Pet food recall

[helen99]

Nutro cat food products are being voluntarily recalled for incorrect potassium and zinc levels. Here's the breakdown of what is and isn't affected:

http://www.nutroproducts.com/press-recall/affected-Products.html
http://www.nutroproducts.com/press-recall/notaffected-Products.html
http://www.nutroproducts.com/press-recall/doIDoNext.html

"...resulting from a production error by a US-based premix supplier."

I'm really glad I'm not in the position where something like that depends on me (creating and/or executing prepackaging formulae of any sort whatsoever -- pharmaceutical, pet food, people food, etc.). One decimal point and millions get sick. It must take a very special kind of attention span to be able to do that without error for one's entire career.

Comments

[animelily.livejournal.com]

In hospitals that decimal place is a really big deal. There are a number of checks in place including never ever write a number that is less than 1 without a leading zero eg: 0.125mg, not .125mg, and never have a whole number with a zero behind it 3mcg not 3.0mcg. Nurses before giving meds are expected to check and double check the dosages too.

There are actually a number of really sad cases where the decimal place was to blame for a death. Especially in pediatrics, where everything is weight based. An adult can take on a dose of that size so it's not initially caught by pharmacy, but an infant can't. Also certain kinds of blood thinners can be used in small doses to keep line intact, but then can also be used in really really high doses if someone has a clot in their lungs, and then the two dosages get mixed up along the way and someone who just has it for the line ends up getting the one for the blood clots and bleeds to death.

This is all why I was initially very terrified of becoming a nurse. Making a stupid simple mistake and killing someone for it.

[helen99.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's exactly what I'm talking about. I'm glad you had the courage to go through with it even with those risks.