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Background on the Campaign to enlighten people about Iams cruelty

Latest news - 15/02/2007

Back in 02/03, PETA conducted a 9-month investigation into a lab used by the Iams pet food company to "test" its food. During the investigation, we uncovered horrible abuse, including dogs gone crazy from intense confinement; 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 vet care.

Well, we’ve continued to work on the case and have just received very good news in a report from the USDA. The report confirms Animal Welfare Act violations that we found during our investigation, including:

• Untrained personnel performing animal experiments
• Failure to provide veterinary care and observe animals on a daily basis
• Caging facilities for dogs and cats so stifling that staff were unable to endure the ammonia levels
• Failure to provide animals with the minimum required space

The lab can now either admit to its wrongdoing and settle with the government or go through an Administrative Court proceeding.

Iams, the pet food company owned by Procter & Gamble, continues to test its products on animals. For nearly 10 months in 2002 and 2003, a PETA undercover investigator worked at an Iams contract laboratory in the US. The abuses that PETA’s investigator caught on tape included the following:

·                    Dogs were dumped on cold concrete flooring after having huge chunks of muscle cut out of their thighs.

·                    Dogs and cats were stir-crazy from confinement to windowless, dungeon-like buildings.

·                    A co-worker instructed PETA’s investigator to hit the dogs on the chest if they stopped breathing. Another co-worker talked about an Iams dog found dead in a cage, bleeding from the mouth.

·                    A dog was limping in pain from Lyme disease.

·                    Cruel Iams studies involved sticking tubes down dogs’ throats to force them to ingest vegetable oil.

Only after PETA went public with the investigation did Iams pull out of the facility. Contrary to what this token gesture might suggest, Iams knew exactly what was happening at this laboratory before PETA publicised the findings from the investigation. PETA’s investigator videotaped Iams employees, including veterinarians and a behaviourist, touring the facility on at least five separate occasions and witnessing the abuse – yet Iams did nothing to ease the suffering of these animals.

In October 2004, Iams announced that it would move all of its testing into its own laboratories in Dayton, Ohio, in the US, by October 2006. This might have been a step in the right direction if it weren’t for the fact that Iams is increasing the capacity of its laboratories to hold twice as many animals. Bringing the tests inside its own walls and keeping all experiments and employee checks under one roof will make it much harder for the public to know what’s going on.

For more information on the campaign, please visit IamsCruelty.co.uk.

Find out more - website of PETA

Find out more - website of - British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection (BUAV)

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