Valletta: Animal Groups Join Forces To Mourn Iams’ Canine Victims At Dog ‘Graveyard’

Protests Across Europe Mark World Week for Animals in Laboratories

For Immediate Release:
22 April 2005

Contact:
Yvonne Taylor +44 (0)20 7357 9229, ext. 405
Dawn Carr +44 (0)20 7357 9229, ext. 224

Valletta – Dressed in black and circling a miniature dog “graveyard” with signs that read, “Iams Tortures Animals”, PETA will join forces with the Animal Rights Malta, World Animal Conscience, Moviment Graffitti, Hakuna Matata Malta and the Association for Abandoned Animals, to protest harmful and sometimes fatal experiments on animals by the pet-food company Iams. A PETA US undercover investigation revealed animals being kept in deplorable conditions at an Iams contract laboratory. In just one experiment, 27 dogs were killed while others died of illnesses that went untreated, despite assurances from Iams that no animal in any Iams test would ever be deliberately killed:

Date:  Saturday, 23 April
Time:  12 – 1 p.m.
Place:  City Gate, Valletta

The investigator also found cats and dogs confined to small, barren cages, some for up to six years; dogs who were silenced by having their vocal cords cut out; workers’ reports of a live kitten who had been washed down a drain and dogs force-fed vegetable oil through tubes inserted down their throats.

Iams still brazenly conducts laboratory experiments on animals in the US for dog and cat foods that it sells in Europe – despite the fact that these tests are not necessary or required by any law. Just last month, PETA US exposed an Iams-funded experiment that involved inducing gingivitis – a painful gum disease – in 21 beagles by cutting and suturing their gums.

Feeling intense pressure from consumers over its use of contract laboratories to test its dog and cat foods, Iams has announced that it will pull out of all contract and university facilities by October 2006 but that it will double the size of its own laboratory in Dayton, Ohio, in the US, where it can experiment on animals behind locked doors.

Protests are also taking place in Denmark, France, Switzerland, Britain, the Czech Republic and the Netherlands to mark World Week for Animals in Laboratories (18-24 April).

“Many people buy Iams products because they care about their own animal companions, never dreaming that their purchases help fund the abuse of innocent dogs and cats in laboratories”, says PETA Director Dawn Carr. “If people knew about the misery that goes into Iams food, they’d leave it on the shelf.”

Broadcast-quality footage of animals in an Iams contract laboratory is available. For more information, please visit IamsCruelty.com.

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