The following are the words of one pet parent. I’m sure many of you – as did I – can relate to the pain and sentiment. My heart goes out to all of you. 3catkidneyfailure, your words speak volumes.
Just a final note on the pet food settlement of 2007.
My first cat died in February of 2007. My second kitty on September 1, 2010. And last Friday, April 15, 2011, my third and incredibly loved cat, now suffering with repeat UTI, repeat diabetes, repeated sarcoma, and continued kidney failure was finally and hopefully mercifully euthanized, breaking the heart of an owner who has totally lost faith in commercial pet food and the motives and courage of veterinary medical practioners, with or without DVM behind their names.
As if in a coda of cosmic joke proportions, also last Friday arrived notice of the amount of my accepted claims submitted on behalf of my three cats for reimbursement of documented veterinary medical expenses for treatment after eating melamine tainted pet foods in December 2006. Almost all of my claims were accepted by the claims administrator the three legal claim notices said.
Where was this help when my three pets were so sick and needed so much treatment? Where was this admission that commercial pet food makers had, in fact, done something wrong and legally reimbursable during all the long last four years? No one helped my pets when they needed it but me scrapping and scrounging along to pay the expenses, along with thousands of other pet owners fighting desperate individual battles to save loved and cherished legal pet “property”.
To all the veterinary practices who profited so much from the illness and death caused unequivocally by the garbage commercial pet foods produced in 2007 and those pet food products continuing to cause major illness and death right through and up to 2011, I say damn all of you to the hell you so richly deserve for 2007 and every other commercial pet food inadequacy and failure of medical professionals to act on behalf of your patients and their families.
And to the powers in heaven that let this legal notice arrive too late to help on the last day of life for my third and final 2007 pet, I say don’t let anyone ever tell you that Heavenly Father doesn’t have a supremely ironic sense of humor. I will donate whatever is finally received for these legal claims to groups hoping to improve the lives of future generations of pets in honor of three brave family members I watched suffer and die since March of 2007.
3catkidneyfailure, Doozie, Smorgi, and IQ, and all the pet and human victims of commercial pet “crap” foods
Thousands died and still suffer. No one did prison time, no one went out of business. Nothing – of significance – has changed in pet food safety regulations since. No one said I’m sorry.
Many pet foods continue to import ingredients from China. Profits soar, television commercials continue to mislead the unknowing. AAFCO continues to blindly implement Big Pet Food’s every label and regulatory whim. The FDA continues to allow pet food and all animal food to violate federal law. And industry organizations refuse to become open and transparent while denouncing pet forums who try desperately to save lives.
It is absurd. Does no one at the FDA, CVM (Center for Veterinary Management), AAFCO (Association of American Feed Control Officials), Congress, PFI (Pet Food Institute), AVMA (American Veterinary Medical Association) have a heart or a conscience? How any of you can look at yourself in the mirror is beyond me.
And by the way, if by chance any at the FDA, CVM, AAFCO, Congress, PFI and AVMA are thinking ‘whew, glad these complaining pet people are getting that settlement money…now we can just forget about this and move on’. You are wrong. We will never forget our pets that were killed or sickened. We will never forget why they became ill and/or died either. Pet food has broken our hearts, but not our spirit. We are determined to share our hard-learned lessons of pet food with all that will listen.
3catkidneyfailure & Susan Thixton
