Iams Pet Food Warning
February 6th, 2006 by adobo13
http://www.iamscruelty.com/introduction.asp
Introduction
For nearly 10 months in 2002 and early 2003, a PETA investigator went undercover at an Iams contract testing laboratory and discovered a dark and sordid secret beneath the wholesome image of the dog- and cat-food manufacturer: dogs gone crazy from intense confinement to barren steel cages and cement cells, dogs left piled on a filthy paint-chipped floor after having chunks of muscle hacked from their thighs; dogs surgically debarked; horribly sick dogs and cats languishing in their cages, neglected and left to suffer with no veterinary care.
Iams lied to PETA with promises to improve the conditions for animals in its contract laboratories, even assuring us that enrichment programs were already in place, but our undercover investigator saw otherwise. She fought for six months to have a single cheap, rubber toy placed in each cold, lonely kennel. This is Iams’ idea of enrichment.
Our video footage shows Iams representatives touring the facility and witnessing dogs’ endless circling in barren cells, sweltering in the summer heat. Iams knew the truth yet did nothing to protect the animals.
The dogs and cats in Iams’ tests are no different from our dogs and cats at home when it comes to deserving companionship, play, a stimulating environment, and the right not to be tormented in painful experiments.
Luckily, caring consumers know that advances in nutrition don’t have to come at the expense of animals in labs. Help PETA force Iams to end these painful and unnecessary tests, as many compassionate companies have already done.
What’s Wrong With Iams’ Tests?
Even with all the non-animal testing alternatives that are available in the 21st century, Iams continues to conduct barbaric laboratory experiments that are not required by any law.
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Iams Experiments
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Cruelty Exposed
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Validated Alternatives
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What You Can Do
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| Palatability, Discovery Phase, and Metabolized Energy Tests | These are the same miserable tests that animals suffered through at Iams’ contract facility, which we investigated in 2002-2003.
In addition, dogs and cats in these tests are allowed only a paltry 30 minutes of cage-free time per day, five days a week, without any free time over weekends. |
Iams can use non-animal chemical analyses of its food formulas to test for nutritional quality.
In addition, to study foods formulated to help animals suffering from various diseases, Iams can conduct in-home and collaborative veterinary clinic studies, in which animals who naturally have a disease of interest and who have been volunteered by their human guardians would be studied in a humane nonlaboratory setting |
E-mail Iams and tell the company that there’s no reason to conduct these outdated tests, since more than 40 of its competitors produce humanely tested food.
Please also e-mail us to learn how you can help persuade your local animal shelter to drop Iams and switch to food made by one of these compassionate companies. |
| Muscle Atrophy (Muscle Wasting) Tests | To study the effects of nutrition in treating muscle atrophy in dogs, Iams is funding an experiment by Purdue University researchers to hang mice by their hind legs (which causes their muscle tissue to waste away). After being fed various nutrients, the mice are killed and cut up. | Bioartifical muscle technology (BAM) has been used successfully by other researchers to study muscle atrophy in animals. Iams should do the same. | E-mail Iams to demand that it immediately end its involvement (financial and otherwise) in this cruel experiment until the Purdue researchers agree to use humane non-animal alternatives. |
| Protein Efficiency Ratio (PER) Chick Tests | Scientists have condemned the PER test as unethical since baby chicks may suffer from severe growth retardation, not to mention that they are also killed at the end of the experiment. | Non-animal models like FIDO and IDEA have already been scientifically validated for use as alternatives to the PER test. | E-mail Iams and insist that the company immediately end its live animal PER experiments in favor of the more compassionate and accurate FIDO system or accept validation data from the IDEA manufacturer (Novus International) and start using that test method immediately. |
| Gingivitis-Induction Experiments | In direct violation of its research policy, Iams is paying an experimenter at the University of Mississippi Medical Center to induce gingivitis––a painful stage of periodontal disease––in 21 beagles by cutting and suturing their gums from November 2002 to October 2005.
After the experiment, the dogs are set to be “sold and transferred to another research facility ” for years of more cruel lab tests! |
Iams should conduct collaborative veterinary clinic studies that use dogs who naturally have gingivitis and who are volunteered to the clinic for humane studies by their human caretakers. | Please e-mail Iams and demand that the company immediately end this experiment, release the dogs to a reputable beagle rescue organization, and use humane testing alternatives, such as collaborative veterinary clinic studies |
