Hey guys,
Yesterday I was browsing the internet and found some disturbing information on the PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) website about iams pet foods a company that i have even reccomended on this site and feed my own cats!
Apparently iams:
Failure to provide pain relief to sheep used in experiments that caused pain or distress
Failure to ensure that personnel were trained to perform experiments on animals
Failure to provide veterinary care and to observe animals daily
Failure to properly ventilate housing facilities for dogs and cats
Failure to house cats with a sufficient number of litterboxes and resting surfaces
Failure to keep animal-housing facilities clean and in good repair, resulting in injuries
Failure to maintain comfortable temperatures in animal-housing facilities
Failure to provide animals with sufficient space
To be fair i went on to the iams website to find out what they had to say about these accusations and of course they deny it all and even have videos of apparent animal care.
I am begging everyone who feeds their pets iams to have a look at the websites i will give u and make up ur own mind and let me know what u think!
I have also emailed PETA to find out about a list of pet foods that are available in Australia that do not torture animals as I dont know what to feed my cats ;-( For those of u in the UK and US lists are available on the website.
Please everyone check this out and let me know what u think! I would love ur opinions!
References:
http://www.iamscruelty.com/introduction.asp
http://www.iamscruelty.com/
http://www.iamscruelty.com/notTested.asp
http://www.iamstruth.com
http://www.iamscruelty.com/iams-feat-dental.asp
http://www.iamscruelty.com/iams-feat-wsuphotos.asp (some images may be found disturbing)

that is just cruel...

I am not sticking up for iams, but I don´t think that PETA are always the most credible organisation in that they don´t always get their facts right. I expect this post will make me very unpopular, but being a country Aussie, I am not too impressed with how PETA are trying to destroy the Aussie wool industry through their ignorance of Australian conditions. I would be more likely to trust an independent investigation into iams. I apologise if I have offended anyone but that is my opinion.

These sites mention the dates 2002 to 2005 or 2006. If this information is correct, and given that Iams is still in business, then the company must have improved in those failure areas in the past two or three years.

I looked for this on CNN and all I found about Iams was the food contamination issue. But I found this, however odd, on MSNBC: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9852019/
Wikipedia addresses the issue, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iams, but then wiki isn´t the greatest source of valid information.

I´m guessing something was probably going on with Iams to make PETA and investigatos take a look at them, but that was a few years ago. I can´t seem to find either way if their practices, if they were really taking place, have improved.

I am not sticking up for iams, but I don´t think that PETA are always the most credible organisation in that they don´t always get their facts right. I expect this post will make me very unpopular, but being a country Aussie, I am not too impressed with how PETA are trying to destroy the Aussie wool industry through their ignorance of Australian conditions. I would be more likely to trust an independent investigation into iams. I apologise if I have offended anyone but that is my opinion.
I dont think this post would offend anyone, i was hoping to get a range of opinions in order to make my decision. Unfortunetely I still have not idea because as clerihewed said the dates are a few years agoso im hoping that they have picked up their act.
Thanku everyone for ur posts so far feel free to keep ur comments flowing
Also thanku 4 the extra links

I am not sticking up for iams, but I don´t think that PETA are always the most credible organisation in that they don´t always get their facts right. I expect this post will make me very unpopular, but being a country Aussie, I am not too impressed with how PETA are trying to destroy the Aussie wool industry through their ignorance of Australian conditions. I would be more likely to trust an independent investigation into iams. I apologise if I have offended anyone but that is my opinion.
I, too, do NOT think that PETA is the most reputable organization, as there have reported incidents against them as well that I have read...multiple places, multiple times. Over time I have come not to trust everything that PETA says and does. From what I have seen, they have appeared to be an organization that can appear one way but actually act another. Before I totally believe this information, I would like to see more research into it, from various other pet companies and agencies, and get THEIR opinion.

I do not believe PETA is very reputable because they have been known to use violence and bombings to get their point across and they don´t want it to be known how many animals they have actually harmed but if you start looking into PETA you will find a lot of nasty stuff about them too, I have found some really disturbing stuff about them in fact so I would not believe them at all.
And I agree with MaryCDavis, its hard to know who to believe but I would certainly not be believing PETA.
Oh I forgot to say that for the past 11 years my cat Cleo has been eating Iams cat food and I have had no problems with their pet foods.

go to youtube and type in peta and you will get many views of peta and their tactics and how many animals they have killed

I agree that PETA are not so credible...am also in Country Australia and what they propose we SHOULD do in the wool and beef industry would cripple our already drought ravaged farmers...but that´s not PETA´S concern...they do tend to go a bit far even becoming violent at times during protests that were meant to be peaceful.

I will support the RSPCA who do the best job they can in ensuring animal welfare.

I love Iams food. I cant always aford it but I try. I will look into this and form my opinion. Thanks for the info, you guys.

I am with the others here that don´t credit PETA. They are like the extremists of the animal welfare groups.
These are the same group that said that orphan polar bear should have been left to die. Rather than raised by humans. Yes they made some mistakes, but with Polar bears being endangered every one we can save is worth it.

For me here is Aus, if the RSPCA endorces something, that is good for me. They have a lot of issues but they are fair and common sense usually prevails. Plus my vet recommends Iams and I trust my vet long before I would trust anything much PETA would say.

