FDA Pet Food Issue Reporting Portal

The FDA has included an online portal for pet owners to report adverse events believed to be related to pet food. Will it help prevent another pet food disaster? We can hope.

Now pet owners have the option to report a pet illness or death directly to the FDA online. The Safety Reporting Portal provides pet owners an electronic questionnaire that “will take between 20 minutes to 2 hours to complete and submit”. One of the biggest issues for the FDA to investigate a pet food/pet treat concern is the pet owner having the original packaging the food or treat came in. KEEP the pet food/treat packaging until you are certain your pet is not becoming ill from the food or treat. This is challenging, especially if you feed a wet food diet (cans or pouches that you would ordinarily discard after feeding). However, if the FDA is going to investigate depends on the pet owner retaining this information; without the packaging the FDA will do nothing.

To learn more about the FDA Pet Food Portal, visit http://www.fda.gov/AnimalVeterinary/SafetyHealth/ReportaProblem/ucm212664.htm

To report an adverse event from a pet food/treat to the FDA here:
https://www.safetyreporting.hhs.gov/fpsr/WorkflowLoginIO.aspx?metinstance=8B68DB34EB6FD265B09F672D9990CE3B94CE7C85

‘If’ is the word in question when it comes to the FDA. While I thank the FDA for initiating this online pet food/treat safety reporting portal, I have serious doubts if anything will change. Within the past couple of weeks, a pet owner reported serious substantial proof to the FDA regarding a popular pet food (a pet food with hundreds of other complaints at the FDA). The FDA Complaint Coordinator told this pet owner ‘we don’t have the time or the resources to investigate this’. The new Pet Food/Treat Safety Reporting Portal could be a tremendous beginning to rapidly investigating a potential deadly pet food. Or it could be an easier method for the FDA to file away hundreds of reports of sick and dying pets. Electronic reporting of a sick or dead pet could be a lot simpler to ignore than dealing with a grieving pet owner face to face or over the phone.

I have little hope based on FDA history this Safety Reporting Portal will do anything to prevent future illness and death from pet food/treats. I hope the FDA proves me wrong.

Wishing you and your pet(s) the best,

Susan Thixton
Pet Food Safety Advocate
Author, Buyer Beware
Co-Author Dinner PAWsible
TruthaboutPetFood.com
PetsumerReport.com

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