Pet Food Surveillance

Unlike with human food, there is no surveillance network for FDA to rely on to confirm cases of illness or death in pets.

FDA’s complaint system is designed to identify emerging problems and doesn’t provide data on the patterns and causes of disease (epidemiologic data) that would enable the FDA to conclusively link illness or death with a specific product

FDA’s primary concern in this type of situation is ensuring the recall is effective, providing information to the public, and preventing additional contaminated products from being imported and getting into pet food, animal feed, or human food.