Petition to Require Pet Food Companies to be Held Accountable for Damages
WE, THE UNDERSIGNED:
Request that the U.S. Congress enact legislation to require pet food manufacturers and the companies that market those pet food brands to be held financially liable for any medical costs related to or contributing to the illness and/or death of a pet that can be reasonably attributed to the food consumed by the pet. And that all pet foods include the name of the manufacturer, not just the brand under which it is sold.
This petition is in response to the thousands of pet parents and owners who have suffered under the Menu Foods recall and their slow response that started on March 16th, 2007.
Sign after the jump.
Or read about all the latest news surrounding the recall.
In creating this petition, our motive is three-fold:
- First, we want to ease the pain and suffering of those who have lost their pets due to mistakes and negligence of pet food makers. The loss or illness of a pet can be emotionally devastating. On top of it, the financial burden of uninsured veterinary treatment can be a double-whammy, leading pet parents and their families to significant financial damage — often affecting other family members such as kids and the elderly. This legislation will create a venue for settling these cases fairly and out of court, eliminating the need for a lengthy court case, which companies rely on in order to reduce the likelihood of payout.
- Second, create a financial motive for pet food makers and marketers to set higher standards for pet food. We want to let them know that consumers are interested in higher-grade pet food. And that the longer a company waits in issuing warnings or recalls related to their product, the larger the potential financial damage. This new law would hold the manufacturers (often smaller, less financially sound organizations) and also the larger corporations that market the branded foods — who ultimately control what goes in them.
- Third, a clear public disclosure of who actually makes the food. Since the financial liability falls to the brand as well as the manufacturer, the name of the company that actually produced the food should be obvious to the consumer. How much clearer would this recall have been if the food was labeled “Made by Menu Foods”?
Once the final tally of the pet deaths is complete, the petition will be delivered to the head of the congressional committee that controls FDA funding (Dave Obey, D-WI, chairman of House Appropriations Committee).
IMPORTANT!
For your petition to be valid, we require:
- An accurate email address
- Your First and Last name (In the comment field)
- Your Zip code (In the comment field)
Your email will not appear below and will be kept securely by us. Your email will be used ONLY in the purposes of carrying out the petition. It will not be used for spam, sold or marketed to any other company. We hate spam as much as you do. Only your name, Zip code, and any comment you make will appear.
This petition is sponsored by itchmo.com. Please feel free to start your own email campaign to this page. The short link to use is http://www.itchmo.com/petition
March 22nd, 2007 at 6:11 am
Judy Nemec 44212
March 22nd, 2007 at 6:23 am
Michelle Perry 60660
March 22nd, 2007 at 6:24 am
Travis Eaton
03447
March 22nd, 2007 at 6:34 am
Kelly Angle
91709
March 22nd, 2007 at 6:34 am
07727 Janice Frostick
It would appear that the same safety and hygienic measures used
for products for human consumption are not used for products for
pet consumption. Delay in recall seems to have cost many pet
owners the lives of their pets.
March 22nd, 2007 at 6:52 am
66062 Janet Septer
March 22nd, 2007 at 6:54 am
46254 lela Sites
March 22nd, 2007 at 7:07 am
53228 Patrice Beauchene
March 22nd, 2007 at 7:08 am
53228 Victoria Sadler
March 22nd, 2007 at 7:09 am
53228 Marie Custer
March 22nd, 2007 at 7:12 am
03908
Lucinda Nadeau
March 22nd, 2007 at 7:59 am
11231
Andrea D. Ploscowe
March 22nd, 2007 at 9:35 am
Cheri Greene 76245
March 22nd, 2007 at 9:37 am
20906
chusakaandme
March 22nd, 2007 at 9:48 am
06033
Christopher Sincock
March 22nd, 2007 at 9:54 am
80123
March 22nd, 2007 at 10:08 am
This is just so scarey!! Thankfully my dog food wasn’t on the list! But I’ve switched those that can to dry. I have seven furbabies!
March 22nd, 2007 at 10:09 am
39470
March 22nd, 2007 at 10:16 am
Sue Gosnell
30316
March 22nd, 2007 at 10:26 am
Lisa Clay
07456
March 22nd, 2007 at 10:29 am
Landon Ahtes
30309
March 22nd, 2007 at 10:32 am
01581
MB. Wulf
This cavalier treatment of pets and the people who love them dearly has got to stop. Selling spoiled eggs, carcinogens, and the ground-up bodies of euthanized pets in pet food has got to stop. Delayed recalls in the event of food quality/safety issues has got to stop. Non-disclosure of the names of brokers to whom suspect ingredients are traced has got to stop. Higher standards! Accountability! Transparency! Enforceability! All these things have got TO START.
