Scandal as shops accused of failing to publicise recall of food linked to cat deaths

COMMENT: The Guardian newspaper reports that cat owners are showing evidence of chains including Sainsbury's still stocking food suspected of causing pet deaths. If you are a cat owner, I hope that you have heard of this crisis. If not please click on this link and read it carefully. It's important because there's quite a lot of cat food in the system which should have been removed from shelves it appears. It's a long list of different cat foods, all dry cat food, as I recall. Pets at Home and Sainsbury's are two chain store businesses which sell the food.

To illustrate the page only. Photo: in the public domain (believed).

But, as mentioned in the title, retailers have been accused of not doing enough to warn customers of the hazards of these pet foods which were manufactured from a single source. Although the investigation of a possible link between these foods and a disease called feline pancytopenia is ongoing, it is believed that cereal in these foods was contaminated with mycotoxins, in this instance a fungus.

Feline pancytopenia is a killer. About 60% of the cats to contract the disease after they have eaten this pet food die.  A recorded 330+ have died but it is almost certainly far more. Treatments include blood transfusions using dog blood because of a shortage of cat blood. Dog blood transfusions only provide the cat with a 24-hour respite. And they are enormously expensive at about £2,500 per session.

There is even talk of importing cat blood from Portugal at a cost of £10,000. You would have to be insured and even that probably wouldn't cover it.

If these reports from cat owners are true, it is shocking that Sainsbury's continued to stock the recalled food despite a demand to recall it and investigators raising concerns that it might be the source of this outbreak of pancytopenia some time ago.

Sainsbury's, I believe, have stated that all the bags of food "have now been taken off the shelves". Cat owners have shared photographs of Sainsbury's cat food aisles which showed that signage had not been prominently displayed or not displayed at all.

Other Sainsbury's users and Nectar cardholders said that they had not received an email (I have not and I buy from them online). One Sainsbury's customer corresponded with the business notifying them about the food on 22nd April. Sainsbury's responded by saying that they did not believe that the cat food was responsible. That is as reported by The Guardian newspaper. I can't confirm that it is true. This may have been be a rogue employee saying the wrong thing.

A spokesperson for the supermarket said "We are in touch directly with customers where we have their contact details". They have my email address and I've not received an email.

They also said "We have also displayed the recall alert on our website and installed them at our customer service desks and where the product is usually stocked on shelf."

There is a 12,000-member Facebook group on this pet food recall whose members have suffered the anguish of either losing a cat to this disease or have struggled to treat their cats. They say that Pets at Home has responded better than Sainsbury's by alerting people promptly and offering refunds.

A spokesperson for Pets at Home said "We did everything we could to make consumers aware of the issue, via our website and social channels and by writing directly to anyone who had bought one of these products in the previous 12 months."