Champion PetFoods has pulled out of the Australian market after the pet food Orijen was linked to the deaths of 6 cats and the paralysis of dozens more.
Australian law requires the Orijen pet food to be irradiated before sold to pet owners and Champion is saying that the irradiation is the cause of the mysterious cat deaths. This may well be the case.
However, there have been no problems with other pet foods after irradiation and all imported food is irradiated before entering the country. I wonder if many humans had to be euthanised after eating irradiated food?
How extraordinary that a pet food should be linked to deaths and paralysis of cats. I’m surprised that a post mortem couldn’t identify the problem. It’s outrageous that the company don’t seem to have come out with an adequate explanation.
It must be heart breaking for the owners of the cats.
I am one of the Australian cat owners affected by irradiated Orijen petfood.
My cat showed signs of limping in mid December and is now fully paralysed since the last week of January. She is starting to show signs of recovery but it is a long slow process and there are no guarantees she can make a full recovery.
Firstly, StaStzjiStgaza, post mortems on affected cats have identified the same demyelination of nerves and brain lesions as found in cats in the studies of the 1990s fed irradiated pet food and developing ataxia and paralysis to which Champion refers in its press releases.
Secondly, Vladimir, there have absolutely been similar problems here in the past with irradiated cat food, as recently as 2007. Of course the pet food company hushed it up and threatened litigation on anyone who spoke out. Irradiation was not the proven cause but even AQIS themselves referred to it. This was a different company and no one likes to mention their name. I will. It was Nutro and their reputation in the USA leaves a lot to be desired also.
Also Vladimir, it is not the case that all pet foods are irradiated upon entry into Australia. Only those which are not sufficiently heat treated to satisfy Quarantine requirements, i.e. boiled into oblivion and with no real natural nutrient content whatsoever. I mean the typically expensive stuff pushed by vets who can no longer rely on the lucrative foot-traffic of annual vaccinators to provide a viable cash-flow and have turned to pet-food pimping having had little or no cat/dog nutrition training and instead rely on the “”education” of these multinational chocolate and shampoo manufacturers. You all know who I AM talking about, so we’re over that HILL.
And Australia does not insist upon irradiation as Peter Muhlenfeld of Champion Petfoods is claiming. It says you have three options if you want to bring your petfood here and it hasn’t been heated sufficiently during production: (1) heat treatment (2) irradiation at a minimum of 50kGy (3) turn it round and ship it back.
Champion Petfoods importer elected to have the food irradiated and signed off on that in order to obtain his import licence from Australian Quarantine. He also signed off on the Authority to Treat. This he did three times, for three shipments. It seems inconceivable that Champion Petfoods, about to make an entry into a new overseas market, were not closely following and supporting their new importer/distributor every step of the way and were aware of all this. It seems inconceivable that they themselves did not fully investigate and understand the requirements of the market they were about to break into. They broke into it all right. The broke in, stole our cats and smashed up our lives.
And they have the gall to think they get to decide how much compensation to pay us and under what terms.