Coaticook dairy baffled over catheter claim

The Laiterie Coaticook is hoping to shed light on the circumstances surrounding the presence of a plastic catheter, used for intravenous injections, in one of its ice cream containers. The Coaticook company contacted the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and asked it to observe its ice cream production line on Tuesday. Agency's inspectors will also meet with employees working on the day of production of the product in question.

Meanwhile, La Laiterie Coaticook is also trying to determine the provenance of the catheter that was found in its product.

The ice cream producer’s communications manager and the daughter of the owner, Renée Fillion, compared the catheter in the container with those used at the Coaticook Hospital, and says the two are completely different.

A family in Trois-rivières, who had gathered to mark the arrival of a newborn in the family, filed a complaint after a guest found the catheter while serving ice cream for dessert. On Monday, the Francoeur family did not rule out legal action.

Family members had to go to hospital to receive preventive treatments for HIV and hepatitis A, B and C. They will also have to be tested every month for the next six months.

For the time being, ice cream production is continuing and no recall has been made.