Pressure is being put on Purina to remove its brand of cat food, Felix As Good As It Looks, from shelves across the UK after owners claimed the new recipe was making their pets ill. The recipe for the popular food was changed in March 2021, with many cat owners subsequently claiming their pets began experiencing kidney problems, were vomiting and feeling lethargic, reports MailOnline.
More than 28,000 people joined a Facebook group called Cats Recently Affected By Felix Food, and last year the group received more than 11,000 signatures when it launched a change.org petition calling for the product to be recalled. Purina insisted it has carried out extensive safety checks and has not found any link between the product and illness.
Among the owners who claims to have been affected is Julie Ashley, from London, who has five cats, aged 18 months to 14 years. She said she has always fed her pets Felix, but noticed they all started behaving differently in March last year. Julie said her eldest cat was affected the most, describing symptoms such has “projectile diarrhoea”.
“The smell from the cats’ wind was indescribable, absolutely foul," she said, so she took her eldest cat to the vet first, who ran bloods and used steroids, but nothing presented itself and symptoms didn’t improve. The vet suggested Julie change their food. It was then the owner discovered the Facebook group. She said she “couldn’t believe” all these peoples’ pets were having the same symptoms.
Within 10 days of changing the food, all of her cats had fully recovered except her eldest, who had been the most affected - it took him a couple more weeks to get back to normal.
Julie went to Purina head office to speak with a manager and asked for the full lab report for the food samples she sent to be tested, but said the company refused, claiming she wouldn’t understand as it was too technical. She also said the group were going to get independent testing and needed to know what had been tested for, but they still refused. Purina was adamant they had no problems and so the meeting “ended on a stalemate”.
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A spokesperson for Purina said: “The changes made to Felix cat food removed non-artificial colours, which only affected the appearance of the food. The overall nutritional composition, quality and completeness of the food remained the same. Nothing was altered that would have caused cats to be unwell.
“We took owners’ concerns very seriously when they were raised last summer. We opened and reviewed over 650 returned pouches.
“We also reviewed our already stringent internal quality checks, had discussions with vets and reviewed vet notes whenever owners gave us permission to do so, and we arranged for independent external product analysis to be carried out. In every single case, we did not find any quality or food safety issues, and there was no link between Felix and the types of illness being reported on social media. We can say with confidence that Felix foods are completely safe for cats to eat.”
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