Comments on: Pet Food Co. Knew Of Problem Last Month

In Tests Of Food After Complaints, As Many As 1 In 6 Animals Died; Cause Still A Mystery

[ron76053]

My heart and prayers go out to every one that has lost a pet or is trying to save one. I had to put my beautiful 11 year old Siamese, Crazy, to sleep on Feb. 18th. It was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. She suffered from kidney failure and, of course, suffered all of the usual symptoms. I felt, and still feel, guilty over her death. I switched her to Special Kitty on November 6th and probably started feeding her the poison food in mid-December.
My biggest concern now is that, although stores have pulled the poisoned food off the shelf, there seems to be no warning or notice of the recall in the stores. My cat ate 3 packages of food a day and I usually bought 72-96 packages of food at a time. As I type, I have about 40 packages of poisoned food on my pet food shelf. As I said, Crazy died on Feb 18th and I adopted another rescue kitty on March 3rd. Had I fed her any of this poison, she too would be dead. Please contact your local stores, news media and anybody with pets to warn them. Not everybody reads the paper or watches the news!
I am going to be contacting the media in the Dallas/Fort Worth area 03-21-07 and urge you to do the same. If you would like to contact me, please feel free to email me at [e-mail].
thanks...
BigRon

[randalds]

Imagine if this involved contaminated BABY food and human babies were dying!? A life is a life and the company ignoring this means only one thing: animal cruelty and murder. Can you put a "price" on a child? Well...I say you can not put such a price on a beloved pet either! My heart goes out to all of the animal parents whose pets' lives were cut short without warning due to this horrific situation.
Posted by CozNJups at 09:57 PM : Mar 20, 2007

That certainly can happen. The same agency that is responsible for the human food supply (the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)) is responsible for dog and cat food. This is because some people living well below the poverty line consume pet food because it's all they can afford. Realizing this the government (I believe it was in the mid-1960's) made it a law that all dog and cat food sold in the USA is of a high enough quality to be consumable by humans. Obviously while the company is responsible for this disaster, blame should also be placed at the doorstep of the FDA. It's their job to assure things like this do not happen to pet food or people food. That's what we pay them for. It's thier to stop things like this from happening and if it happened to pet food it could just as easily happen to human food, even foods such as baby food. Demand that our government investigate where the FDA dropped the ball before the next recall is something that's killing people too.

[cybermorello]

Our healthy Schipperke, Sadie, stopped eating on 4 March, started drinking water and vomiting.

We called the vet, took her in for what we thought was a flu. She died of Kidney failure on 8 March, the day before my birthday.

We have been devastated. After watching the news last Friday night, We now know that the expensive dog food we were feeding her was actually killing her. I communicated with the manufacturer and have been ignored. She may be "just a dog" to them, but she was a member of our family.

[karen091866]

Continued:

We've got a vet appointment scheduled to have renal function tests done, so hopefully, we'll get some answers.

(Messages can only be 1500 letters, so I needed to post another to complete my post)

[karen091866]

First, my heart goes out to all pet owners who've been affected by this fiasco.---I happen to be among them, myself.My 5 year-old Rat Terrier ate a pouch of the "Mixables" about 2 weeks ago. This wasn't her 'regular diet', but something I picked up @ a 'major pet store' as a treat.
She was sick within a few hours of eating the food. This story wasn't 'headlines' when she got sick--but I instinctively took her to the vet clinic for a check,--because she simply 'wasn't herself", --plus for vaccines she was needing. She was running a fever of 102,which is significant for a dog,so the vet gave me a 7-day antibiotic treatment,figuring she had an infection. Fast-forward 2 weeks: now these headlines! I checked the other 3 pouches I had on hand, and the UPC codes & lot #'s are all among those recalled.I called the vet, informing them that I now had a cause for my dog's illness. My concern is this:Of the pets that ate these foods and survived: Have they sustained kidney damages? Will they encounter renal failure?---or will their lab values return to normal? Nothing is being mentioned about long-term damages or effects. We've got a vet visit scheduled for diagnostic labwork & to check renal function, etc.
Like others that have posted, my dog is a valued member of the family.Her affection is real and her loyalty to us is fierce..Disregard the cruel posts of those who have never known the unconditional love animals give. They have no idea what they're missing out on!

