Vitamin C

Vitamin C Adverse Event Insights

The FDA Center for Veterinary Medicine database currently holds 51 adverse event reports referencing Vitamin C, including 7 reports in which the animal died — a 1370.0% case-fatality figure among reported events only, not a population-level mortality rate. Active ingredient on file: Vitamin C. Reported administration routes include Oral, Unknown, Subcutaneous, Intravenous. These numbers reflect voluntary submissions from pet owners, veterinarians, and manufacturers and therefore under-represent mild events and over-represent severe ones — a pattern the FDA has documented repeatedly for pharmacovigilance datasets.

The species most frequently named in Vitamin C reports are Dog (42 reports), Human (5 reports), Cat (4 reports), with Dog accounting for the largest share. Within those species, Retriever - Labrador (9), Unknown (5), Domestic Shorthair (3) appear most often — though breed popularity and ownership density shape these counts as much as any drug-specific sensitivity. This distribution matters because the same active ingredient can behave very differently across body sizes, ages, and species physiology.

The most commonly reported clinical signs associated with Vitamin C are Vomiting (12), Lethargy (see also Central nervous system depression in 'Neurological') (9), Emesis (6), Diarrhoea (6). Of the 51 reports with a coded outcome, Recovered/Normal is the leading category at 39.2%. Because FDA adverse event data describes correlation rather than causation, these figures are best used to frame informed questions with a veterinarian and to compare reporting patterns across related products — not as a standalone safety verdict on Vitamin C.