.

Several pet stores are taking this brand off the shelves because they CARE about the dogs. Shame on anyone who doesn’t take this seriously.

Hi,

I would agree that there is a vested interest in consumer affairs to provide incentive for business to join to clear their name, so to speak.

However, the reason I believe this isn’t really the case is because no one is really pushing a competitive product. Normally a shill will shill for a group or competing product.

308 Complaints out of 300 million Americans is less than nothing in the grand scheme of things, but these are 308 people who have lost their friend and companion due to what they think is faulty food. Too many ring with the same level of sincerity to be all fabrications.

I believe that many people would not complain to the FDA as most government offices turn a blind eye to the public. Few in the public actually have any faith in the government or their ability to actually act on complaints. So I am not surprised at all that the complaints to the FDA are minimal.

I for one will not buy Purina based on the complaints I have read. Since I’m Canadian, my complaint to the US FDA would not even be heard anyway.

Thanks for your time with the article, every little bit helps.

Please join us.. most of us are blocked from the Beneful Facebook site and you will soon be once you go there! We are seeing an explosion in dog deaths.. people are coming to us and offering testimony.. we tell them what they need to do. We believe their food has become contaminated but Purina are ignoring everyone for fear of corporate loss of profits.. their food is junk! We do have people “on the inside” and are pushing hard to spread the word! https://www.facebook.com/groups/533765719991738/

There is value in everyone’s comments. The mixed blessing here, in terms of reading this particular comment, is that for the people already feeding Beneful, they might not be as worried about doing so. However, and unfortunately “Elizabeth’s” (and many others preceeding) are such incredibly sad reports, that it’s such a shame to be taking a chance with a problematic PF when there are literally hundreds of brands from which to choose. While a Vet Practice “can” be a possible source (or alert) for a problematic PF, it doesn’t reflect the larger sampling that would be collected through the FDA. I think that even when Vets were treating patients getting sick from CJTs, even that was not as well publicized as it should’ve or could’ve been. For example, by posting a flyer in the office or sharing an email with their clients. The other aspect, is that a Vet Practice can be very reluctant to accuse a PF as being a single culprit for an issue without scientific proof or in collaboration with an authority’s statement (like the FDA) for fear of being liablest (legal reprocussions from the corporate owner). Professional firms are very cautious both about reputation and legal exposure. I have no doubt that the Vet Techs mentioned here, were indeed being honest. But unless a true means of cause and effect has been established, then it becomes anybody’s personal assumptions. Thus the question (above) about whether the food had been reported AND tested by the DoA. That’s the only way to continue making progress.

My dog has been on Beneful her whole life until recently… About the end of December my eight year old lab mix started to get a growth near her eye. Within weeks her eye was blood shot and the growth was getting bigger. We were about to make a vet appointment to see what was going on with her but then i read the complaints that Beneful had against them and quickly switched her food. Surprisingly it wasn’t even a week later and her eye was back to normal color and the growth was shrinking in size!! It’s been two or more months now since she’s had anything to do with Purina foods and guess what?, no growth, no red eye and more energy then she’s ever had? who knew?.. I’m not saying that it was for sure Beneful but seems like a pretty big coincidence if it isn’t.

Maybe the FDA is not receiving reports because it takes a master degree to file a complaint. My computer crashed 3 times while filling out the forms, Now I am dealing with the company they hired to settle my claim for vet bills over 1,200. Some peeps do not have long distance and there are no toll free numbers. I do not need an further information. I stopped feeding the dog Beneful and she got better. Common sense. I cannot fight a big corporation without a lawyer. If anyone knows who will take my case please have them contact. They told me my dog probably licked a toad…. Sedghwick has a nasty reputation for handling claims

The ONLY correct diet for dogs and cats is raw meat with bones. Anything else is not going to give them great health and a longer life…even home made cooked food. Use your brain…no cheap kibble crap can ever be good for an animal; even the high priced krapple is low in nutrition and it doesn’t give the cats/dogs what they need to be healthy.

Beneful, Purina, Pedigree, Alpo and all the rest of the horrible pet foods will only cause health problems, shortened lives and even death for the poor animals forced to eat that toxic junk. PLEASE research everything before you put it in, on and around your pets. They deserve this at least.

Received Purina’s advert email today and reviewed their Policy. However the BIG question is; due any of their products contain ingredients from outside the United States, such as China?
I called their company and asked if they could guarantee that their products did not contain ingredients from outside the States and was told that they were unable to do that.
We stopped using theirs and any other pet food and dog treat products over a year ago when it was reported dogs dying from food containing ingredients from outside the United States such as China.
We now cook roast beef, chicken, vegetables and other ingredients sold and manufactured only in this country. Human Food that we can trust! For dog treats we cook Turkey Bacon till crisp and give pieces as treats. We will never buy dog food products again. The cost to cook your own dog food is about equal or even somewhat less than paying for already processed dog food. My dogs deserve quality food as members of our family, and I refuse to allow companies like Purina to place our little friend’s life at risk.