GO RSPCA!!!!!!!! (Or as its known over here in aussie...SPCA)...I definately would trust them! As they are against putting animals down (unless its something that cant be fixed etc...) But they really do give all sorts of animals shelter, care and love.
I used to Volunteer at one shelter and loved it! (Of course I worked in the CAT section ) But I always recomend people to get pets from there, rather than the pet shops!

Plus my vet recommends Iams and I trust my vet long before I would trust anything much PETA would say.
yes, my vet recommends Iams too... and I trust my vet...

Im with the country Aussies and say if PETA can make crazy claims about our wool industry then making claims about a pet food company is just expected from them.
I dont listen to anything i hear PETA claims, they are Bonkers! Go the RSPCA now theres an organization making a difference!!!!!!!!

my vet does too so thats why im so confused! Im beginning to get the picture that ppl generally seem to think that PETA is not credible and are believing iams so at this stage im going to continue to put my trust in iams and basically my cats love it and are all in very good health.
Thanku everyone for ur thoughts and opinions i really appreciate it as i want to do what is right for my pets but i was upset to read about "iams cruelty" but most ppl here seem to think iams is still a good product and i value ur opinions so my kitties will continue to eat iams

go to youtube and type in peta and you will get many views of peta and their tactics and how many animals they have killed

do u mean PETA have killed animals?? ;-(

Iam not sure if this is totally true but i have heard that when PETA can longer house an animal or it needs to be destroyed for any reason, They put them in a large freezer to pass away (freeze to death) instead of using the normal injectable precedures to cease an animals life. Once again im not 100% sure if this is true but i have heard it many a time through the grapevine.

P.S RSPCA are a great organisation that rescue and take in unwanted animals but i DO NOT agree with them dragging a kangaroo to its near death.

PETA has been making claims as to animal cruelty in the pet food industry for many years, and most of their allegations have been proven false or at least highly distorted. The procedures for testing pet food are similar all around, so if you believe this of Iams, you cannot buy whiskas, Hill´s or any other premium pet food, either. Peta has been known, on many occasions, to orchestrate and even fake scenes of animal cruelty, allegedly committed by industries, while they, themselves raid these same industries, ´release´ the animals into the wild, where they either cannot survive and starve, or upset the entire ecosystem and root out most native animals. So there is at least as much animal cruelty committed on their part, if not more.
I do agree things could and should be much better in many aspects of animal husbandry, but as long as we are not prepared to pay three- to fivefold the current price for meat, wool, pet food etc, it will not get better than it is. The times of domesticated animals leading a natural life are over, but our own darlings are not leading a very natural life, either, and are they suffering???

It´s true about Iams - researchers paid by them have been extremely cruel to animals, although I don´t know whether this is still going on. In any case, there is no way PETA or anyone else would be able to post this info on the net, and have it up for so long, without serious legal problems, if it wasn´t true. It´s still up there because unfortunately it is true. I don´t agree with PETA´s more extreme tactics (and I certainly don´t agree with leaving the polar bear cub to die, I heard that some groups in Germany advocated this but also PETA?) and don´t know about the cruelty they are said to have committed, but I do know they really stick their neck out for animals and when you do this you make a lot of enemies. And when it comes to paying lawyers to counter the slander/libel about them, maybe they choose to spend their money on campaigns. Re the wool industry, it´s sad that again, farmers are losing out, but isn´t this more to do with the world economy, climate change etc? The PETA campaign against mulesing, where sheep get a piece of their butt sliced off without anaesthetic, seems reasonable to me (I think this has now ended). Unfortunately, Iams is the tip of the iceberg in terms of the pet food industry. Most pet food is extremely poor quality, very occasionally toxic (i.e. pet food recall) and while pets can make do with it and look healthy when they´re young, by the time they get to middle age they go downhill quite fast, relatively, getting fat (pet food is mostly carb/sugar), lethargic and sadly, more and more often - ´modern´ diseases like diabetes and cancer. A good book about this is Ann M. Martin´s "Food pets die forhocking facts about pet food". Having said that I recognise that if it wasn´t for this cheap, poor quality food, many shelters and animal defence organisations would have trouble feeding their animals - they just wouldn´t be viable if they fed the millions of unwanted cats and dogs with the organic meat and veg that would be healthy.

I think some fascinating points have been raised here. But where the RSPCA and possibly PETA are concerned I would say don´t judge them too harshly (I don´t know so much about PETA). Animal welfare is a difficult one as often it involves making unpopular choices that are good for animals and not people. Pig farmers in the UK are struggling because they were made to accept stringent non cruelty practises for pig rearing which resulted in people buying cheaper pork from abroad. So were they right to show compassion to pigs in the first place? I can´t say - surely they were? Fox hunting - the same. It has divided this country (although I am firmly against it) but ultimately if you agree with 75% of what they do, then you support them. They have their successes and failures. The press give them a hard time and they get very close scrutiny with every ´failure´ documented. Yet they are not state run but they get more scrutiny than as if public taxes ran them. It´s a bit like when slavery was abolished ... lots of people lost out financially, businesse went bust ... and the minimum wage, the same. Maternity leave in the workplace ... Every compassionate, ethical choice brings some heavy consequences. But interesting what you say about IAMS. I don´t feed Kmmy with it ... but pretty much everything we eat and put on our skin has been tested so it is a bit of landmine this one. Thanks for letting me ramble and thanks for raising the subject.