[coznjups]

Imagine if this involved contaminated BABY food and human babies were dying!? A life is a life and the company ignoring this means only one thing: animal cruelty and murder. Can you put a "price" on a child? Well...I say you can not put such a price on a beloved pet either! My heart goes out to all of the animal parents whose pets' lives were cut short without warning due to this horrific situation.

[pitkin_joe]

I believe--and hope--that this is the END OF COMMERCIAL PET FOOD. What is most upsetting is that IAMS farmed out manufacturing and thus ceded any kind of quality control of their product. This amounts to a BIG FAT LIE to all consumers who believed (as I did) that IAMS packaging meant IAMS manufacturing. In the past, I've experimented with raw food, but was forced to return to kibble because one of my dogs had intestinal issues. This travesty has convinced me to NEVER USE COMMERCIAL PET FOOD AGAIN--for their corn and soy, their "beet pulp," their obvious disregard for our pets' health. If IAMS had no control over the timing--the inexcusable month-long (or more) delay--it's their own fault for not controlling the manufacture of their own product. I had periodically given my dogs the implicated IAMS food as a supplement to the kibble (I salvaged one such can from my recycling, and it does have the implicated product codes). Thankfully, both dogs seem fine, but I will have their blood and urine checked to be sure. In the meantime, I'm making my dogs' food myself. For those interested in raw food or "BARF" diets for dogs, try these websites:

dogaware.com/menus
barfworld.com
canismajor.com/dog/barf.htm

[rosiemeow]

Why is no one asking or TELLING where this "wheat/gluten" came from, or where else it has been marketed???

There is NOTHING on the inside perimeters of a supermarket that does not contain wheat/gluten in the US, and we have had their transgenic pesticide-resistent wheat forced down our throats until we have become a sick, overweight society - BUT it did profit the medical and insurance professions.

Ah, but pet foods do not. So let's get to the source of this one fellas, shall we? And let the American people start to get their heads out of the sand.

My condolences to all who have lost their beloved pets & friends - you are in my thoughts and prayers.

[climbingcats]

I think it is Osama Bin Laden and his ilk doing this. This is a terrorist act and should be investigated by the Homeland security people. This is an alert situation that could lead to major poisoning of the food supply and this may have just been a test in advance of the REAL DEAL.

[soda75]

I am so sorry to hear about the loss of everyone's pets. My cat also died after eating Purina Friskies canned wet food. She passed away on 2/26/07 after eating the Purina Friskies "sliced in gravy" canned food.

At the time, I couldn't understand why a healthy, young cat passed away without warning. Now, it all makes sense. These companies are NOT telling us the whole truth. I know a woman, whose puppy passed away six months ago after being fed Eukanuba wet food. Now, you tell me... how long have these companies been dodging this?
Don't trust any wet food. Menu Foods..distributed to more than what is listed on the site.

[soda75]

I am so sorry to hear about the loss of everyone's pets. My cat also died after eating Purina Friskies canned wet food. She passed away on 2/26/07 after eating the Purina Friskies "sliced in gravy" canned food.

At the time, I couldn't understand why a healthy, young cat passed away without warning. Now, it all makes sense. These companies are NOT telling us the whole truth. I know a woman, whose puppy passed away six months ago after being fed Eukanuba wet food. Now, you tell me... how long have these companies been dodging this?
Don't trust any wet food. Menu Foods..distributed to more than what is listed on the site.

[antoniof123]

They will appeal all the law suites till they get to the administrations stacked courts and then like tobacco it will be yes they were bad but we can not punish them.

