Cat deaths linked to Orijen

[kaffe]

Thank you Jo for aking the time to apraise us and update us here of the situation with your darling raggies and to warn us of the dangers of irradiated foods.  I lived in Aus for many years so this tragedy that has hit so many Aussie cats hits home is a very intimate way.  It breaks my heart whenever I see the videos portraying the wobbly iktties... such magnificent creatures ruined by food made  toxic by governement legislation and a weak-minded Origen.

So you know that Clark Stride has been covering for Origen here among US audiences? Of course, he was on damage control.  It must have been maddening to you in Aus reading his posts in Itchmo.  I tried to give Origen the benefit of the doubt that they did not know their food was going to be irradiated, but as further information became available, that was clearly not the case - they knew that their biscuits will be irradiated and knew at what level!  Please keep us posted on developments there and I do hope more affected Aussies will come forward with their and their cats' stories.  People NEED to know about this!

Jo - I will be praying for your kitties: Aub, Uly, Evie, Hali, Quoi and Rob - that they all make a complete recovery.  I cannot imagine what you and your family must be going through nursing and caring for these affected darlings... truly, my heart goes out to you.

[kaffe]

Oh!  I have been meaning to ask, Jo:  Do you or any of the other pet parents of the affected cats have any kind of therapeutic regimen for strengthening the back legs and limbs of the affected cats?  Also, do you know if Origen would possibly "up" their measly $1400 financial "aid"?  And is that in Aus dollars or US dollars?  Sorry - so many questions....

[raggiesrule]

Most of us are doing what we can at home = physio, swimming,assisting with walking etc plus going to the vet to get accupuncture, chiro etc. My cats are all being treated by a holistic vet as conventional medicines seem to cause a huge reaction in the affected cats. So they are also getting treated with chinese herbs, antioxidants, homeopathics and flower remedies. Unfortunately our heat wave is also causing problems as the affected cats are unable to regulate their body temperatures.

Who knows what Champion will do - I think that depends more on how their Nth American market reacts than anything Australian pet owners do. They have offered up to AUD$2000/cat (conditions apply), which roughly equates to the US$1400 people are talking about, and as every one has said goes only a very small way towards meeting the costs incurred by affected cats' carers.

The other issue of course is that Orijen wants this all settled by May - nice for them but this is not going to go away anytime soon for affected cat owners.

[The Cats Mother]

Someone on one of the Australian forums asked how the Orijen fund works.

In a nutshell, the Orijen "Compassion" fund doesn't work.

The $2000 (Canadian $1623) originally was for vet-related expenses. Consults, prescribed meds etc. As many of us know, there's not a huge amount a standard conventional vet can do, nor standard conventional medication. So after one of our affected-cat owners approached them with a list of things we cat-carers are having to buy to properly take care of our cats that their lack of oversight and control of their importer and their product caused, they took time out from their busy self-promotion in their major markets (i.e.North America) to have a meeting about this so called "compassion" fund for the market that only ever represented a quarter of a percent of their revenue and which they have now exited.

Even the name of this fund I find insulting. I and my cat are not a charity case, nor I believe are any of us, we are injured parties and the correct title should be "COMPENSATION" fund.

Anyway at this meeting they reached the condescending conclusion to allow $100 for ancillaries (incontinence pads, confining pen/cage etc for which they gave an example of $40 - joke, cheapest pen is around $60 and a decent sized cage is $125 approx) and $100 for over the counter supplements like fish oil, antioxidants etc. This allowance of $200 is included in the maximum payout of $2000, effectively reducing the allowance for vet-related expenses to $1800.

My expenses so far with supplements, incontinence sheets, a cage for when I am out or asleep, vet visits, together with weekly acupuncture, a recent homoeopathic telephone consult with a renowned WA animal homoeopath/herbalist and the remedies she has prescribed will bring me to about $1500 already and I am only 7 weeks into this nightmare.

(All values quoted are Australian Dollars)

About time these people came down from their lofty perches onto this planet and started talking proper compensation as a lump sum to be spent as the owner deems fit for their own individual cat's circumstances.

And certainly in terms of purchasing power of the Sydney Australian dollar these people are way out of touch with reality, coming as they do from some hokey little town in the middle of the Canadian prairies where the purchasing power of their own dollar is so much higher. A quick google search showed me the cost of equivalent housing in the Edmonton area - town house C$343000 - equivalent in Sydney depending on area A$500-700,000 and the last report on the worlds most expensive cities to live in put Sydney about 15th just 3 or 4 places behind New York and the Canadian cities were way down in the 80th places.


