Did the FDA intentionally list brand names to benefit Purina, Mars, and Hill’s? Should the Agency be investigated for bias?
When FDA last updated the public on their investigation into dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) cases linked to pet food, they did an unprecedented thing: they named names. The June 2019 FDA update provided a chart of brands involved in their investigation; the FDA compiled a list of pet foods, “the most commonly reported pet food brands named in DCM reports submitted to the FDA.”
At first thought, one might think this chart/list of brands was of benefit to pet owners. But, the bigger question is – who really benefited from the FDA’s most commonly reported pet food brands DCM investigation chart?
The perfect comparison of how FDA handled things very differently in the DCM investigation is the FDA investigation into the jerky treat pet illnesses and deaths. The situations of the two FDA investigations were similar – pets are/were being sickened and dying linked to a pet product.
Jerky Treat information link: https://www.fda.gov/animal-veterinary/news-events/fda-investigates-animal-illnesses-linked-jerky-pet-treats
The FDA issued multiple updates with both investigations. With each FDA update, the Agency provided information about their investigation – what the Agency is/was doing to find the cause and who the Agency was working with.
Jerky Treat information link: https://wayback.archive-it.org/7993/20190207190214/https://www.fda.gov/downloads/AnimalVeterinary/ScienceResearch/UCM500706.pdf
But…
…with FDA’s DCM investigation – the Agency took things to a new level. FDA compiled a chart/list of brands, and provided the public that list of pet food brand names associated with their investigation. With the similar FDA investigation into jerky treats, the Agency did NOT name brands.
Jerky Treat information link: https://www.fda.gov/animal-veterinary/news-events/fda-investigates-animal-illnesses-linked-jerky-pet-treats
Had the FDA named brands in the jerky treat investigation, their ‘most frequently’ list would have included these two brands (perhaps even at the top of the list) – some of the largest manufacturers of pet foods/treats – linked to pet death and illness:
Waggin Train – product of Purina
Milo’s Kitchen – product of Big Heart Brands
But again, FDA never provided the public a list or chart of brand names in the jerky treat investigation as they have done in the DCM investigation.
Why? Why were brands listed with the FDA’s DCM investigation when the Agency had not previously provided the public with a ‘most frequently’ list?
Did the FDA intentionally name brands in the DCM investigation and intentionally NOT name brands in the jerky treat investigation to help their friends in Big Pet Feed?
The largest brands in pet food were protected by FDA’s actions in the jerky treat investigation. The largest brands in pet food benefited from FDA’s actions in the DCM investigation.
The outcome of listing brands – needless to say – is very damaging to the brands on the FDA compiled chart. Though it is ONLY rumor, we have been told that pet food brands on the FDA DCM investigation list have experienced significant loss of sales (we’ve been told as much as 20% in one case).
Loss of sales in the brands from FDA’s compiled list means that other brands have experienced significant increase in sales. As evidenced by DCM information being promoted by veterinarians, the three brands being pushed to consumers are: Royal Canin (Mars Petcare), Purina, and Hill’s Science Diet. We can safely assume the combined sales loss of the brands on FDA’s ‘most frequently’ chart now show as an increase in sales to the veterinarian promoted brands Mars Petcare, Purina, and Hill’s.
Had the FDA named the brands of jerky treats ‘most frequently’ linked to pet illness and death, we can assume similar sales loss would have been experienced by Purina and Big Heart brands. But again, that did NOT happen in the jerky treat investigation. The brands from some of the largest manufacturers were ONLY mentioned when a recall occurred (which by the way the recall was founded by investigation done by New York Department of Agriculture, not FDA).
The FDA acted consistently up until the DCM investigation; never releasing an FDA prepared chart of brand names involved in an investigation until the DCM investigation…which just happened to financially damage the competitors of the largest pet food manufacturers in the U.S.
And it just happens that the largest manufacturers of pet food are members of the Pet Food Institute – the trade association that FDA has selectively chosen to work closely with during the DCM investigation. In fact, the FDA was working with the Pet Food Institute BEFORE the agency even notified the public of their DCM investigation. Quoting a letter provided to TruthaboutPetFood.com from the Pet Food Institute to its members dated BEFORE the FDA’s first public announcement of their investigation (bold added for emphasis): “FDA commented that they will word the announcement carefully and make clear that not all grain-free dry dog food recipes are implicated.”
Yes…the FDA certainly did word their DCM announcement carefully. Did they word their announcement so carefully as to benefit their largest pet food manufacturing friends?
In a recent speech and Q&A provided by Dr. Steven Solomon (Director FDA’s Center for Veterinary Medicine) to industry, Dr. Solomon was asked “Why didn’t FDA collaborate with brands before releasing names, or providing market share for context, in its latest DCM update?“
Dr. Solomon responded: “Listing the products came about because under our freedom of information, when we get reports, they are public information, and people have access to that data.”
