Australian mixed pet households please note (dogs & cats)

Irradiated dog food to be labelled in Australia - to be formally announced on AQIS website

To read formal letter from AQIS re cat food irradiation ban and move to label irradiated dog food as unsuitable for cats please follow link below:

http://www.box.net/shared/s1q3dafghc



Please note that if you have a mixed pet household, your cats can be neurologically damaged merely by snacking on food from your dog's bowl if it has been irradiated as a quarantine measure upon import into Australia. Your cat need not have itself been fed an irradiated diet. If you live in Australia and still have Orijen dog food in the house, please be careful not to let your cat have access or better still replace it with a non-irradiated dog food. If you have a cat you know what opportunistic stealth-snackers they are!

Orijen is no longer on sale in Australia but some cats are still starting to show symptoms only now, because the recall and the dangers irradiated food posed to cats was not widely publicised at the time the recall happened (November 2008) and unaware owners were still feeding it up until January this year. Symptoms take 4-6 months to develop and the first signs are unsteady gait and wobbling of the pelvis and hind legs. 30% of affected cats have died or been euthanised.

There are other irradiated dog foods and treats on the Australian market but due to current non-labelling of these items as irradiated you might not know you are feeding it. Please check with the manufacturer. Just because they are claiming there is no evidence of adverse effects on dogs does not mean there are none. (What are they waiting for - more illness, death, heartache?)
There are many, many published studies reporting the adverse effects of feeding irradiated diets to humans, monkeys, rats, mice, dogs etc in controlled laboratory studies. I don't like studies on live animals either but many animals have sacrificed their lives so that our pets can have diseases combatted by drugs etc - and these studies prove how harmful food irradiation is.

You can download and sign a letter of support to have this harmful practice reviewed/banned/proper labelling here:

http://www.box.net/shared/85f1bt59tv

Thank you very much

TopCat3