Another Pet Food Lawsuit

I feel like there are several separate issues with prescription foods. One is the quality issue, with, as you mention, oftentimes inferior, and even illegal, ingredients being used that should be much better and safer. Another is with price fixing, as they are ridiculously expensive for the quality of ingredients. But another issue is whether these foods do actually cure or treat diseases. I have to say that on that point, I have had success with some of these (though, again, I sincerely wish they were better made). The Purina Veterinary Diet for food allergies and severe intestinal diseases, HA, for example, with its hydrolyzed (broken-down) proteins, actually saved the life of one of my dogs, who could not eat anything else (including home made diets). Perhaps those are rare instances, where the prescription diet really does something special, and typically they are over-hyped. But they can serve a purpose for those special cases.

Thank you as always, Susan. Here is a pet food that is being recalled (Blue Ridge Beef Dog and Cat Food) : http://www.emergencyemail.org/newsemergency/anmviewer.asp?a=7023&z=63

A nutritional specialist may prescribe one of these foods based on the specific issue of manufacturing, that is, that the companies may not use “co-packers.” On that basis, the food would be the “only available” food in which the ingredients could be “guaranteed” to be present and of a certain quality.

I would love to see these companies “slammed” for their deceptive practices. I don’t like the ingredients of most of these foods–the GMØ corn, excessive carbs, low quality protein, illegal rendered by-product meals and fats, dry kibble. The foods are cooked at extremely high heats to attempt to kill various bacteria (which they don’t), but they do kill off nutrients which are sometimes “added back” with cheap synthetic vitamins. Occasionally, the companies may add some known supplements for certain conditions, but the quantities are very low (usually at end of ingredient list) and, probably, of negligible benefit. They, also, use unhealthy ingredients to temporarily solve health issues; i.e., sawdust (powdered cellulose) to stop diarrhea; table salt to increase water consumption for urinary tract infections; corn gluten GMO, when protein is low, etc.

Using dry kibble for cystitis or a urinary tract infection (when sufficient moisture levels are crucial) is counterproductive, IMO hurtful–but not uncommon.

I don’t like the fact that most veterinarians know very little about animal nutrition most of which is taught to them by the “prescription” pet food company, Hills, who, also, often wine and dine new vets, providing “free” products. Both Hills and Royal Canin will provide the vets biased research. Except for the rare vet who does their own objective studies, most of the rest only are provided info from these companies.

I don’t like the fact that it is difficult to walk into any vet office in my city that doesn’t carry one of the above brands and “push” them on clients, unless (as in my case) they express their dislike of them.

Unsuspecting pet caretakers are provided “prescriptions” for feed-quality pet products, believing they are essential to the health and welfare of their ailing pets. This is inexcusably misleading and wrong!

I wondered how common it was for vet clinics to promote brands like Hill’s Science Diet over every other pet food. The vet I’ve gone to for years put fliers up around their clinic stating that Hill’s is the best because their food has been tested more than other brands. The info sheets also tout the goodness of the corn in their diets. I like the veterinarians there well enough, but they can push the food pretty heavily. When I was caring for a once feral kitten who was underweight, the vet wanted to feed him the Hill’s kitten food they sold because it was tested to “ensure growth.” It wasn’t even a prescription diet. The kitten recovered fine– he had ringworm so when he started feeling better with treatment his appetite returned.

I have two cats with urinary issues and even when they have been on kibble that is designed to “relieve stress” or keep urine at a good PH, my cats still had serious problems. The only thing that ever helped with their issues concerning cystitis and urine crystals was excluding kibble and giving them wet food, sometimes supplementing freeze-dried meat. Cutting out kibble was also the only way I was able to get my cats who put on some weight to slim down– I feed them canned foods that are basically all meats, human grade. With the prescription diets even the wet food has things like wheat, starches, rice, soy, vegetable matter, and cellulose/fiber added. So you don’t really know how much of it is meat and what is plants or filler. And the urinary prescription foods would still contain fish, even though fish is supposed to be avoided as it could cause UT irritation.

I’ve had more issues managing the stress levels of my two needy male cats in a multi-cat household, but the prescription diet for UT stress did not seem to make a difference. The canned diet for urinary care stress is primarily pork liver and way down the ingredient list it has added tryptophan and casein, which I’m assuming are the stress-relief components. I want to feed my cats primarily muscle meat, mostly lean. I’d rather add supplements to good, clean food than feed them a diet that seems to be mostly fillers.

Certainly there are animals who will need a specific diet for a medical condition. But it just seems ludicrous that a vet can’t recommend a more natural, appropriate diet for a cat or dog. A human doctor wouldn’t tell a person with health issues to eat only one prepackaged processed food forever.

Has anyone lost their animals to cancer while feeding them Royal Cannon Urinary SO? I only fed 2 of my cats the SO for 10 years. I lost both cats 3 months apart. One had tongue cancer and the other had throat cancet. The cats only drank distilled water and I do not spray insecticides in the house. I saw on A blog Royal Cannon purchases their fat content from a company that adds BHA to the product. BHA is known to cause cancer.