Illustrated Guide: How Iams Can Get out of the Doghouse

This Is What PETA Wants

This Is What Some Groups Are Settling for

What’s the Big Deal?

What’s the problem with Iams’ using dogs and cats in laboratory-controlled food testing if it has agreed to do the following:

1. Stop killing the dogs and cats it uses
2. Stop intentionally inducing diseases and injuries in animals
3. Stop using outside contract laboratories (by October 2006), such as the horrendous one that PETA investigated in 2003

Here’s the Big Deal

1. Through its purchase of entire litters of animals from breeders and dealers, Iams fattens the wallets of those who stock pet stores, thus exacerbating the deadly pet overpopulation crisis. Iams also buys "purebred" litters, thus encouraging the breeding of purebreds, despite the fact that such dogs and cats are more prone to suffer health problems. Instead, Iams can and should conduct in-home or collaborative veterinary clinic studies using animals who already require treatment for diseases or specific conditions of interest to the company.
2. By building a new facility, Iams is making an investment that will ensure the continued use of caged and kenneled animals to test its foods. Iams also continues to kill animals other than dogs and cats in unnecessary laboratory experiments.
3. Iams didn’t even know the number and nature of the USDA violations that took place at its 30 or so contract laboratories until PETA gave the company a complete report. Iams either didn’t care what the conditions were like inside its outside labs and/or failed to oversee them adequately. An end to the use of these labs is a good thing indeed. But once Iams brings all its testing in-house, the ability to scrutinize the company’s treatment of animals is greatly diminished.
4. Tests on dog and cat food don’t do a thing to improve animal health as long as commercial companion animal food companies like Iams use diseased, decayed, and discarded animal parts from rendering plants.

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