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  • 2016-05-11 (xsd:date)
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  • Rat Found in Dr Pepper Bottle (de)
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  • On 9 May 2016, a Texas man named John Graves published several photographs to Facebook alongside a claim that he had discovered a dead rat in his grandson's partially-consumed bottle of Dr Pepper: Graves' status update read: On 9 May 2016 Graves provided further details about his claim to Houston news outlet KPRC, stating that the rat went unnoticed for a day after his three-year-old grandson opened and consumed half of the bottle of soda. Graves didn't indicate that the soft drink tasted different or that any note was taken of the (fairly large) rodent's presence inside the bottle, and Graves himself said the rat was a pretty good size: Graves said that a Dr Pepper spokesperson requested the bottle and rat be submitted to the company for testing, but that he was concerned about maintaining the sample's integrity and sought an independent analysis of the specimen: Food safety expert Jay Neal told the outlet that it was possible (but not probable) that a rodent could wind up in a sealed bottle of soda, noting that rats and mice were capable of entering small spaces. While Neal said the claim could be accurate, he also explained why it was an unlikely scenario, noting a small window during which such contamination could occur: In response to the viral controversy, Dr Pepper released a statement that described the claim as virtually impossible and that testing would take six to eight weeks from the date of receipt. In their statement, the brand maintained that the laboratory would be an independent third party (as Graves said he sought): While Graves' story has not been explicitly disproven, skeptics pointed out that it showed many similarities to a man's 2015 claim that KFC served him a battered, fried rat, a story that was later revealed to be a hoax. It was also similar to a woman's 2005 claim that she discovered a severed finger in Wendy's chili, which later unraveled under scrutiny. Yet another, similar claim was disproven after experts said that Mountain Dew (and other soft drinks) could dissolve a mouse, thanks to the acids that incorporated into their flavoring agents to give them a tanginess and bite. In this case, the rat depicted appeared merely to be drowned, but in no way visibly decomposed. As of 11 May 2016, Dr Pepper dispatched a courier to Graves' location to collect the rat and purportedly contaminated Dr. Pepper bottle for independent third-party testing; Graves refused the pickup attempt. No information is currently available as to whether Graves and the brand managed to come to an agreement about circumstances under which the specimen could be tested, and the claim remains unproven. (en)
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