[mommacat143]

My condolences to all who have lost not just a pet,but a true member of your family.
I lost three members last year, from walmart food. Yes there was enough evidence then, but nothing was done. The problem is not only directed to our beloved pets, but also to ourselves. If it is the grain, then don't other animals eat grain? The only thing that I know that can cause this kind of problem is certain types of pesticides, so its very likely to find its way into the grain for other farm animals(cows)and what if the animal doesn't die before its found its way to butcher and then to our markets?
Not only that,we also eat grain, remember your cheerios? How about your baby's oatmeal?
The bottom line is, we are all in danger if this is something that is associated with the grain.
So, pet lovers and those who can only care for the two legged kind, wake up! We need to demand that they find the cause for the problem, and not just take the food off the shelves! And while they're at it, they might just try putting the batch numbers on the lists and not just the dates!.

[readbetween]

Criminals they sacrifice an animals life for a profit the CEO should be charged with murder. All pet owmers should start a national boycot against the company and forced them into bankrupcy.

[climbingcats]

I say, let's put every last one of these pet food companies out of business. Any one of them could poison our animals and even if they have provided good food for the past 20 or 30 years, just the idea of them making my cats and dogs even the slightest bit sick makes me want to have them arrested and put in jail for life. We don't need any of their pet food at all because these people are most likely criminals. My pets deserve the very best and so far, no retailer, pet store or pet food company has even come close to the kind of food I want them to be eating. Run them all out of business, every last one of them. And sue them for every cent they ever made. And their children and children's children. My pets. That's all there is.

[cdfoxtrot]

Are there any attorneys who can weigh in here, in terms of what victim's families can do to financially penalize the company which, knowingly it seems, put out defective pet food? Suing for the value of the pet (what, $500??) or the value of the food will have zero impact on this greedy company. Is there any way to sue for emotional distress, or might there be grounds for any class action? Given that our media and government don't seem to care about the issue, the only way I can see to make things better in the long-term is to sue the pants off these greedy people who knowingly sacrificed animals lives for profit.

[cdfoxtrot]

A lot of nonsense is being said by those who complain about our concern for animals. This story is hardly being mentioned by our media, who are obsessed with non-stories about runaway brides, millionaire dead porn stars, etc. No complaints about that, I see. This life and death story is not being seriously investigated by anyone, it seems. Not by the media, not by government or its agencies. If even one kid died from contaminated food, we'd have wall-to-wall coverage, "breaking news" every five minutes on the story and massive pressure on the FDA to act. Instead, no one with power (the media and gov.) or in authority (the gov.) seems to give a ***. Our food supply is highly critical to our well-being and survival. This is far more important than the ridiculous, non-stop, so-called "terror" warnings we're bombarded with. Problems with the food chain will impact far more people than anything some tiny bunch of extremists can realistically come up with. From that standpoint, those who think only kids, not animals, are important should want to get to the bottom of this problem with contaminated pet food. Shame on the media for not doing its job. AGAIN.

[mjpark710]

and another thing.the vet told me ACUTE RENAL KIDNEY FAILURE is common to dogs and cats these days??????? what the..then what were they thinking???? that its just a coicidenence that all these pets were dying from the same thing????? that food killed puppy..he was still young and had a long life to live if it werent for that food..its not fair that i had to cry everyday thinking it must`ve been something that I did when it was the FOOD.

[mjpark710]

i find all this so useless..what are they doing?!..i lost my puppy recently because of that contaminated food i fed him..its not fair.how do i sue this company! how could they allow people form all over to feed their pets food like this??? i did everything i could to save my puppy and it killed him ANYWAY.i cant believe i fed him food that i thought was healthy when it killed him..

[nothappyatall]

The big issue all along about supermarkets was a sales problem- could they sell $29 a bag feed next to $10.99 bags to idiots who shop only by PRICE? Obviously they can, have proved it, and their sales have gone way up as a result. No one is going to pay $29 a bag for lousy feed for long, and IAMS offers a 110% money back guarantee