Cat deaths linked to Orijen

[Bonkers]

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.

Another excellent blogger is Susan Thixton who can be found at www.truthaboutpetfood.com. 

[The Cats Mother]

Thanks I'll get over there later today!

[TAZ]

The beyond-believable has just occurred.

In the midst of Australia's worst natural disaster, Champion Pet Foods has undertaken to impose an early deadline for applications to its (Lack of) Compassion Fund.

An email from (a very ignorant) sub-contractor of Champion has been received by several of Australia's Orijen victims. One of the victims provided this copy on the group's support forum:

We have been advised that you notified the manufacturer that your cat may have or did suffer some ill effect which you say is a consequence of consumption of Orijen brand cat food.

This is to advise that should you wish to be considered for an ex gratia payment of compensation under the Orijen Compassion Fund you should complete the attached form and lodge it with us no later than 28 February 2009.

Should you have any questions in relation to this matter, please do not hesitate to contact us. In the meantime, we can confirm that payments under the fund have already commenced.

Kind regards

This new deadline, despite the following statement in Champion's December 20 "Update":

All eligible families are encouraged to apply for medical cost reimbursement under the ORIJEN COMPASSION FUND, with submissions to accepted up until May 31, 2009.

One of the affected cats' owners has posted the following

Now I am really stressed.

(my cat) is not improved. Our wonderful and compassionate vet lost her husband, home and all her beloved animals in the bushfires on Saturday which is heartbreaking. ...Do I need to have (my cat) diagnosed within the next week?!

If I have to find another vet, it will take time. It will take time for that vet to learn about the orijen syndrome. If that vet wants to run any other tests before making a diagnosis, the results will take forever with the system overloaded with injured animals from the bushfires. Let alone the fact that so many local vets are working in the field, operating on injured animals.

How can it be that we're out of time already!

The devastation and suffering that Australians are experiencing is truly, beyond description. How, on earth, can this oh-so-proper Canadian company wreak such emotional havoc on an already devastated group of pet parents?? Beyond belief.....beyond words.

[kaffe]

The "Compasionate Fund" appears not to be compassionate at all.  I agree that this new deadline is insensitive, cruel and reniggs on what they've said IN PRINT on their website. 

I really hope many many pet people here in the US, Europe, Canada get to know this story and boycott Champion Foods.

[The Cats Mother]

Post, cross-post, blog, cross-blog, call your local radio news station, call your local paper. ---- National and big news companies ? - probably not this will get lost in Obama-drama and Gaza-disaster.

Go on you lot.

Support us by getting off here and getting really active out there.

No use preaching to the converted on here.

It takes effort, drive and real anger to be a real activist.

Go for your lives, because ours are ruined and as for those of our cats...well we really just don't know.

Please help us. The only way to get through to mean and tricky people like this is through their hip pockets.

They are acting like they are compassionate and their hearts are in the right place. Well their brains are someplace else - right in their hip pockets - probably because they have their heads stuck up that place where the sun doesn't shine.


.

[kaffe]

TAZ and The Cat Mom:  Have I permission to cross-post (your info posts) to all 25 of my Yahoo feline health/food groups?    This will take all day!  Gotta bring this to Mike at DefendOurPets and also to PetConnection, Catster...  am going to be busy, busy, busy

[Bonkers]

   I do not see how this new deadline can be imposed. The deadline date of May 31 2009 has already been publically posted. If I were she/he, I would inform this "very ignorant sub-contractor of Champion" that the deadline date is incorrect and tell them they need to get their facts straight. Just another example of how uncaring and inept they are in handling this tragic situation.   

[The Cats Mother]

Kaffe: The Cats Mother gives permission to cross post all factual content of her posts and opinions also unless the site to which you are cross posting is very sensitive about legal issues or naming names. We had a site in Australia that was very sensitive in this way and kept deleting, warning, locking threads etc and eventually we all left and formed our own forum.

Please do not give offence to any nice people that will host our main message for us. Be discreet with what you post because I don't mince my words and sail close to the line, deliberately because provocation is the only thing that will bring them out of their hidey holes, but I don't want this getting you banned from sites or the subject banned. That does us no good at all.

Thank you for taking all this time and effort.

Bonkers: It's in hand don't worry. We have a claims expert among us who is dealing with the issue for us, kind soul that she is.

Thanks all have a good day rooting for us I am going to bed now.

