Who the FDA Investigates and Publicly Shames, and Who They Do Not

Disclosure statement: Darwin’s Pet Food has been included in TruthaboutPetFood.com’s List of Pet Foods I (Susan Thixton) would feed to my own pets for several years. They will be included again in the 2024 List. Darwin’s has provided us verification – each and every year they are included in the List – to evidence human grade ingredient quality, human grade supplement quality, organic ingredients and meats sourced from humanely raised animals in their pet foods. Darwin’s has been transparent with us for every question we have. The multiple FDA ‘advisory’ press releases about this pet food has not deterred our trust in this pet food.

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On October 12, 2023 the FDA issued another “advisory” about Darwin’s Pet Food. This warning followed a previous FDA caution statement about Darwin’s issued in August 2022.

The FDA October 2023 FDA advisory stated three Darwin’s products tested positive for Salmonella. However, Darwin’s stated in a public notice “the product tested positive for salmonella only following an incubation period; it was not detectable using conventional testing methods.”

We sent questions to FDA on October 12, 2023 asking the agency to confirm or deny Darwin’s statement that the pet food was allowed to incubate prior to testing. We asked if the raw frozen pet food was allowed to incubate, and if so, for how many hours and at what temperature was the pet food held at? (Such as, if a raw, frozen pet food was held at room temperature for 3 days…of course it would test positive for Salmonella.)

The FDA has not responded to these questions.

FDA also stated in their very public advisory “After receiving a consumer complaint, FDA collected and tested a sample of an additional product.”

Interesting. The FDA received “a consumer complaint” (one consumer complaint) and decided to test this pet food. 

The FDA did not provide a date when that consumer complaint was received, so we asked the agency: When did the agency receive this consumer complaint? Can FDA provide a redacted copy of this consumer complaint?

The FDA has not responded to these questions.

Left without answers, without transparency from FDA – we decided to investigate FDA records of adverse event reports (pet owner submitted reports of sick or dead pets linked to a pet food or treat) submitted to the agency. The most recent records FDA has available (without filing a Freedom of Information Act request which takes years for the agency to respond to) are from May 2, 2020 through May 1, 2021. (Records from May 2, 2021 through June 10, 2022 included no reports of sick pets linked to Darwin’s.)

In this one-year time frame, the FDA received four consumer complaints regarding Darwin’s pet food.

But in the very same time frame, taken from the identical FDA records – the FDA received 87 consumer complaints regarding Blue Buffalo pet food.

In just four days, the FDA received five times the reports of sick pets believed to be linked to Blue Buffalo pet food than it received in an entire year for sick pets believed to be linked to Darwin’s. The symptoms reported for Blue Buffalo were similar to the symptoms reported linked to Darwin’s – but the Blue Buffalo reports were more serious and in just these four days two pets died.

Reminder: the FDA received one consumer complaint regarding Darwin’s pet food and tested the pet food.

If FDA took an unbiased position on testing and regulating pet food, this would mean that the FDA would have tested Blue Buffalo 87 times – because they received 87 consumer complaints. The agency should have – just like the action they took with Darwin’s – tested Blue Buffalo with each consumer complaint they received. But to our knowledge, FDA did not test Blue Buffalo – not even once.

To our knowledge, FDA never investigated Blue Buffalo for any of these consumer complaints. To our knowledge, FDA never inspected the Blue Buffalo manufacturing plant(s) involved in the manufacturing of these pet foods. And with certainty, the FDA never issued an advisory or alert warning pet owners about Blue Buffalo like they did with Darwin’s.

To be fair to Darwin’s and Blue Buffalo, not all adverse event reports are directly linked to a pet food. Often – though unknown how often – another issue can be the cause of the pet illness and the pet food is blamed.

But the facts remain…the FDA’s own records evidence that within a one year time frame, the FDA received four reports of pet illness believed linked to Darwin’s pet food and 87 reports of sick and dead pets believed to be linked to Blue Buffalo. The FDA has made multiple attempts to publicly shame (or destroy) Darwin’s and the agency has not even mentioned Blue Buffalo.

Personal opinion: Pet owners should be very concerned, no matter what style of pet food you provide your pet. If you feed raw pet food, you should be very concerned that the FDA Center for Veterinary Medicine (CVM) is trying to destroy this style of pet food. If you feed your pet any food manufactured by the FDA favored Big Manufacturers – you should be very concerned what problems FDA are ignoring that might sicken or kill your pet. Either way, we have a huge problem with how FDA CVM regulates pet food.

Feel free to email FDA your concerns: AskCVM@fda.hhs.gov.

We have filed a Freedom of Information Act request with FDA for information of any testing performed on any Blue Buffalo pet food during the one year time frame when 87 consumer complaints were received. Unfortunately, it will probably be several years before the FDA provides us with information.

Wishing you and your pet(s) the best,

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