No…that’s no explanation as to why FDA compiled a list; the Freedom of Information public documents were available for both the DCM reports and the jerky treat reports. What Dr. Solomon was referencing in his response are the illness or death reports received by FDA. One example page from the DCM investigation:
But…the VERY same data was available for the jerky treat complaints in the very same freedom of information format Dr. Solomon tried to use as FDA’s excuse to compile the names (in the DCM investigation only). Example page from the jerky treat complaints:
What Dr. Solomon neglected to explain is why FDA compiled all of the DCM case reports into a chart ONLY for their DCM investigation.
For some unknown reason, the FDA decided to handle the DCM investigation very differently than any other investigation. The FDA intentionally went through the 560 reports they received and prepared a chart specifically stating the most frequently named brands..mostly smaller brands that are direct competitors of the largest manufacturers.
And one more thing…TruthaboutPetFood.com was informed that the FDA hired a Public Relations firm to promote their DCM investigation updates, which in turn promoted the brand names on the FDA compiled chart. We filed a Freedom of Information Act request for information on the PR firm on August 2, 2019 – the FDA has not responded (and we anticipate it taking up to two years for the Agency to respond as with other requests for information the Agency doesn’t want to provide).
The facts are: Dr. Solomon could have stated the brands chart was compiled by FDA as a transparency effort for pet owners, but he didn’t say that. Even if Dr. Solomon misspoke, if FDA really wanted to inform the public, they would release all brand names involved in all investigations. If the FDA really wanted to be transparent with pet owners, each and every report submitted to FDA regarding any pet illness or pet death would be public information easily searchable. With certainty, something very different happened in the DCM investigation; the FDA took direct action to protect the largest manufacturers in pet food in the jerky treat investigation and the FDA took direct action to benefit the largest manufacturers in pet food in the DCM investigation.
Opinion:
Based on the unprecedented manner in how the FDA has investigated the DCM issue, it is our opinion that the Inspector General should take over this investigation enlisting a team of unbiased, independent scientists to discover the cause of reports of heart disease in dogs and cats linked to pet food. It is our opinion that all FDA scientists involved in the current DCM investigation should be immediately removed from their duties as part of the investigation team – and that these individuals must be thoroughly investigated for any conflict of interest issues.
We filed a complaint with the Inspector General on 10/17/2019. Should any pet owner wish to file a complaint, the process is simple and it can be done anonymously if you choose. Click Here to file a complaint.
FDA/CVM must investigate all issues consistently and in an unbiased manner. Without that, the agency is little more than a marketing arm ONLY for their select group of pet food friends. Without consistent and unbiased investigations/regulation of pet food – pets and their families lose.
Wishing you and your pet(s) the best,
Susan Thixton
Pet Food Safety Advocate
Author Buyer Beware, Co-Author Dinner PAWsible
TruthaboutPetFood.com
Association for Truth in Pet Food
Become a member of our pet food consumer Association. Association for Truth in Pet Food is a a stakeholder organization representing the voice of pet food consumers at AAFCO and with FDA. Your membership helps representatives attend meetings and voice consumer concerns with regulatory authorities. Click Here to learn more.
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Coy
October 18, 2019 at 11:55 am
It’s just like the NBA-China situation. Wherever there is the most money to be made, steps will be taken to ensure it’s made. No matter the outcome on other people’s lives.
Tina
October 18, 2019 at 12:35 pm
My cat’s vet office is plastered with Hill’s paraphrenalia & my vet talks about how Purina & Hill’s have courted their office by flying them to headquarters to give tours & whatnot. I wonder how much $ or kickbacks my vet gets from these companies every so often. I don’t think my vet is able anymore to separate the financial gain their office receives from big brands from the nutritional needs of their patients. It is sad. I don’t detect any bad faith, just blindspots & bias. I have had to educate myself about cats’ nutritional needs & sometimes deviate from diet recommendations from my vet when it goes against what I’ve learned from unbiased sources.
Sue
October 18, 2019 at 1:14 pm
I actually took the time to go through all the pages of the report, and here are some results that were conveniently left off the published chart:
9 of the pets reported were fed on Wellness products, 6 on Hills products, 3 on Purina, and 1 on Royal Canin.
How convenient that those numbers were too small to fall inside the “10 cases or more” that the FDA made public. Is there really any difference, statistically, between 10 and 6?
Kismutt
October 18, 2019 at 2:07 pm
This just totally baffles me. How can they get away with this sh*t? I have been feeding raw for the past 20 years so most of this doesn’t concern me or my pets. What does concern me is that this is a government agency? I just feel sick for the people that don’t read this or don’t know and what this is doing to their animals. How can these people in govt live with themselves? They certainly can’t be animal lovers…:((
Reader
October 18, 2019 at 2:57 pm
All of it is overwhelmingly depressing. Whether its DCM, Jerky Treats, or PF made out of garbage and diseased meat. Susan has been tracking the FDA deception (government corruption) for over a decade. Far longer than obvious misdeeds have currently made the News headlines. We used to chalk it up to FDA’s various “excuses.” But now the agency has clearly become the “Poster Child” for how government works period. No matter the administration. Take your pick.