(BTW "rooting" has an entirely different connotation down-under, into which I shall not go, got me into strife a few times when I first moved here  )

[GreyGhost]

This comes as no surprise. i have learned many things about orijen over the past year and must say none of it has been good. Its absolutely insulting to try to move the deadline up 3 months. I hope something can done.

[Perseus]

TAZ and The Cat Mom:  Have I permission to cross-post (your info posts) to all 25 of my Yahoo feline health/food groups?    This will take all day!  Gotta bring this to Mike at DefendOurPets and also to PetConnection, Catster...  am going to be busy, busy, busy

This is really very considerate and supportive of you Kaffe, and I'm sure all the affected pet parents are tremendously grateful.

[Bonkers]

  What a beautiful girl. This is all so sad.........

[raggiesrule]

Pretty bloody compassionate of them when we are in the middle of a major disaster - even those of us not affected by fires still have to deal with the death of friends and families and we still don't even know whether they are safe or not in some cases. One of the vets who has been dealing with affected cats has lost her husband and all her own animals to the flames. What the hell are these people thinking. Yet again Orijen seem to think its OK to palm off responsibility to a third party when it comes to Australian cats that are affected by their total lack of due diligence and totally inadequate labelling.
 
I did not receive one of these emails and have been dealing with a major medical crisis with my disabled husband so have only just heard about this so have emailed Orijen to ask what is going on!!!!!
 
I am so disgusted with them I can not begin to describe how this has made me feel. Firstly they kill and disable our cats/then they offer a pathetic amount that goes not where near covering actual costs and have the gall to call it a compassion fund when it should be a compensation fund/and then with no notice they shorten up the date on this fund by three month and send very abrupt/rude emails to people who are only in this situation due to Orijen's commercial decisions! And I note this does not appear on the Champion website as they no doubt don't want their Nth American consumers knowing about their heartless actions.

Jo

[kaffe]

Raggiesrule: you have every right to be outraged.  It looks like Orijen may be taking advantage of the present bush fire crises in Australia to even shorten the duration of their "compassionate fund" - you know, while the public's attention is elsewhere.  They want to end their responsibility as quickly as possible.  By rights, they should be covering and compensating for the costs of caring for the affected cats for as long as said cats are sick.

[kaffe]

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.

Raggiesrule:  I was wondering is any of you with the affected cats or their vets have tried using Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy?  It has been used successfully to treat Myelitis - a rare complication of therapeutic radiation exposure to the spinal cord and is characterized by delayed development of paresthesias, sensory changes and, in severe cases, progressive paresis and paralysis.

To read about Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy, see

http://www.drcranton.com/hbo/conditions_treated.htm

To read about Myelitis (which seems to be very similar to what the affected cats are suffering), see

http://www.nature.com/bmt/journal/v26/n12/full/1702705a.html

Excerpt:

"Myelitis is a rare but well documented complication of therapeutic radiation exposure to the spinal cord and is characterized by delayed development of paresthesias, sensory changes and, in severe cases, progressive paresis and paralysis. Although accepted radiation tolerance limits for the spinal cord have successfully limited the incidence of this problem (45-50 Gy, in daily 1.8-2 Gy fractions), aggressive systemic therapy may render patients more susceptible to radiation-related neurotoxicity. We describe the case of a 38-year-old man with refractory non-Hodgkin's lymphoma who underwent matched sibling peripheral blood stem cell transplant following a conditioning regimen of cyclophosphamide (60 mg/kg ´ 2) and total body irradiation (120 cGy ´ 11). This was followed by delivery of 30.6 Gy involved-field radiation at 1.8 Gy/day to the mediastinum and left supraclavicular fossa for bulky residual tumor. Although maximum cumulative radiation dose to the spinal cord was less than 45 Gy, the patient subsequently developed progressive lower extremity weakness and MRI abnormalities of the spinal cord limited to the radiation field. This represents the second report in the literature of this unexpected complication, prompting a need to re-examine current guidelines for radiotherapy in the context of high-dose systemic treatment. Bone Marrow Transplantation (2000) 26, 1355-1359."

I don't imagine that this is a very expensive therapy becuase this is the exact therapy they use for the Bends (diving) and smoke inhalation. 

I think it's worth a shot!

[GreyGhost]

I found this link. Very good info on Hyperbaric Oxygen therapy:
http://www.vet.utk.edu/departments/LACS/hbot.php