Orijen catfood recall in Australia

[kb2yjx]

Top Cat!!! Many prayers for Colette!!!! And for you,too...

[krazyaboutkatz]

I'm so sorry to hear this. I had read something about this a while ago. I sure hope that Colette will recover and be okay. I'll keep her in my thoughts and prayers. Please take care. (((HUGS)))

[kittykatharine]

Oh, how horrible, those poor babies who passed away. What an unfortunate story. At least something is being done, and hopefully more kitties will not be harmed.

[Catty1]

OMG - Orijen is made right here in Alberta!

I PRAY that Colette and the others recover. It sounds like it takes a lot of time for the cats to get well.

There is a dog form of Omega 3-6 that is available in liquid pump form from my vet. You might ask your vet if that is a good anti-oxidant. I just shake it well and mix it in with my kitties' wet food (had to add some stinky wet food to begin with to get them to eat it).

ETA: This from the Orijen site, released December 20 (I guess Champion distributes it to other countries. Australia is the only country to irradiate the food when it gets to their country):

“RESULTS RAISE QUESTIONS REGARDING THE SUITABILITY OF GAMMA-IRRADIATED DIETS FOR THE LONG-TERM EXCLUSIVE FEEDING OF CATS IN PARTICULAR, GIVEN THAT SUCH FEEDING REGIMES HAVE BEEN ASSOCIATED
WITH THE DEVELOPMENT OF LEUKOENCEPHALOMYELOPATHY IN THIS SPECIES.”
“IN CONCLUSION, THIS STUDY HAS SHOWN THAT GAMMA IRRADIATION, AT THE DOSES USED, HAS PROFOUND
AND SELECTIVE EFFECTS ON THE VITAMIN A AND PEROXIDE CONTENTS OF DRY ANIMAL DIETS, PARTICULARLY
ON DRY DIETS FORMULATED FOR CATS.”

I've attached the PDF as it has details and directions for applying to the medical fund that TopCat3 mentioned; it allows for $2,000 Aus per cat affected.

I'm SO sorry for the cats and their heartbroken owners.

[TopCat3]

We are not happy.

$2000 doesn't go near to it.

I am one week into this and have spent almost $400 already on vet visit, referral visit to neuro vet specialist, supplements in the form of veterinary Omega 3/6 and veterinary vitamin/mineral supplement plus some human coenzyme Q10. And Colette's condition has worsened. She is walking less steadily and when she tried to jump down from the balcony table earlier she tumbled and did a complete somersault as she landed on the tiles.

One of my colleagues in this disaster has spent $1600 and he is only 2 months into it. Fortunately the specialist did not charge him for his initial visit because he was one of the first and they did not pick what it was straight away and hospitalised his cat for observation. The Natural/Holistic Vet that sold so much of the food and realised there was a "cluster syndrome" wanted to charge him $250 for consult even before any medicines. He declined.

They have made up a Chinese herb blend based on ginseng and a couple of amino acids, cysteine and glutathione, both anti-oxidants, no evidence this will help and in any case neuro-vet that is seeing every case and working hard on testing/analysis is of the mind supplements of little assistance, main issue is TIME and change of DIET - plenty of protein especially kangaroo meat (plenty of that here ).

There is a pet store over the other side of town (the rich area) selling this herb/amino acid blend for $44 for I think it's 25gm

This is all outrageous.

Now Champion pet foods are admitting they have found traces of BHA preservative in some batches. There is some talk that this was in some dried chicken that went into the recipe - their big selling point is that all their food is FRESH from the farm and processed the same day.

So if you are feeding your dogs or cats what you believe to be BHA-free dry food you might want to check this out and ask some very pertinent questions of your retailer and even go to Champion direct. Help us put the heat on these people please.

They also told me there was only ever one shipment to Australia and they had no idea it would be irradiated. One of our American supporters checked the records (which are freely available in the public arena over there) and said there were 3 shipments.

They also told me they had no idea their food was being irradiated (after three shipments? oh pull the other leg it's got bells on) or to what level. The importer has to sign a form which clearly states the level to which dried petfood is irradiated, being some 12X what they use to treat food for humans.

The truth is being massaged.







May I extend to you the blessings and joy of Christmas and may you and your pets live long and healthy lives.

Just be careful what you all eat, because even reading labels does not help us now.