March 22nd, 2007 at 10:43 am
Susan Murphy 04609
March 22nd, 2007 at 10:48 am
Carol Sundell 48187. I agree food companies should be held accountable for the deaths of pets from their food. I feel so sorry for all those people that had to spend money out on vet bills and some that have lost pets my heart goes out to you. I used to feed nutro to my Dals and found them in serious problems one day with kidney failure about 4 years ago. Gosh the vet bills alone were really high. I know they claim it wasn’t going on back then, but you wonder. I lost them both one to heart failure and one to kidney failure before their time. I now feed my dogs kumpi food and I’m very happy with the turn around in them. I too searched for various safe foods and found it hard to find a company that didn’t have a recall. I did for a period of time cook my dogs own food. Finally a canine officer and trainer turned me onto the food for my dogs when he saw all the different brands I tried that the collie wouldn’t eat or the Dalmatian. Both are service dogs and I’m very pleased with the food and their coat has a natural shine without a lot of grooming. Thanks for a wonderful product. You have convenienced me to stay with with the products just by the changes in my new pair of canines.
March 22nd, 2007 at 11:01 am
Linda Alberda 44143
March 22nd, 2007 at 11:09 am
Avery Watts 96652
Frankly - CATS don’t need cooked slop from a can - they need fresh raw meat. Preferably rodent or bird.
Put THAT in a can and I might buy it.
March 22nd, 2007 at 11:15 am
30038 Shelice Smith
March 22nd, 2007 at 11:37 am
Kate Simmer 19139
My cats are my best friends, every day I’m astounded with the unconditional love they give me, and to think that these companies sold me food that could have killed them makes me sick. I’ve known for awhile that pet food companies have only their pocketbooks in mind at the expense of our pets’ health, but this is the last straw. They’ve lost me as a customer forever. I’m going RAW. And if my cats get sick from having eaten their stinking food, count me in on every lawsuit there is. They messed with the wrong pet owner.
March 22nd, 2007 at 11:40 am
Georg Hawks 13760
Please hold these capitalist bastards accountable.
March 22nd, 2007 at 11:41 am
My heart goes out to all the pets and pet parents… those responsible need to be held accountable for expense, loss and grief caused.
March 22nd, 2007 at 11:43 am
karen velasquez 80465
March 22nd, 2007 at 11:53 am
28387
Jeanne Zimmerman
This is beyond negligence ~ it’s murder. Menu Foods knew their foods were toxic and continued to sell them anyway. We need to hit their bottom line hard ~ class action suits and boycotting their products
forever.
March 22nd, 2007 at 12:10 pm
Sally Pfitzer; 95726
Pet Food manufacturers should be held accountable for the safety of their products. We buy those products believing in the promises they make of health and happiness.
March 22nd, 2007 at 12:19 pm
Kerri Kuczma, 98107
This just makes me sadder every time I hear about more lost pets… Something needs to be done.
March 22nd, 2007 at 12:42 pm
Maxine Hayden, 90405
March 22nd, 2007 at 12:58 pm
BJ Thurman
29527
March 22nd, 2007 at 1:03 pm
45410 Michele Thrash
March 22nd, 2007 at 1:03 pm
Teresa Concannon
March 22nd, 2007 at 1:04 pm
08002
Teresa Concannon
March 22nd, 2007 at 1:12 pm
Lisa Winant, 98103.
March 22nd, 2007 at 1:17 pm
48843
Kym Goemaere
March 22nd, 2007 at 1:19 pm
43154
Susan DeLong
March 22nd, 2007 at 1:23 pm
48843
Kym Goemaere
1 Female Cat - Baby - Domestic Shorthair - 2 yrs old
Excellent health until week of 1/28/07
Fed IAMS Select Bites her whole life - have pkgs that match recall batch
diagnosed with acute renal failure
currently undergoing treatment for acute renal failure
currently SUBQ fluids every third day
blood work done every other week
special prescribed food - Royal Canin modified formula (wet & dry)
March 22nd, 2007 at 1:36 pm
85603
Dawn Turner
I’m not a litigious individual, and I don’t believe in frivolous lawsuits. But in cases like this where so many pets and pet owners have been harmed, and there was a delay in the time of the recall from when the company knew there was a problem, there is clearly a need for these companies to be held accountable.
March 22nd, 2007 at 1:36 pm
89131 Andrea Gonzalez
visit kumpi.com…we should have the right to know exactly what we are feeding our animals. what exactly are the fillers? we pay a lot of money for the more expensive brands of food for our animals…they are supposed to be of a higher quality and have a higher standard for quality control.
March 22nd, 2007 at 1:43 pm
Helen Oglesby 35222
March 22nd, 2007 at 1:43 pm
Shannon White 10028
My perfectly healthy 7 year old cat died on 3/10/07. I caught her eating my dogs Nutro Natural Choice dry dog food the day before. As a result, I took my other cat and dog to the vet to make sure they were ok. Got the blood tests back today - cat is healthy, dog has an increased enzyme count in his kidneys. Is it a coincidence, or is there more to this story? I’m extremely concerned this isn’t limited to the wet food.
March 22nd, 2007 at 1:55 pm
10011 Karen Leiding
March 22nd, 2007 at 2:12 pm
35210 April Anderson
March 22nd, 2007 at 2:18 pm
Becky Fox 16415