Lawsuit happiness returns

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(rudiger @ Mar 25 2007, 11:32 AM) [snapback]411879[/snapback]</div>

I'm all for self-regulation.

The problem being that it doesn't always work.

How many times has the airline industry been given an opportunity to regulate themselves and yet people were still held hostage for 11 hours by JetBlue?

We see it over and over.

The reason always seems to come down to money. Reluctance to cancel flights. Reluctance to test ingredients. Reluctance to pay a living wage. Reluctance to allow suitable time to accomplish a task safely.

Cutting corners with cheaper materials.

If businesses could regulate themselves we wouldn't need building codes, we wouldn't need ingredients and nutritional information listed on our food packages, we wouldn't need government mandatory testing for new medicine.

Business self-regulation reminds me of a poster on another forum I frequent who espouses the ideal of anarchy as a form of government. She feels that as long as everyone is forced to own a gun and know how to use it effectively, no govenment is necessary....people will regulate themselves. I think she's a whackjob. So if anyone that thinks businesses will regulate themselves for the safety and health of the general public without government intervention.


<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Stev0 @ Mar 25 2007, 11:37 AM) [snapback]411882[/snapback]</div>

Perhaps all that's needed is for those making the decisions to use the actual products.

I wonder if a decision such as switching to a cheaper wheat gluten source without any testing would have been made if all of the executives at Menu Foods would have been required to feed their pets the newly formulated chunks and gravy food for a year, starting several months before it went on the shelves?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Godiva @ Mar 25 2007, 11:48 AM) [snapback]411940[/snapback]</div>

Now there's a worthy candidate for an actual constitutional amendment: Any party who offers something new for public consumption or use must have personally consumed or used the product for a period of time sufficient that if the new product can be injurious, it will have caused injury during that time.

Such an amendment would slow technological innovation's progression to market considerably, but if drawn up in the right way, perhaps strike the right balance between public safety and expeditious public adoption of new inventions and processes.

Mark Baird
Alameda CA

 

In the Los Angeles Times:

A dog's life: What's it worth?

[Excerpts]

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(airportkid @ Mar 25 2007, 02:05 PM) [snapback]411951[/snapback]</div>

It wouldn't slow anything at all when it came to food and drugs. It must take at least a year or longer to go through FDA approval. Owner use/consumption can be concurrent.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(IsrAmeriPrius @ Mar 30 2007, 06:17 PM) [snapback]415162[/snapback]</div>

There's personal property and there's personal property.

Tried to get a dog lately?

It's several hundred dollars if you adopt a rescue dog. More if you get one through a breeder.

Add on the vet bills.

Add on any training and other bits bought for said dog.

If it's a service dog or trained for rescue work, tack on a LOT of money.

We're not talking puppies from a cardboard box in front of the grocery store anymore. Maybe where you are. But in San Diego the spay/neuter program has been so successful it's hard to get a dog unless you want to adopt an older dog. And you'll still pay a lot.

As far as I'm concerned a dog appreciates in value after acquisition. If you're going to talk about it being property a dog is not like a car. More like a piece of art.

For those animals going through renal failure, you're talking vet bills in the thousands, not hundreds. Not to mention the suffering to the animals. Maybe we shouldn't put a dollar price on that. Maybe we should go straight to prosecuting them for felony animal cruelty. I'm sure most of the owners would go for that and compensation for the vet bills.

Try telling the children that their dog is just a piece of furniture. Or maybe the priceless. "It's just a dog. You can go get another one." (Right up there with "You're still young, you can have more children.") Here's a $20 kid. Go get an ice cream and a new puppy.

After Katrina it's started to sink in. Pets aren't just property. People left all sorts of property. But some wouldn't leave their pets. Not even if they were sure to die. How many people stayed behind because they wanted to die with their sofa?

BTW it was the wheat gluten from China. It's going to be a cold day in hell before anyone buys wheat gluten from China again. And they found a second contaminent. Melamine. Used to make plastic and for fertilizer in Asia. They're still not sure if it was the melamine or the aminopterin that is responsible for the deaths.

They've recalled the first bag of dry cat food.

My family and I have checked the food we feed our dogs. My Mother uses Cannidae. No wheat gluten. I use Wellness. No wheat gluten. Not sure what my sister uses (Something cheap with a lot of corn filler I'm sure), but they'll be sure to check.

 

I, too, think MenuFoods has been very responsible. They have taken responsibility and are offering compensation for vet bills, etc. They care about everyone's pets and they didn't hesitate to initiate a massive recall based on only a few cases. They didn't wait until a dozens or hundreds of dogs and cats were dieing.

I think the lawsuits were in case MenuFoods tried to dodge culpability. However I do think there is a place for lawsuits. For instance when Ford or GM decide it's cheaper to pay off the survivors than to recall a faulty part.

Yes, accidents happen.

But this wasn't exactly an accident. I think it spotlights a vulnerability in the way we do business. This time it was only pets. They're now checking to see if any of that wheat gluten made it's way into food for human consumption.

Both contaminants are illegal in the U.S....but not in Asia. If we're going to manufacture using global ingredients, we'll need to have global standards. If you can't use aminopterin or melamine in the U.S., EU, etc. then Asia shouldn't be using it either. Or they should expect no one to buy what they're selling.

I also think there should be a little more regulation of the pet food industry. They should not be using animals that have died of disease or euthanized cats and dogs from shelters for the manufacture of pet food.

 

If there is a suit, it will be a Class Action suit. The only people who make out from Class action suits are the attorneys. The individual pet owner would be lucky to get pennys on the dollar. He would never recover his costs for his pet or the treatment which was given to try and save the pet. Remember not all of the pets died, a lot survived with large vet bills.

 

I say sue 'em.

And I'm not normally lawsuit happy, I say hit them, and the company that provided the rat poisoned ingredient(s) (which I believe was wheat gluten).

The pet food industry at BEST is very loosely watched/regulated by the USDA/FDA/AAFCO (state level), and companies can get away with just about anything that they want.

It won't bring happiness for the people that lost their pets and truly loved them, but it will help to put closure on their wrongful and untimely deaths, which If I was in their shoes, would make me feel better.

I find it somewhat stupid that a few months after China announced it was massively culling off dogs-- and did so in two rounds (source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/5244304.stm ) To be considering them for wheat products for our animals. Its even more baffling as to why we have to pay farmers to not harvest their crops, and let their fields sit dormant with the exact thing that we could be using here. Globalization, for food products readily available here is NOT the answer. I understand that Menu Foods is Canadian based company and not American, but I do believe we have plants here in the USA.

 

One plant in Kansas and one in New Jersey.

And I am against paying someone not to work. If a farmer has a farm, let him grow something and sell it. If he can be subsidized for growing nothing he can be LESS subsidized and asked or told to grow something needed, the subsidy then making up any difference between the market and his costs.

Why buy contaminated wheat gluten from China when we can grow wheat right here and process some of it into wheat gluten?