Timeline of Events

• October 2000—PETA asks Iams to improve the living conditions of animals in Iams laboratories. Iams assures PETA that this is happening.
• June 2001—Following an exposé by the Times of London and the U.K. organization Uncaged which detailed Iams’ horrific laboratory research on dogs and cats, PETA asks the Iams Company to end all invasive and lethal “nutritional” experiments.
• July 2001—Iams denies PETA access to its research facility for the first time.
• September 2001—PETA and Iams meet at PETA’s worldwide headquarters to discuss Iams’ laboratory research on animals. Iams’ Dan Carey refers to the dogs and cats as “specimens.” Iams assures PETA that it will develop a new policy that will include prohibitions on invasive and lethal experiments and that will provide for exercise, socialization, and enrichment programs in both its internal and external facilities.
• June 2002—Iams announces its new research “policy” stating the above. The policy also states that the company will not induce diseases such as diabetes or obesity in animals used in its laboratories.
• March 2003—PETA unveils the results of our nine-month undercover investigation into an Iams contract laboratory in the Midwest. Our investigator discovered dogs and cats living in appalling conditions, with little to no exercise or socialization with people or other animals. Our investigator also witnessed the painful debarking and killing of dogs who participated in Iams-funded experiments even though the new research policy had been implemented. Iams’ animals at this facility did not even have resting boards or toys. Iams was fully aware of conditions inside this laboratory and in fact had visited the facility five times during our investigation.
• April 2003—Iams and P&G vice presidents fly to PETA’s headquarters to see what it would take to make us stop the campaign arising from our investigation.
• May 2003—Iams again refuses to let PETA tour its Dayton research facility or its “retirement facility.”
• May 2004—Iams provides Purdue University researchers with $195,140 to conduct a study from May 1, 2004, through June 30, 2006, in which mice are subjected to seven days of muscle atrophy—the wasting away of muscle tissue—by suspending their hind limbs to disable their ability to bear weight. After losing the use of their hind legs, the mice are scheduled to be killed.
• October 2004—Iams announces it will continue laboratory experiments on animals and will more than double the number of animals experimented on at its Dayton facilities. But in a clear indication that PETA’s campaign is working, Iams says that it will end its use of outside contract laboratories by October 2006.
• January 2005—Iams continues to refuse to adopt validated non-animal test methods in place of its experiments on baby chicks (that it conducts to test the digestibility of protein in its pet foods).
• February 2005—Facing increased pressure from PETA, Iams says that it will look into a non-animal testing alternative to the baby chick protein test. But Iams will be slow to implement this humane test method because the company claims that it must “validate” the method against the chick test, stubbornly refusing to accept existing validation data from the manufacturer of the test method.
• February 2005—Iams denies that animals were killed in experiments it funded at the University of Mississippi Medical Center and the University of Kentucky, even though public documents obtained from these schools clearly show otherwise.

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