Vienna, Austria Whistleblower

On April 23, 2003, Iams shipped 95 bags of “Experimental Dry Pet Food” to the laboratory of Jürgen Zentek located in Vienna, Austria. Zentek holds the Iams chair in Clinical Nutrition at the University of Vienna, and his position is purportedly financed by Iams.

The dogs who are imprisoned in Zentek’s laboratory are kept in dungeon-like rooms inside barren, damp, concrete-and-stainless-steel cells, similar to those that PETA found during its nine-month investigation into an Iams contract facility in the United States. Even worse, whistleblowers tell us that the dogs at this laboratory are regularly kicked, beaten, and cursed at, that they have gone psychotic from severe confinement, and that they have been caged there for six to seven years.

While Iams admits that its “Experimental Dry Pet Food” was fed to some of the dogs confined to Zentek’s facility, it says that it was done without its knowledge by an “investigator … curious about the food’s palatability and fecal quality.” Instead, Iams claims that it shipped the “food product to the University of Vienna in April for an in-home clinical trial where pets would come to the University periodically for treatment of their pre-existing medical conditions.” Our whistleblowers refute this claim.

If Iams truly believes in the humane treatment of animals, it should demand that Jürgen Zentek and the University of Vienna immediately improve conditions for all of the animals within this facility. If they fail to do so (our whistleblowers will let us know), Iams should end its financial support for Zentek and stop working with the University of Vienna. There is no excuse for subsidizing the cruel and barbaric conditions in which animals are confined at the University of Vienna.

Photos

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