Since you guys are such vehemant complainers about products, and such staunch supporters of customer rights, please help me figure out what to do about Bob Martin Products.

we gave my cat a Bob Martin Flea Tablet last night. This morning when we woke up, he was paralysed, twitching, his pupils were so wide. He'd vomited in the night all over the place.

we took him to the vets, who said that there's very little chance of his recovery given his age and the extent of the paralysis. So we made the choice to have him put down.

i really loved him. he was my friend through so much. we'd have whole conversations full of miaows when i didn't have anyone else to speak to. it hurts.

When i started searching for Bob Martin, i was shocked and disgusted to find so many similar reviews. So many cats have been put through this, there are no warnings on the box about adverse reactions, and clearly many cats are having them. Not just cats, dogs too.

I've signed a few petitions and written to the company themselves wth the batch number and a description of what happened. But please let me know if there's anything else i can do!!!

just yesterday he was miaowing happily when i came back from london. There's no point in "if only..." but, if only...

If i can't do anything else, at least people here, please never give your animals Bob Martin products, and check online before you do give them anything. If you want to fight bad products, it should be stuff like this, not AJATT. AJATT doesn't kill your pets.

It's kind of silly to compare this to the SS/AJATT threads, since those are people talking about something within their sphere of knowledge and interest. I don't know anything about pet medication of have any interest in pets (I'm rather against the idea of having pets actually. Don't tell my girlfriend that I don't like her dog).

That said, if there are no disclaimers/warnings on the packaging and the vet confirms that the pills killed the cat (get it in writing), you have grounds for a lawsuit (perhaps class action if reactions are as common as you suggest). You may want to wait for the response to your email, if one comes, before doing so of course.

What would you expect a petition to get you?

what is class action, and where do i go for it? Does it cost money, because i don't have any? No, there is no warning whatsoever on the label.

It's not stupid to compare this to AJATT. If you all care so much about bad products, you should care more about one that kills or medically harms over one like AJATT. It shouldn't matter about whether it's about Japanese or not. Or maybe you just dislike AJATT.

***** it, i can't be bothered with this argument right now. I just want to do what i can.

I don't think a Japanese learning forum is the best place to look for legal advice, maybe another more specialised forum, or even better a solicitor. But that would definitely cost money. Otherwise, I don't know how else I can help. I'm sorry to hear about your loss.

IceCream Wrote:what is class action, and where do i go for it? Does it cost money, because i don't have any? No, there is no warning whatsoever on the label.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_action

I'm sorry to hear about what happened. That's a terrible and tragic thing. I will tell my parents never to give this product to their cat, and will ask them to pass the word along.

The symptoms you describe are eerily similar to what happened to my cat about 6-7 years ago. She started occasionally having weird twitching spasms (kind of like epilepsy), dilated pupils, vomiting, paralysis, loss of appetite and so on. But our cat was very old, and it was an off and on thing, so we never made the connection to flee medication at that time. We had been giving flee medication for years without any side effects, iirc it was a drop that is absorbed through the skin of the neck (don't recall the brand). At some point she just seemed to be having these spasms with high frequency and then one day she just never came home (assumed dead). I hope you can do something if it is indeed the medication.

Wow, that really sucks IceCream...

As far as I know class actions is cheaper than a normal lawsuit as you "share" the lawyer with other people and you divide the parcel. Being said that, it's very time consuming because you need to go to meetings with other people, gather informations and so on. I think if you have time and you want to go through this, you should look for some animalist forums to gather info or try to look up on the internet for people who did class action for similar matters. I'm sorry for your loss and I wish you best luck.

Research more about other people in the same situation. If you don't have the money to sue the company, probably other people do and are already organizing something.

[ファブリス]

IceCream, I'm sorry to hear that. I thought it was a joke but...

Contact the press!

That's the easiest way to make them move! The press loves this!

Start with your local city, then with a bit of luck get the bigger press.

My father once had damage done to the roof because of the local hospital paying for new construction next door, who as you can imagine were completely careless. My father eventually put up a large banner on the front of the house, and then went to the local press. They took a photo of him in front of his banner, and less than a day later the director of the hospital called to apologize and arranged for the workers to replace the tiles.

Another solution I cant' vouch for, would be to start a project on one of the project funding sites (sorry can't remember the name), clearly state the intent is to make money to start the required legal proceedings, and maybe also state that you need help to get it done. Send emails to the bigger pet/animal sites, including PETA and such, to get them to make a post linking to your project. Might work... but a lot of work.

