THOUSANDS of tubes of Savlon have been pulled from shop shelves due to alleged contamination by animal rights extremists.

Boots, Superdrug and Tesco recalled the antiseptic cream after the Animal Rights Militia claimed it had tampered with 250 products.

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."

Contamination

In a statement, 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 to the incident yesterday and pulled Savlon products from stores.

"We worked with the police yesterday and took the products off sale yesterday afternoon," a spokeswoman said.

Tesco said it had temporarily withdrawn Savlon from sale on the advice of the police.

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