Things Iams Don't Want You To See

[KYS]

posted by lizbud:I know that there are a few folks on PT that spring to the defence of these conditions and want to excuse Iams and attack the messenger. >>>>>>

I am not sure about attacking the messenger,
but I do believe to post all sides to make it
a bit more ballance when it comes to PETA.
I am a supporter of The Doris Day Foundation for
animal rights, and I remember reading small
blerb about Iams on the Animal Guardian.
Iams this year severed all ties with the company
that was in question. So I am a bit confused.
I was under the impression that Iams has cleaned
up it's act. IF they have not, Iams deserves to be boycoted.
.
I could not find the article, but I did
search the web about the Peta incident.
(I cut out some of the article)

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Iams dog food chewed up at protest

Back to the Portsmouth Herald | Print this Story
By Nancy Cicco
[email protected]

A division of Procter & Gamble, Iams is PETA’s latest target in the organization’s efforts to raise public awareness about animal cruelty in the marketplace.

But an Iams spokesman responded Monday saying PETA is simply barking up the wrong tree.

Iams has come under PETA’s microscope for allegedly mistreating dogs and cats subjected earlier this year to nutritional testing at an Iams contract laboratory in the midwest.

The results of a PETA-led, nine-month undercover investigation at the lab found Iams allegedly committed several animal abuses. PETA wants customers to boycott Procter & Gamble’s products until the company changes its ways.

"Our investigation found their dogs cowering in cages, some which hadn’t left the cages for six years," said Matt Prescott, a Newmarket native who works as a PETA campaign manager. "Some had their vocal chords cut out...simply because the director of the facility was annoyed by the dogs barking."

Iams conducts clinical and controlled studies on cats and dogs to ensure the company’s products perform up to standards, according to Kelly Vanasse, Iams’ associate director of global external relations. PETA’s charges of mistreatment are a "highly sensationalized accounting" of what happened earlier this year, she said.

The Iams company unwittingly hired the undercover PETA investigator to enforce humane standards at the lab as an animal-welfare specialist.
The lab in question is not owned by Iams but was contracted by the company as a test site. Last March, days after PETA came forward with its information, Iams stopped working with the lab. Iams’ subsequent investigations at the company’s eight other contract laboratories showed those labs are "fully implementing" Iams’ research policy, Vanasse said. The policy mandates the company "will ensure the humane treatment of cats and dogs."

In addition, the company created an international animal-care advisory board to ensure the company continues to live up to its animal-welfare standards.

"We have been very open and transparent about what’s going on," Vanasse said. "We will only conduct the veterinarian equivalent of what a human would agree to undergo."

The company did not authorize anyone to cut the vocal chords of dogs in the facility, and dogs involved in some tests were only fed "a teaspoon" of vegetable oil, she said.