The press is probably your best bet, they'll do all the work for you!

That's terrible Ice Cream, I'm very sorry for your loss.

thanks guys...

yeah, it's no joke. Well, they replied to my email already, asking me to fill in a form giving details, which i did. It was a standard form that they give to all customers whose pets have had a severe reaction to their products.
They also said their products are safety tested etcetc.

I replied with all the details & my vets details, but asked directly that they put more safety information on the box to warn customers of these types of reactions. They should be telling people what the risk is, and circumstances in which the risks might be higher (old cats, kittens, other medications, etc) and what early symptoms to watch out for to take your pet to the vet before it's too late. These things have to be on the box for human products, i have no idea why this company just writes "store somewhere below 25 degrees and keep out of sunlight and away from children. Only for animal use." type of thing.

That's assuming this was actually a rare reaction, and isn't more common. It's very hard to tell, when no statistics are published.

This thread http://www.reviewcentre.com/reviews55782.html has over 100 bad reviews of this companies products though, so who knows how widespread this problem is. Other places also have bad reviews.

I guess i'll wait and see how they respond to my 2nd email. If they change the labelling i'd certainly be happier. Otherwise, it looks like there's a few people i can contact from that review thread, at least.

ugh. i don't know what to do with myself now. i feel so responsible. i should have known the risks of pesticides / insecticides, i've watched that bee program and everything. it's one thing for pesticides to indirectly or accidentally affect an animal though, and another when the product is actually targeted at that animal. i never thought something would be on the market that would be this harmful to the animals it's supposed to treat.

if anyone has any ideas for stuff to do or watch to take my mind of things, please share!

Your remedies depend on what country you're in, and if you're in the US, what state you're in. Making a claim with the company by writing them and complaining is probably the fastest and cheapest way to go. You're going to be depending on their good will, though.

If you don't get any satisfaction there, then I would hire an attorney and see what he/she thinks about your case. If you talk to 2-3 attorneys and they all say you don't have a case, then you probably don't have a case worth bothering with.

Representing yourself (unless you're in small claims court) is a surefire way to have your case dismissed with prejudice. (Which means it's dismissed for good.)

STAY AWAY from class action suits. The only people who make money in a class action suit are the attorneys. The members in a class action generally get worthless coupons that they never cash in, or some sort of other worthless compensation (as an example, in your case, they would give your a 10 coupons for 50% off your next purchase of flea medication, which expire in 3 months), while the attorneys get 30-33% of the total award (say, 1/3 of a $30m settlement) in cash as fees.

It's a nice racket if you're the attorney, and you have no morals.

well, i'm not interested in compensation though, it won't bring him back. i just want to change things so people at least know the risks they're taking when they use these products. If they really are a bad business though, i want their products off the shelves. I don't want any other cat to suffer like that, or anyone else to have to see the look in their eyes as they lie there dieing from something totally preventable, and something you've given him.

rich_f Wrote:STAY AWAY from class action suits. The only people who make money in a class action suit are the attorneys. The members in a class action generally get worthless coupons that they never cash in, or some sort of other worthless compensation (as an example, in your case, they would give your a 10 coupons for 50% off your next purchase of flea medication, which expire in 3 months), while the attorneys get 30-33% of the total award (say, 1/3 of a $30m settlement) in cash as fees.

It's a nice racket if you're the attorney, and you have no morals.

True, but they are good if you cannot afford an attorney by yourself and your primary interest isn't a cash settlement. The $30mil the company gives to the lawyers and splits among the rest still works as a punitive measure.

Icecream, that's so awful! As an previous owner of 6 cats (all sadly passed away), I feel your pain..

As for what you can do, hopefully there's quite a few things!
contact the press, definitely! Press coverage = awareness. Get a standard letter together and send it to all papers and womens magazines (they love stories like this).

Contact cat charities, RSPVA, cat specific ones, vet associations. try to get them involved. In enough vets have seen cases like this, they could pull together and act.

It's obvious this is a well known issue online! Maybe set up a blogger account, post your story and links to other people's stories, and leave comments open for others to say their thing. Give it a catch title (BOB MARTIN PRODUCTS KILL CATS) and link it in enough threads and reviews and it'll get high google rankings (hopefully!)

There's a FB group for this: http://www.facebook.com/groups/bobmartinawareness/
you can contact others, maybe sort out a law-suit or petition. or at least organise a group letter to press

Hopefully doing something will make you feel a bit better. I know you feel terrible, but you can't blame yourself; you weren't to know. You have every right to feel angry though - hope something positive comes out of this..

