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Vets on the ground get no special treatment in pet food recall (March 20, 2007)

Comments

Are you implying that people will fraudulently claim their pets were harmed by the food and file to get play money? I really doubt that people affected by this are happily and frivolously dreaming of IPODS and LCD screens.

And I think anyone with evidence that their pet even ATE this food at ALL regardless of damage should qualify. They all were endangered, everyone worried, everyone ran their pets in for tests, etc. (I was fortunate not to be feeding any affected brands).

This is what they should do -- cover everything . It's all futile though unless they change how they do things to make sure it doesn't happen again.

# Posted By Stefani | 5/26/08 1:31 PM

Stefani: Agreed. And no (sorry!), I didn't mean to imply that anyone could make a claim. Though that's a fun twist I hadn't considered.

To be honest (and to make my POV plain), I was just making the extra-snarky point that $900 doesn't get you ANYWHERE. It's an abomination that after the legal fees get paid (what, 50% for this kind of class action lawsuit?) I seriously doubt that even $900 will land in the most deserving of pockets.

$24 Million is a DROP in the bucket. Though Menu Foods brought this settlement to the fore (for obvious reasons) there are some HUGE heavy-hitters out there also named as defendants (P&G, Mars, Nestle...). They can afford to shell out more than just a fraction of the compensatory damages. They need to be forced to pay something significant in PUNITIVE damages.

Do I hear $124 MM in compensatory, double that in punitive? That would be about right.

# Posted By Dr. Patty Khuly | 5/26/08 2:00 PM

My Krista used to eat those Nutro packets almost every day. It's only by the grace of God she didn't get sick, especially considering that the month before the recall she had to have a broken tooth extracted and couldn't eat dry food at all for almost two weeks.

It cost about $90 for labwork at the vet's to make sure her kidneys weren't damaged. I will certainly seek reimbursement for that.

# Posted By Diane | 5/26/08 7:43 PM

I don't have ONE single item you have pictured, nor even knew the "prices" of those items. If approved by the court, I hope a follow-up article is done to see if it even nearly covered actual costs of those affected.I'm thankful that my pets were not fed any of the listed items, but I sure was nervous as the list grew week by week. I see gathering of "heparin- affected" patients is in the beginning legal stages.

# Posted By Barbara A. Albright/New Hampshire | 5/26/08 8:33 PM

We need our government to step up and insure (to the best of its ability) that food for animals and people is safe...oh yes and toys for children, too. It's too bad that making money is the priority.

# Posted By Sarah | 5/26/08 9:17 PM

Re:

"I was just making the extra-snarky point that $900 doesn't get you ANYWHERE."

Oh, OK, sorry! Yes, I completely agree. It's all so very sad. And who will make sure it doesn't happen again? To mistrust food -- your pets and yours -- is going to be a permanent thing now.

# Posted By Stefani | 5/26/08 9:34 PM

Why wouldn't somebody make up a claim to get free money? Look at all the fraud that is still going on with hurricane Katrina...

# Posted By Stacy | 5/28/08 8:34 AM

$900 does get us pet owners anywhere indeed. My pet was affected by the tained food and I am truly pissed off. When it happened I was pissed off. Now that I see that Menu Foods got off with only reimbursing me for $900 of my expenses it pisses me off further.

My cat's vet bills for the initial incident ran me 3256.24

Because of this my pet has to eat special food which costs 0.80 more than what she used to eat = $188 more per year than before. She has to get subcutaneous fluids every 2 -3 days which means that I set up a drip and stick he with a needle. This setup (iv set, fludis, needles) costs me 157.13/year. She has to get her blood tested every three months to make sure her kidneys are still working and make adjustments to the fluids if toxins are building up - that's another 450/year. And this is just minimal maintenance.

So far, this has cost me over $4000 and I don't even have all the bills I've spent.

Then add the time I've had to take off of work, the cost to commute to take her and all the other pills she has to take due to complications if she gets sick.

It really really pisses me off.

When Menu Foods called me to I was really happy because they said they would reimburse my vet bills. I would have been happy with just that. I had all of the documentation. They sent me a claim form after I called them twice. Then when I went to send in the form, they had a posting on their website that said they are not accepting claims and that I would have to join the class action lawsuit. They even sent me a letter stating this with a list of law firms that were handling the class action. I was a ticked off then too, as I really would have just accepted the vet bills and be on my way. Now, it's been over a year, and I won't even be getting half of what I spent on just the vet.

# Posted By Nellie | 5/29/08 7:11 PM

$900 probably will come reasonably close to covering our expenses, (though I suspect I've managed to misplace a fair number of the lesser invoices over the past sixteen months).

However, in all fairness, this has nothing to do with $900 being a reasonable figure and everything to do with the fact that our (extraordinarily kind and generous) vet basically ate any profit she could (and should) have potentially made off T's untimely encounter with a tainted Menu product. (T spent five days in the hospital on IV fluids- engaging in copious amounts of "cursing" at the techs, nonetheless- and I think I was charged for one of them... if that. I don't think we were charged for any of the many exams he's received, either.)

If we'd been forced to take him to the emergency clinic, our bill would have easily run into the thousands within a day or so... and $900 would have been a joke.

At the height of the recall, there was a sweet elderly man whose appointments always seemed to coincide with T's. The feral colony he was caring for had been decimated, and all five of his cats had been poisoned. Two had died, and the others weren't doing well. (As the weeks passed I came to dread bumping into him in the waiting area, as he would always inquire as to how T was doing, and I could tell that it pained him to watch my cat recovering while his were not.) He was operating on a fixed income, and the expenses must have been brutal. $900 a year and a half after the fact is not going to help him... (and I'm sure he must have been given every freebie the office could possibly manage as well).

While I'll be pleased to finally receive some form of reimbursement, Menu will never be able to give me what I really want. They'll never be able to restore T to what he was prior to my decision to bring home that fateful "treat" on 3/14/07. They can't assure me that he will live a normal life. (Has he really made a full recovery, or just recovered enough kidney function to eke out a normal result on the blood panel? Will he live to be fifteen, or lapse back into renal failure at five?) And what of the thousands who didn't make it?

Clearly this settlement will never be enough to do those affected by the recall justice. I can only hope that it's enough to make pet food companies and their suppliers think twice before cutting potentially dangerous corners in the future. (The cynic in me suspects that this won't be the case, but I'm trying to exercise a little optimism.)

Bah.

# Posted By Lawn Gnome Liberationist | 6/3/08 1:05 AM

what exactly is going on with this settlement? i lost my pet to this terrible thing, i was receiving letters from the law office regularly, but they have stopped. when this happened i sent copies of all of my vet info and everything else i had to the law office and to the fda. i have not heard anything in months, everytime i call the law firm all i get is a recording. i dont know what is going on and what i need to do. anyone that can help me with these answers please do so.

# Posted By shannon | 6/5/08 6:50 PM

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