If Iams doesn’t take its own research policy seriously, why should consumers?
In March 1999, Iams claimed to have committed to a moratorium in which “no new studies would be initiated that would result in the end of the life of a dog or cat.”
However, as evidenced by our 2002-2003 undercover investigation of an Iams contract testing facility, Iams blatantly disregarded this policy when 27 dogs used in its experiments were killed.
But long before we caught Iams red-handed (blood red, in fact) through our investigation, Iams was funding and approving experiments in which animals were killed—as if its March 1999 policy was nothing but a piece of paper.
PETA has reviewed documents from the University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMMC) regarding Iams-funded research conducted by Dr. Roger B. Johnson and has found even more indisputable evidence that Iams allowed animals to die in experiments after instituting its no-kill policy!
In a letter sent from the chair of UMMC’s Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) to Dr. Johnson, the chair notes that Dr. Johnson’s experiment (entitled “Effects of diet on the initiation of gingivitis”) “is assigned protocol number 0801 with an approval date of November 16, 1999.” Since Dr. Johnson had to have IACUC approval before proceeding with his experiment, his project could not have started before November 16, 1999. In fact, according to Dr. Johnson’s “Animal Activity Protocol” for this experiment, the anticipated starting date for the study was December 1, 1999.
Dr. Johnson’s IACUC approval date and the anticipated starting date for his experiment clearly fall well after the date when Iams’ no-kill policy took effect.
It is shocking then that in item number 19 of Dr. Johnson’s “Animal Activity Protocol,” he states, “At the end of the experiments, animals will be euthanized.” In item 22 of the same document, Dr. Johnson again states, “Animals will be euthanized at the end of the test period.”
So where was Iams? Where were the company’s ethics and promises? Probably the same place they were when Iams representatives walked through the lab we investigated in 2002-2003, saw dogs going insane from confinement with no resting boards in their cages, and did nothing to change the situation. And probably right where they were when our investigator e-mailed the company with a warning that the dogs at the lab were going to be surgically debarked. Iams’ ethics are in constant motion—usually a side-winding motion
On February 8, 2005, Iams responded to our letter, saying, "[PETA] states that dogs used in a gingivitis study at the University of Mississippi over five years ago were euthanized. This is incorrect. No dogs were euthanized following this study. The statement in the November 1999 protocol, which said that the animals would be euthanized, was an error that was corrected in the protocol for a follow-up study. In fact, these same dogs participated in the follow-up study and are still alive today."While we regard this supposed typo in Johnson’s protocol as suspect, even if it were true, this would mean that these suffering animals have been cooped up in cramped laboratory cages and subjected to invasive experimentation for more than six long years, from 1999 to 2005! Learn more about Iams’ follow-up (2002-2005) gum disease study.
As if this isn’t troubling enough, Iams lied again with regard to an experiment it funded from June 1, 1999, to May 30, 2001, at the University of Kentucky, entitled, “Lipid Metabolism in Feline Hepatic Lipidosis (FHL): Impact of Taurine and Carnitine.”
In publicly available documents obtained from the University of Kentucky, Dr. Geza Bruckner—the primary investigator for this project—states in his “Research Project Proposal” that the cats used in the experiment would be “fed a high caloric diet low in LPUFAs [long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids] and deficient in taurine and marginal in choline and methionine until they gained at least 30% above their lean bodyweights, thus minimizing stores of these nutrients” (emphasis in original).
He goes on to note that such a diet would “rapidly precipitate the development of FHL [feline hepatic lipidosis],” a condition for which “[t]he mortality rate in cats even with aggressive nutrition therapy approximates 40% and approaches 90% in untreated cats.”
Iams had nearly three months—from the time its 1999 policy went into effect to the time that this experiment started—to insist that Dr. Bruckner either change the protocol to comply with Iams’ policy or risk losing Iams’ funding altogether. Instead, Iams allowed this experiment to continue without any change, knowing full well that death was likely to occur for cats with induced FHL!
And that is just what happened. According to the university’s animal disposition records, four cats died during this Iams experiment:
Cat number 4785 was “[f]ound dead” on August 23, 2000.
Cat number 4790 was euthanized on August 10, 2000, “because of [a] grossly large spleen.”
Cat number 4799 died on August 15, 2000, after which a “necropsy revealed diseased kidneys.”
Cat number 4787 was euthanized on June 20, 2000, “because of indications [of] renal disease (high creatinine).”
Iams is a quintessential promise-breaker—claiming an end to terminal research on dogs and cats one moment and repeatedly killing them behind closed laboratory doors the next.
Information taken from http://www.iamscruelty.com/
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