Who has any chance at this point.
I think the only remedy is uniting with animal cruelty organizations. And pointing out that our companions are literally being sickened through one simple fact – which can be corrected. Namely the animals for which we take lifelong responsibility need food. Not livestock feed.
Regina
October 18, 2019 at 9:34 pm
I read the entire 70-something page report, and it was really a stupid list. I mean, just stupid. It was meant to be a list of “complaints”, but some of the “comments” on there were not even related to DCM, or even grain free food. One of the comments was a person whose acquaintance told her about issue, so she was just adding her name to the list. No frickin value to the comment. Some of the people had fed more than one brand of food. One comment said that she fed Blue Buffalo Chicken and brown rice, which isn’t even grain free. (I am not making a judgement for or against Blue, just talking about how stupid some of the comments were.
Also, someone said they had been feeding their dog Blue for 3 months and it got DCM. Someone else mentioned a dog less than one year old.
I really do think that Hills, Purina,and Royal Canin have so much influence on vets that they are going to complain about any brand that they are losing considerable market share to. Since Blue Buffalo is a big brand that is stealing market share, of course they are going to rail against it.
Again, I am not personally commenting on Blue, But I do think there is a reason it was “reported” so much.
And, for a 70-something page report, that covered a five year period (and some of the comments took up more space on the pages)
Can they really scream that “OMG, they are killing our pets!!!!!”
Zignature also made the list. I was talking to someone whose vet said to never feed kangaroo, because it was not good for dogs. What about dingos???? They eat kangaroo.
Also, for pets with allergies to a lot of different meats you need to find a meat they can eat. That prescription food that is pushed by those big 3 brands are so bad for a dog (try to find actual real meat in them)
I have been telling everyone who brings up this topic all of the information I get from this site, and telling them about the collusion between Big Pet Feed, FDA, and AAFCO.
And someone showed me something that had comments from vet Lisa Freeman. I told the person asking that if Lisa Freeman says anything, consider it wrong.
This whole thing is BS. There are still chicken jerky treats from China being sold in grocery stores. Why the Hell is that still OK?
Sorry, I could rail on all night, this is just so aggravating.
pat webber
October 19, 2019 at 11:06 am
I should have known that all this hipe about dog foods was just like everything else in this good ole USA.$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$!!!!
Cecilia
October 19, 2019 at 1:58 pm
I see the words like ‘FDA Investigation’ and a list of the dog food/feed investigated. I see no where the mention that the big three were among the manufacturers investigated at all. IMnotsoHO, that’s the best way to avoid listing them period. It sounds like we’ll have to do it ourselves.
Matthew O'Leary
October 19, 2019 at 7:22 pm
Can confirm with you that our Champion rep (Orijen & Acana) are, on average, down 25%. Our store continues to fight the misinformation with facts, and we are one of the very few stores that are actually up 4% with them.
Jan Gray
October 21, 2019 at 3:37 pm
if you watch this documentary on the sugar industry, you will see that the FDA has been in Nestles’ and P&G’s pocket for years. This whole documentary is strikingly familiar and has a lot of the same players who are involved in this “investigation”. https://www.tvo.org/video/documentaries/sugar-coated
Mitch
October 26, 2019 at 9:34 pm
The FDA executives are often former executives at Pharma companies and vice versa. You can look up “FDA revolving door”. The same cozy relationship exists for Human food and Animal food and Pharma as well. This chart couldn’t be more blatantly obvious, with Purina, Hills and Royal Canin absent.
Follow the money for mass produced “food”… It always leads to the Fraud and Deception Agency and the USDA… The agencies charged to protect us and our animals only protects the financial interests of the evil companies.
Donna J McKenzie
February 13, 2020 at 3:46 pm
It is the same as the FDAs support of anything out of Monsanto. Monsanto had/has the White house and the congress in their corner. It isn’t just the FDA & USDA. There have been too many examples of dayngerous chemicals coming out of Monsanto: Saccharin, Agent Orange, PCBs, Dioxins, rBST, Glyphosate, GMOs. They’ve fought every attempt to provide information to consumers via labels on these products. The Deputy Secretary of the USDA indicated that it’s time to allow GMOs in Organic foods and the USDA has scaled back on regulations on GMOs. The EPA won’t agree with the WHO and IARC announcements in 2015 that Glyphosate is probably carcinogenic.
The FDA may inspect pet food companies for problems at their plants, like roach infestation in a MARs plant, they don’t enforce resolution of issues nor fine for non-compliance. It’s hard to see how the FDA provides much, if any, value to American consumers. I won’t buy dog foods produced in the US. I believe the FDA is only supporting the Big Pet Food companies, i.e. MARs, Nestle, Hills. None of which appear in the list of dog food companies in the FDA DCM report.
I do not think that the pet food industry is supports oproviding our companions with healthy foods. They are not interested in providing useful information about what is actually in the food. They prefer to hide information until they are caught producing foods that could cause harm.