Your pet’s meds: A look at a changing marketplace
By Gina Spadafori
April 16, 2008
In her new “Your Whole Pet” column for the San Francisco Chronicle’s SFGate.com Web site, our Christie Keith reports on veterinary prescriptions, how the marketplace is changing for pet-owners and veterinarians and what it means for all:
Some pet owners believe the reason vets are resistant to the changes is that they don’t want to lose the revenue from drug sales, but that’s an over-simplification of a complex issue. Caught like everyone else in rising costs, a weakening economy and staggering amounts of student and start-up debt, veterinarians are also struggling with the loss of some bedrock revenue streams, including sales of prescription drugs and “vet-only” products.
And just like in human medicine, there are plenty of unscrupulous businesses using the Internet to sell mislabeled, expired and outright fraudulent medications to consumers . Veterinarians worry that their patients won’t get the right drugs or dosages if the pet owner isn’t savvy enough to avoid those sources — something pet owners should be equally worried about.
What’s making this even harder is that today’s veterinarians didn’t create the old system of vet-as-pharmacist; they inherited it. Plenty of them would love to be out from under the burden of maintaining an expensive inventory of drugs. And like the corner drugstore, they frequently have to pay more wholesale for drugs than chain pharmacies charge for them retail, leaving the veterinarians at a sharp disadvantage on pricing.
But pet owners are caught in a squeeze, too. They are affected by the same weakening economy and rising costs, and to add to the problem, increasingly sophisticated — and expensive — veterinary diagnostics and therapies are pushing the ceiling of what can be done for their pets ever-higher.
Because changes are happening so fast, there’s no one-size-fits-all answer to where to get your pet’s medications today. The best source for drugs is going to vary from pet to pet, from veterinarian to veterinarian, and even from day to day. Here’s a guide to help you make your decision.
Here’s the rest.
And by the way, I am safely home from my trip, just a lot tired from all the driving and trying to catch up on everything I left behind — including looming book deadlines.
Speaking of pet meds and pet food and the FDA in charge of both.
The FDA has finally gotten the website up for”stakeholder” comment on pet food safety.
So many supposedly “pet” centric websites are not getting the news out about this that I just knew PetConnection would want to be in the forefront.
And very surprised that neither Gina nor Christie has been made any mention of this or posted a direct link.
There are either more pet owners that want to comment, who are not hearing about it, or,
everybody who lost pets or has sick pets and depends on Pet Connection for the news is just dancing happy with the way the FDA is doing a big fat nothing to improve pet food quality.
Here is the link.
http://www.regulations.gov/sea.....920417CA26
Gee, 17 comments makes it look like nobody has anything to say about pet food safety, let us hope that changes when PetConnection posts a link.
Step by step instructions and docket numbers are here, buried, on the Itchmo forums.
http://itchmoforums.com/news-r.....315.0.html
Comment by Duaneisadork — April 16, 2008 @ 12:18 pm
When a beloved pet unfortunately dies, often there is unused medicine which gets thrown out. If the client donates this medicine back to my vet clinic, it is dispensed to a patient who needs it. When Hammer was diagnosed with bladder cancer, I walked out with at least 1/2 bottle of pills which had been donated back. When Jezebelle died in March, her glaucoma medicine went back and hopefully was given to someone who could use it. I think this is a great policy. As you say, nothing’s cheap anymore.
Comment by Carol — April 16, 2008 @ 12:59 pm
Duaneisadork, we posted that information on the anniversary of the pet food recall, docket number and all. I’m happy to have it come back up again, since at the time, the website reporting system wasn’t working. But all other means of contacting them were, and we gave them.
Comment by Christie Keith — April 16, 2008 @ 1:02 pm
Thanks for posting the info and making it so easy to find, I just don’t know how I missed it!
Or how any of the people still looking for it on this website have kept failing to find it, it has to be here somewhere!
Comment by Duaneisadork — April 16, 2008 @ 1:24 pm
Was the link working the last time it got posted?
The FDA does not really seem to want any input from pet owners and a link that does not work as well as a link so hard to find do not really serve pet food safety.
Or public comment.
Comment by Duaneisadork — April 16, 2008 @ 1:29 pm
It’s right here:
http://www.petconnection.com/b.....er-beware/
It’s also here, where we linked to the information:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/.....HVHTFJ.DTL
Comment by Christie Keith — April 16, 2008 @ 4:23 pm
And now, a month later, here it is on the front page of the blog again! Good news.