How DARE these people, who are guilty of commercial negligence in the extreme, not only in their failure to carry out due diligence prior to launching their product in a new market, but also negligence both of their product once it hit our shores and of their importer who it would seem was left to his own devices and decisions and with whom they should have had a much closer correspondence and relationship, take the approach that it is THEIR decision as to how compensatory funds should be spent?

The time for them to be taking control and decisions was a year ago when they first began exporting to this country.

As usual they are late.

In the same way that they were late doing the analysis of their food after irradiation and late to research and report on the study that shows irradiated food can cause paralysis in cats yet post it triumphantly in their announcements on their website (presumably after some Australian vets had drawn their attention to it) as though they were the first to discover it.

Disgusted doesn't come close.

Angry doesn't come close.

Determined to get the message out there and force them either morally or legally to pay proper recompense - that hits the nail right on the head.



.

[Bonkers]

  A big welcome and a hug to both you and your kittie. This whole thing with Champion just makes me sick. IMO this is just as bad as the recalls of 2007 as this company was just plain negligent in their haste to sell their product overseas. I do not understand how they find that the amount of $2000 is even close to the amount of money that will be required to care for these poor kitties. And you are right, the use of the title "compassion fund" is only used to make Champion appear sympathetic to Australians and others. I could think of some other words to call their fund...............

[The Cats Mother]

  A big welcome and a hug to both you and your kittie. This whole thing with Champion just makes me sick. IMO this is just as bad as the recalls of last year as this company was just plain negligent in their rush to sell their product overseas. I do not understand how they find that the amount of $2000 is even close to the amount of money that will be required to care for these poor kitties. And you are right, the use of the title "compassion fund" is only used to make Champion appear sympathetic to the Australians and others. I could think of some other terms that might of been used...............

Thanks for the welcome.

And yes they started out discussions prior to the official announcement with the term Empathy Fund - which of course sounds too much like Apathy Fund so they changed it. Of course the title is a huge PR exercise/publicity stunt.

Worse still, it expires at the end of May. I think they are hoping that given the time it takes to get legal action off the ground people will rush to claim what they can at the last minute thinking that a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. The dreadful thing is that there are STILL cats coming through just starting to show symptoms. Given that some cats have now been affected for 6-8 months - 8 months being the total time it took for one pair of cats to regain mobility - these people will be only 3 months into it before the fund expires.

They have grandly said they will reconsider at the end of February and make an announcement on March 10 (I believe - open to correction here)
holding us all in limbo like a bunch of kids being told to wait and see what Santa brings them, only adding further insult to injury.

They were worried about Mad Cow in their food a few years back.

It's this "mad cow" they need to be worried about now.

Years ago I remember someone telling me, don't get mad, get even.

Well we are starting to hit the Australian media here now with our stories.

What I would like please is for some of you to PM me with the names of Canadian and North American media outlets, radio, newspapers for me to contact.

I am very active in Australia having already lodged a formal "Government on Notice" document with the relevant ministers and government departments, Australian Quarantine and Biosecurity Australia, copied to several media outlets and around 60 relevant advocacy and activist groups and did a radio interview on Friday afternoon.

With my team of supporters from the affected cat owners group I am taking on the government and I have run out of patience with the manufacturer and it's their turn now.

I have abundant energy and determination in spite of nursing duties for my fully paralysed incontinent cat so please PM me folks and help me get this underway.

Thank you

[Perseus]

The Cats Mother, so glad you found your way here.  You are truly an inspiration to all of the affected pet parents with your determination and grit, as well as being one of the most outstanding researchers I've ever met.

As far as the number of affected cats being around 60, that's just the number than can be accounted for.  There are most likely dozens and dozens (or even hundreds) of others as there were thousands of pounds of Orijen cat food irradiated and sold in Australia.  There was even a greater amount of the dog food sold, which cats can easily get into and eat and Orijen to this very day has not done an official recall on the dog food.  It seems like every couple of weeks we learn of newly affected kitties, showing symptoms for the first time, which is months after they ate the food.

Orijen says it only sold 6 pallets of cat food in Australia, so about 9000 lbs., but Champion PetFoods has never produced any documentation showing how much total food was shipped and how they arrived at the 6 pallets.  All of the pertinent questions have been ignored by them to cover up how truly wide spread this tragedy is.  Of course all to save face with their U.S. market.

