TENS of thousands of tubes of Savlon antiseptic cream have been pulled from shop shelves after animal rights extremists claimed to have contaminated the product.
Boots, Tesco, Superdrug and other retailers began recalling Savlon products from all their UK stores yesterday after the Animal Rights Militia (ARM) claimed it had tampered with the products somewhere in the north of England.
An ARM blog says the
group carried out the contamination because it believes there are links between Savlon manufacturer Novartis and testing firm Huntingdon Life Sciences.
The claim, posted two days ago, says: "Over the last five days over 250 tubes and bottles of Novartis's antiseptic product Savlon have been tampered with in the North of England in stores such as Superdrug, Boots and other well known stores.
"We don't want to kill living beings like Novartis, but the side effects and the inevitable hospital stay will give people an idea of what Novartis pays for inside Huntingdon Life Sciences."
Boots said it had been alerted to the alleged contamination by the blog. "We want to reassure customers that their safety is our number one priority and therefore we have taken the decision, as a precautionary measure, to withdraw all Savlon products from our shelves nationwide until further investigations have been carried out," it said.
Superdrug was alerted yesterday, and a spokeswoman said: "We worked with the police yesterday and took the products off sale."
Tesco said it had temporarily withdrawn Savlon from sale on the advice of the police. "We have not found any evidence that Savlon has been tampered with, but as a responsible manufacturer of a trustworthy and respected brand, consumer safety is paramount," it said.
Novartis is advising customers to examine packaging carefully before opening products and not to use anything that looks damaged.
"Novartis UK has been made aware of an anonymous threat made on a website, alleging that one of our products, Savlon, has been tampered with," it said.
"The company takes this matter very seriously and is in close contact with the police, retailers and health authorities.
"This appears to be part of the long-running campaign by animal rights extremists which adversely affects both Novartis and our consumers."
The Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) in England said it was co-ordinating the police investigation.
A spokesman said: "The office of the ACPO national co-ordinator for domestic extremism is aware of a product tampering claim on an animal rights website.
"We are developing a co-ordinated police response and investigation, working closely with companies, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency [MHRA] and other partner agencies.
"Our overriding priority is to ensure that members of the public remain safe at all times."
An MHRA spokesman urged customers to check product packaging and not to use anything that may have been tampered with. "We are aware of the allegations on this particular animal rights website, but at the moment we have no evidence to suggest Savlon products have been contaminated," he said.