Thanks, many people came to PetConnection for information during the recalls and it would be a shame if they came back in search of current information and could not find it or found it too late.
The FDA site was not working a month ago, during the anniversary mentions.
Nor was it working when the SFGate article appeared.
It works now.
How long it will work? Anybody’s guess.
Comment by Duaneisadork — April 16, 2008 @ 6:28 pm
Duane, I sent my comments in to FDA quite awhile ago, not everyone’s comments are being posted at their site so the 17 I dont think is a true number of the people who have sent comments in…..either that or my comments have been dumped…..I know of someone else who sent in comments and there’s are not showing either.
Comment by Sandi K — April 17, 2008 @ 9:01 am
Carol: Lots of vets (including myself) will “re-home” medications if donated to us by owners of deceased pets. Unfortunately, this practice is illegal if the medication is not of the individuallly-wrapped variety. It’s frustrating to see stuff go to waste, though. (Read between the lines.)
Comment by Dr. Patty Khuly — April 17, 2008 @ 9:20 am
Who says the letters have to be posted ONLY on the FDA site?
It’s a big internet and letters the FDA refuses to post might be a hot ticket and widely read.
This is not just a pet issue, lots of people are upset about “let the American consumer eat hot melamine”. Ask food safety and consumer groups for help or to let you post on their sites.
YouTube anyone?
Comment by Duaneisadork — April 18, 2008 @ 7:25 am
Given the fact that the failures of the FDA have brought death into my home and heartbreak on an epic scale to many just like me, I believe that I, and the other pet owners, the thousands of pet owners who have paid a very
heavy price for FDA failures, have the right to be heard and our opinions respected.
Speaking of price? Even a slipshod accounting of the financial cost to pet owners that the pet food recall has inflicted on many American citizens reveals an horrific number. The companies that sold the poison pet food wring their bloody hands on nationwide media about how much the recall cost them and where, oh where, is a single mention or a word about the cost to the pet owners who either saved the nation’s ass by catching what the FDA missed or discovered and exposed a massive cover up by said FDA?
It is one or the other.
I , personally, did not willingly lay down the life of my pets and thousands of dollars for the greater glory of the FDA letting the pet food industry “self regulate”.
The FDA has made it difficult to an offensive and unacceptable degree for pet owners to comment on pet food safety. I have no doubts at all that this was deliberate.
So I am just going to skip the groveling part and get to what I think.
I do not require the FDA to make my opinion public and neither do you!
A PET OWNERS PUBLIC COMMENT ON THE FDA AND PET FOOD SAFETY
My pets died, that makes me a member of the most important stakeholder group in the matter of the pet food disasters.
The thousands of pet owners, who have thousands of dead and sickened pets.
We are the majority stakeholders.
WE are the first, most important stakeholders and the FDA should not forget that.
Because we won’t.
The FDA either failed to detect toxins and poisons that have been pouring into this country, for years, and the American citizens who have dead and sick pets alerted the FDA to the problem at considerable sacrifice and expense.
OR
The FDA knew about the poisons and was covering up for the poison merchants.
Simple as that. One or the other.
Dead animals and amateurs detected a problem that the FDA totally missed, or the FDA is corrupt to a criminal extent.
The FDA has repeatedly refused to provide answers and documents to
U.S. Senators and Congress , knowingly issued press releases containing information the FDA knew to be false and assisted the pet food companies in concealing information and destroying evidence.
The FDA has been openly hostile and unhelpful to pet owners who begged for help from the FDA.
Pet food cannot be made safer by a corrupt FDA.
Pet food cannot be made safer by an incompetent FDA.
There is not going to be safer food for pets while the FDA continues to be allowed to operate like a publicly funded branch of the pet food industry the FDA is supposed to regulate.
In my opinion, the FDA is a rogue agency, unable and unwilling to enforce even minimum standards for pet food.
In my opinion, the FDA policy of winking at and tolerating conflict of interest makes the FDA more dangerous to the American public, and their pets, than any poison.
Comment by Duaneisadork — April 18, 2008 @ 7:50 am
Bravo, Duaneisadork. Agree 100% and couldn’t have said it better.
Comment by L.B. — April 19, 2008 @ 10:01 am
You say it all for me, Duaneisadork.
I concur with every word you say.
I only add—the FDA has gotten smarter with their Public Relations Campaigns so as to cover up their corruption and their ineptitude.
Comment by Colorado Transplant — April 19, 2008 @ 11:59 am