It's similar to our pet food recall of '07, when the press and government here were reporting 3000, 4000, even up to 14,000 affected pets when in reality it was somewhere between 100,000 and 250,000 sick or dead.  Same shit, different place.

[kaffe]

A BIG Welcome to you, CatsMother and alhough I am truly saddened and angered by the initial reason that broguht you here, I do appreciate your caliber-pet-parent that will FIGHT for our pets. 

I was about to ask if any of the affected pet-parents in Australia were considering legal action against the parties that CAUSED this tragedy:  the Australian government; the importer; and Origen.  You just answered by question. The pursuit of justice for pets is always a looooong and sometimes frustrating road bec you will be dealing with characters that think pets are property with a price tag.  So, GRIT and DETERMINATION is necessary to break through and You will break throughand win justice for yourselves and for you beloved furkids.  And when you win, WE and our pets win too, becuase it will be one more precedent that puts a nail into the coffin of the idea that our pets are disposable property.  So, be assured that MANY of us here in Norht America will be watching what transpires in Australia.

I am not very savvy with media... but, gee... I am going to learn now anddo some research, if that's what you need from us... 

If there is a really GOOD researcher reading this... please get involved in this fight!

[The Cats Mother]

You don't need to be "good at research"

Just start with where you are.

Just tell me your city.

Tell me your top 3 most widely read newspapers

and your top 3 news/talkback stations

No trashy ones please

Thank you

[Perseus]

The Cats Mother, here's a list of most of the major U.S. news agencies, including emails, phones, faxes, etc. available in Excel format.  Let me know if you want it and I can get it downloaded for you:

http://www.easymedialist.com/usa/nationalnews.html

[kaffe]

Oh - that's simple!

OK.

City:  Los Angeles, CA

Top 2 newspapers (I think):

LA Times
LA Daily News

Here in my local area of West Covina, there is the San Gabriel Valley Newspaper Group

[kaffe]

How about pet-issues BLOGGERs?

[kaffe]

I am very active in Australia having already lodged a formal "Government on Notice" document with the relevant ministers and government departments, Australian Quarantine and Biosecurity Australia, copied to several media outlets and around 60 relevant advocacy and activist groups and did a radio interview on Friday afternoon.

With my team of supporters from the affected cat owners group I am taking on the government and I have run out of patience with the manufacturer and it's their turn now.



[/quote]

Good on ya, The Cats Mother!  I (and I am sure many of us here) would really love to read a transcript of that interview you had with the Aus radio.

How can we best keep abreast of how all this is playing out in Sydney and other Aus cites?  Do you have a class action law suit going?

[The Cats Mother]

I'm not going to comment publicly on what I am doing with regard to the legal situation. Those who need to know because they are assisting me or are joining me, know. Sorry no offence meant I appreciate your support and interest.

With regard to the radio interview it is an online radio station called Radio Out There by Barry Eaton. When the interview is up online I can let you know.

If the editor of Nexus Magazine, Duncan Roads, chooses to feature my campaign Barry might do another interview for Radio Nexus which he also hosts.

Meanwhile if you want to check out Barry's station and have a listen to the current programme and some archives here is a link to his site:

http://www.radiooutthere.com/blog/

Worth checking out Nexus magazine as well - it is published in hard copy in several countries

www.nexusmagazine.com

And the online radio:

http://radionexus.com.au/blog/



Cheers

TCM

[The Cats Mother]

Thank you Kaffe I'll google up those newspapers and find their email addresses.

What about some LA news radio stations as well please? Maybe three.


I have already hit the Edmonton newspapers and radio stations 

Thank you Perseus wasn't he one of the Greek Gods? 
That is a very kind offer. And I think that list is a good start for me to google up some sites and hit the email addresses. I wouldn't go spending $30 to download the whole lot because many of them just wouldn't be interested - 15 dead Australian cats just isn't headline news material. Corporate negligence is but it has to be a high profile American company to be headline material I think.

I'm looking at say one or two major national newspapers/radio stations and for the major part fairly local papers/stations that are looking for something topical for the local public interest news bulletins. Unfortunately this doesn't rate much alongside Obama's rescue package, the millions out of work, the Israelis/Palestinians in Gaza need I go on.

This huge commitment of effort and time from me and a small band of others needs to be really well focussed on what will produce the quickest results because whilst we we have determination and drive we don't have much spare time and time is running out.

I like the idea about pet bloggers can someone send me some links please? Blogging is something I'm not really into so I need some help here please.

Thank you all for caring so much.

TCM