From that Facebook link, looks like DEFRA know about this (scroll down for "Permethrin Spot On Products Can Kill Cats")

http://www.vmd.defra.gov.uk/vet/adverse_safety.aspx

You can report it here:

http://www.vmd.defra.gov.uk/adversereactionreporting/

Get enough people to report their cats suffering from an adverse reaction (i.e. any bad reaction not reported on the box) at the above link, and hopefully the VMD will get it banned in the UK, or at least force them to change the label.

I'm so sorry for the loss of your cat.

The idea to call the press is a really good one. You're in the UK right? I would contact the Daily Mail in particular - this is just the kind of story they would love to run, they're very pet lovey, and great at stirring up outrage and I believe have done successful petitions about things before. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/article-...ct-Us.html

Yep Dailymail would love this!

Was thinking you could also try BBC's Watchdog - but looks like Watchdog already covered this in 1997!
http://www.pets-chat.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=1243

Maybe they'd like to do a follow-up?

rich_f Wrote:STAY AWAY from class action suits. The only people who make money in a class action suit are the attorneys. The members in a class action generally get worthless coupons that they never cash in, or some sort of other worthless compensation (as an example, in your case, they would give your a 10 coupons for 50% off your next purchase of flea medication, which expire in 3 months), while the attorneys get 30-33% of the total award (say, 1/3 of a $30m settlement) in cash as fees.

I joined a class action suit for a faulty printer that hadn't been recalled and got a check for around $30-45 USD (it was several years ago). But, yes, you won't get much out of most class action suits; however, they definitely punish the companies at fault. Anyway, just make sure to read the fine print.

I can't say anything except that you have my condolences, Icecream. Losing one's cat this way is just terrible.

aphasiac: Thumbs up for looking all that up!

That's horrible. I really feel for you both. Can you tell us where you got the flea stuff from? Is that what they sell at your vets?

I knew nothing about this so I'm really grateful you posted here. I'll be doing a lot of reasearch before I give my cat any more. (not Bob Martin of course)

My GF's cat died from bad cat food... we only found out about a month after we had her put to sleep. Then again, the cat was about 22 years old, and wasn't in the best of health, so we thought that the symptoms we were seeing were the eventual decline and end of her kitty days. That didn't make it hurt any less, though, when we found out that it was a 3rd party's irresponsible behavior that caused it.

Companies should be more responsible about the products they put out. It made both of us pretty mad, considering that that cat was otherwise well-nigh invincible.

So naturally, I understand where you're coming from. It's just that it's hard to get much out of these companies when pets are concerned.

As for class actions, the only one I was ever involved in was about AT&T screwing me over for cell service. I had already left for T-Mobile... so what did I get? Free AT&T cell service.

I'd rather take a kick in the head, please. It's more useful if I can transfer it to the plaintiff's attorney in the class action.

I haven't yet seen this suggestion: Contact your local or national SPCA, at least make sure they are aware of the issue, and see if there's anything you can do with or for them to prevent further problems. If you're in England, I suppose that would be the Royal SPCA, http://www.rspca.org.uk/home ; I believe every English-speaking country has it's own national and regional SPCA in any case.

Also, if you're in a class action suit try to watch developments and try to ensure that the lawyers do -not- settle for coupons. Any amount of cash is preferable in a harmful-product case! I'd take 99 cents cash over a $100 coupon in a case like that.

thankyou so much everyone for your help and kindness!!! i really appreciate it!!!

especially to aphasiac for looking all that stuff up for me, and your kind words, thankyou!!!

well, i've slept away a little of my sadness and guilty feeling, so i'm ready for action again. I made a report to the vetinary medicines directorate, and emailed the email addresses in that thread though nobody's replied yet.

The company responded to my email about changing the packaging, totally ignoring everything i asked, and asking for the box and remaining tablets back, so i'm going to send that and email them again, this time asking if they have recalled that batch. Then i've got to wait for them to analyse the tablets i guess before doing something else. If i'm contacting the press, it should be with the full story, shouldn't it? (i'm not sure... what do you think, should i contact them now?)

I've actually got two tablets left, and i'm going to keep one of them. Does anyone know where i might send it for an independant analysis? hmm, maybe a university or something? i'm really not sure what to do with it... but i don't trust this company...

@splatted: my mum bought the tablets from asda. But, reading the stories online it seems that people have written to supermarkets to say what had happened before, and they weren't interested because it's not their product. So sick.