Is PETA correct in claiming Iams is cruel to animals?

[Karmadillo]

http://iamscruelty.com/iams.asp

<edit>

Despite assurances in the Iams research policy that no animal would ever be killed, our investigator documented the destruction of 27 out of 60 dogs who underwent an invasive procedure that involved having huge chunks of muscle cut out of their legs. Two more of those dogs were found dead in their cages after the surgery; one had been suffering for 11 days prior to her death.

When our investigator reported that Humbug, an Iams dog, was limping, she was told by a vet tech that the laboratory had an x-ray machine that dated back to the 1960s but no film for it and that the director of the laboratory preferred to kill, rather than treat, animals with broken bones. In addition, Fifi and the other dogs used in Iams’ metabolic studies were bled by the laboratory in order to sell their blood to other companies even though the studies do not call for blood draws.

Finally, shortly before our investigator left, the lab director told the vet techs to debark all the Iams dogs as he was being disturbed by their desperate cries for attention. Our investigator e-mailed Iams researchers in Dayton with this information, hoping that Iams would intervene. But all she got was the sickening sight of a lab technician covered in blood after a day of performing the debarking surgery.

When our investigator resigned, she told the Iams representative and the lab director that she was leaving because despite her best efforts, nothing was being done to enhance the desperately boring, lonely, harsh lives of the animals. The Iams representative admitted that both he and the lab director were from the “old school.”

more...