Pookie
People don't know about this. And that's just scratching the surface. A search will yield endless hits for each major company.
I have permission from my friend to share this, from a Veterinary Publication (several of her letters have been published; glad she included the next letter from a veterinarian!):
CRITICISM OF VETS' BLIND FAITH IN PET FOOD
Dear editor,
I wonder if I might be allowed to reply to Martin Atkinson’s protestations
in his letter “Where were all the other pet food letters?” (August
11 issue), in which he has criticised myself and Roger Meacock.
In his letter, Mr Atkinson says “more pets are going to die from
malnutrition” than from manufactured pet food.
Upon checking Mr Atkinson’s website, I see he sells at least six different kinds of pet food
and clearly this is why he is defending it. No vet should be allowed to
sell pet food and Trading Standards, which is responsible for the new
consumer law that came into force in May, is currently conducting a
review.
The excellent new book by Michael Fox, Elizabeth Hodgkins
and Marion Smart entitled Not Fit for a Dog! The Truth About Manufactured
Pet Food is a book all vets and veterinary students should read
to educate them about the illnesses pet food is causing – in fact, in
the foreword, Richard Allport says he would like to lock them away
in a room until they had done so.
If Mr Atkinson would like to look at the website of Dr Fox at
http://tedeboy.tripod.com/drmichaelwfox/id88.html (404 error) he will see
details of at least 70 veterinary research papers that show that pet
food is causing cancer, kidney failure, diabetes, dilated cardiomyopathy,
hyperthyroidism, struvite crystals, calcium oxalate stones,
cystitis, IBD, dermatological problems, etc.
Mr Atkinson also wrongly says that more pets will die from “poorly stored and prepared raw
meaty bones than ever will from the one bag in a billion of contaminated
dog or cat food”. This is completely wrong; may I refer Mr
Atkinson to the website of Cornell University’s veterinary school,
which, under the heading “Dogs keep dying: too many owners
still unaware of toxic dog food”, explains that dry pet food is quite
literally capable of killing dogs (
www.news.cornell.edu/stories/Jan06/dogs.dying.ssl.html). In America last year, Banfield Veterinary
Clinic estimated that 39,000 cats and dogs had either become ill or
died as a direct result of eating pet food.
Many vets have blind faith in pet food because they sell it and make
a profit, both from the sale of it and from the illness it eventually
causes. I am hoping Trading Standards will ban vets from selling pet
food once its investigation is complete, since, in my view, it is a conflict
of interest for them to sell it.
Finally, I would like to say that pets fed pet
food do have malnutrition, because no pet food contains anything like
the level of nutrients pets need and the result is all kinds of illness.
Yours faithfully,
==
Why do we continue to
promote pet food?
Dear editor,
For more than 20 years I’ve been reading veterinary reports of ridiculously
high percentages of pets with dental disease. My own little Jack
Russell cross is now 18. She has suffered repeated anaesthesia and
dental extractions during a lifetime of dry food. In the past few years,
I have opened my eyes to the raw food argument.
My two young Jack Russell crosses are now aged two and four. They have been on
a raw food diet for the past year. Their early plaque has disappeared
and their health shows no sign of deteriorating.
Why do we continue to stock, and thereby promote, food
that leads to such a high percentage of pets suffering recurring
periodontal disease (up to 80 per cent)? Isn’t that just the complete
opposite to what we are trying to achieve? Could raw food
cause such a high percentage of disease?
Yours faithfully,
===MVB, MRCVS,
Here is a letter to Veterinarians by three Veterinarians: http://petfood-bad.blogspot.com
Wednesday, May 2, 2007
Pet Food & Nutrition: A Necessary Review For Veterinarians
M.E. Smart, C. Haggart, J.A. Mills
Introduction
This paper reviews the current status of the pet food industry from a veterinarian's perspective. Summaries of market features, regulation and non-regulation are presented. In addition to a review of the industry, we also discuss the value of information currently provided to veterinarians and their clients, and some of its consequences.
1. Introduction
Two diametrically opposed views exist today on how capable or knowledgeable a veterinarian is in providing their clients with nutritional advice:
The first is commonly held by the pet food industry, government regulators, the veterinary professionals who work for them, and passively by most veterinarians. This predominant view is that because of the pet food industry's commitment to pet health and nutrition, it is providing the public and veterinary profession with regulatory standards, diets, and nutritional information based on the latest research and best knowledge available. Accepting this, the veterinary profession endorses their products without question.
The second view is supported by some veterinarians and a rising number of pet owners and small pet food producers. This view maintains that the pet food industry has wooed the veterinary profession through sponsorship, allowing this industry to frame the discussion on nutrition while gaining credibility from the profession as an unbiased provider of nutritional education....
The purpose of this review is to give veterinarians a clearer picture of the complex environment surrounding these issues. We do not intend to lay blame, but to bring to light assumptions and compromises that have been made and to stimulate a higher level of understanding and discussion.
Prevention is considered across disciplines to be the best kind of medicine, and diet is one of the most significant ways that a pet owner can ensure the health of their pets. Veterinarians must provide detailed and scientifically proven dietary advice. To accomplish this, veterinarians must understand both the current scientific, commercial, and regulatory environment surrounding nutritional claims. Armed with this information, practicing companion animal veterinarians will be able to give better advice to their clients and research veterinarians may be able to better identify the numerous gaps in our current knowledge and discern how we can move forward.
Professor Smart co-Authored "Not Fit For a Dog" with Hodgkins & Fox