Woman finds unmarked white pill in chips
It's the last thing Sasha Wood expected to find in a bag of her favourite rice chips.
On the evening of Oct. 3, the New Westminster, B.C., woman was watching TV and munching on a package of Riceworks Gourmet Rice Snacks when, she claims, she bit down on something hard and discovered an unmarked pill in her mouth.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) tested a sample of the pill provided by Wood and confirmed to her it was ibuprofen.
"The seasonings in the chips were red so, at first it looked red and then I could see it looked like half of a large white pill," said Wood.
"I'm like that was a pill. You don't even know what it was. You don't know how much you ingested."
Looking for answers
The night of the incident, Wood contacted the Poison Control Centre which advised her to go to the nearest hospital emergency room right away.
"They monitored me for several hours and they took some blood work," said Wood.
There were no signs of any adverse impact from the pill and she was sent home.
CFIA investigates
Wood also called the CFIA and a representative came to Wood's home to collect a sample of the pill.
Unable to identify it by visual comparison with identification guides to prescription drugs, vitamins and health supplements, CFIA sent the sample to a Health Canada lab for testing.
In an email to Wood, the CFIA says, "the test results from the sample obtained by the CFIA on Oct. 9, 2018 confirmed the presence of ibuprofen. No other compounds (Controlled Drug & Substances or other) were found."
Wood says she occasionally takes ibuprofen but uses only liquid-filled gel caps.
The CFIA says it's working with the importer and the manufacturer's legal agent in Canada to determine the source of the pill.
At the time of writing, there was no way to confirm whether the pill was contained in the bag of chips, nor any explanation about how or where it may have got there.
The CFIA probe has not triggered a public warning of any kind or a recall.
Riceworks response
Riceworks Gourmet Rice Snacks is an American product with the manufacturer based in the U.S.
A representative for Riceworks' parent company, Wholesome Goodness in Illinois, said it had "received information on Oct. 16 pertaining to a report of extraneous material in a bag of Riceworks Sweet Chili."
When asked to comment on the CFIA's finding, the company's director of finance and business operations told CBC in an email: "Wholesome Goodness has not heard or reviewed the results of the CFIA report. I am not able to comment until the investigation concludes."
Wood says she has no desire to take any legal action against anyone.
Her only concern was the pill could have been something dangerous.
"I don't feel good about it and it scared me and I was so shocked," said Wood.
The CFIA says between April 1, 2013 to March 31, 2018 it received an average of approximately 1,200 consumer complaints per year related to extraneous material in food.
During that same period, those reports resulted in an average 20 food recalls per year.
