Pet food maker in aflatoxin contamination incident sets up fund to share 3.1 million dollar settlement with dozens of former pet owners (and their lawyers?)

January 5, 2008

Just saw this in the Washington Post:

Maker of Tainted Dog Food Settles

html?hpid=sec-business

A company that made contaminated pet food that killed dozens of dogs

nationwide will pay $3.1 million in a settlement with pet owners, an

attorney said yesterday.

The pet food, which contained a mold called aflatoxin, was produced at

Diamond Pet Foods' plant in South Carolina. The company will set up a

fund to reimburse pet owners for the loss of their dogs, veterinarian

bills and the cost of any unreturned contaminated food, said Jim

s, an attorney who represented a Knoxville, Tenn., family that

sued the company.

Diamond Pet Foods, based in Meta, Mo., acknowledged that workers at

its Gaston, S.C., plant failed to follow internal testing procedures.

The company made the acknowledgment after the Food and Drug

Administration released a report showing the company has no record of

test results for 12 shipments of corn in 2005, when grain tainted with

the deadly fungus slipped into the plant.

The company says it did nothing illegal, according to the settlement.

" Diamond's taken care of its customers since the very first day that

they found out about this, and I think the settlement that we've

entered into continues to do that, " lawyer said.

Aflatoxin, a naturally occurring chemical that comes from a fungus

sometimes found on corn and other crops, can cause severe liver

damage.

The contaminated pet food was sold in 23 states. Diamond recalled

about 20 varieties of dog and cat food when a New York veterinarian

said in December 2005 that she had linked a dog's death to the

company's food. An estimated 350,000 bags of dog food were recalled,

according to the settlement.

The 2005 recall is unrelated to the contamination problem that

prompted recalls of more than 100 pet-food brands in early 2006. In

that case, investigators traced pet deaths to a toxic chemical,

melamine, that had been added during manufacturing in China.

Recommended Posts