Orijen catfood recall in Australia
Hi everyone I hope you are all well. Seasons Greetings to you all.
I don't have time to get on here much these days but I do nip in now and again even if I don't post.
Today I am letting you all know about the tragic situation here in Australia with Orijen catfood. It was voluntarily recalled at the end of November due to a cluster of cats reporting with the same symptoms and the one common denominator being that they had all been started on Orijen catfood a few months prior to symptoms becoming apparent.
Australia has very strict quarantine regulations one of them being any dry petfood that isn't heated to 100deg C for 30mins during production has to be either heat treated or gamma-irradiated before Quarantine will permit clearance and release to the importer.
Orijen have had no problems with their food elsewhere, so they tell us. It would seem that the irradiation has released free radicals from the fats in the food which set up a chain reaction in the cat's body which is self-perpetuating once it starts. It has not been proven yet which chemical/free radical is implicated.
Over a period of time cats become very weak in their back legs and many cats progress to full paralysis, some just in the back legs some in back and front. Around 7 cats have been euthanised so far. About three cats who showed symptoms much earlier on (Sept time ) have now recovered either partially or fully. Post mortems on the euthanised cats show the white matter in the nerves of the spine has broken down. There are also in some cases lesions in the brains.
Not all cats progress to full paralysis. The timeline is hard to pinpoint as each cat reacts differently and it is not age or breed dependent nor is it related to the length of time the cat was fed the diet nor the percentage of the diet that the Orijen food comprised. But just very broadly speaking, symptoms start to appear around four to five months after commencement of feeding and for those cats that have recovered their timelines on average were about 3 months to deteriorate to full paralysis then about another 3 months to recover.
Paralysed cats have been confined in playpens on incontinence sheets. They are bright and attentive and generally eat well they just can't walk or toilet or clean themselves so some intensive nursing is required. There appears to be no pain, except one cat did show some sensitivity when touched in the rear area.
I am sad to report that I was feeding Orijen to Colette since last July/August and she just last week started showing symptoms and day by day little by little her back legs are weakening. I am gutted and beside myself.
A specialist neuro vet has been studying the whole situation and seeing the cats. About 30-40 are now affected including two or three interstate in Qld Vic and WA. Whilst the distributor is in Sydney so most shelf outlets are in Sydney there are some online sales. Interestingly some cats that ate Orijen dogfood from the family dog's bowl have also been affected (whilst the dogs to date have not) so Champion Petfoods recalled the dogfood from Australia as well.
As you can imagine there is a lot of politics around this and conflicting stories about who knew what etc etc. I don't want to get into this here. I placed a personal call through to Champion's sales and marketing manager and spent over an hour in discussion which was at times heated and emotional. He admitted to me to Champion's not having done due diligence and really doing their homework on the unique requirements of the Australian market before launching themselves here. Some of their "facts" don't seem to add up. There appear to be contradictions around whether they knew gamma irradiation was a strict non-negotiable requirement or not. They have set up a Compassion Fund which goes nowhere near to adequate to cover vets bills, supplements (anti-oxidants etc) physiotherapy etc not to mention pain and anquish, time off work etc, and I've almost no doubt participation in this will be conditional on signing a deed of release.
The only alternative is litigation which is a painful, long and time-consuming route but I believe was successful in the USA when you had all your petfood recalls/disasters a year or so ago.
Their distributor here has been disturbingly silent throughout the whole ordeal, given that he would have to have signed an import permit application, given details of the heat treatments during production, and signed an indemnity form for AQIS (Australian Quarantine Inspection Services) prior to irradiation.
There is a growing body of people in the USA and Canada that are supporting the Australian cat parents by boycotting Champion pet food and the sales and marketing manager admitted their sales in N America were already negatively impacted by this.
Please spare a prayer or two for the cats in Australia who are undergoing this ordeal, including my Colette.
None of us has any idea where this is leading as there is no definitive aetiology for the condition and at this stage, since the Compassion Fund was only announced today, no clear consensus as to where we are going with seeking compensation.
Thank you for reading this and supporting our case in whatever way you feel is appropriate.
Kind regards
Sadly,
TopCat3
