Columns: No Margins, No Limits, No Kidding!

DRUG SIDE EFFECTS: PET PRESCRIPTIONS

Does your vet explain side effects of your pet's prescriptions? Medications are the 5th leading cause of HUMAN death but here is how to protect your pet.

Nel Liquorman, TheDogPress.com Health Editor

For countless years, veterinarians have dispensed drugs for my pets and not one has ever said "Look for these possible side effects from this medicine."  A few years ago laws were passed that required pharmacists to give out printed matter with any medication that they dispensed and that information was to include a list of side effects. 

So why are veterinarians exempt from advising of allergic reactions or overdose risks, especially since they are both doctor and pharmacist?  They aren't!

There is a lot going on about what's commonly called Prescription Inserts^{1} or technically, CIS, Client Information Sheets.

If anyone does not believe that side effects come along with any drug that they give their pets, then just listen to the commercials for any human drug on the market. Side effects, technically know as adverse reactions, can be something as simple as a reddening of the skin or as serious as death!

If adverse effects can happen in a life form the size of a man, imagine what it can do in a small dog or cat. We have to stop blindly trusting even really good veterinarians.

It is possible that all they know about the drug may be what the drug company salesman told them.

Four years ago, my beautiful 24 pound cat Herbie, died after getting an oral vaccine. The vet (a really good person and a good enough vet) suggested that the oral form was safer than the injectable vaccine. However, this information, according to another veterinarian, was erroneous.

A little research revealed that many of the safeguards had been taken out when they developed the oral form. The "side effects" in this case, were as serious as it could be.  I am not the only owner to suffer heartbreak over a preventable reaction to prescription drugs or commonly dispensed medication that any individual animal could be allergic to.

Never give your pet any new medication without insisting on a prescription information sheet.

There should be a list of possible or likely side effects on that sheet.  Do not let your vet ignore FDA Guidelines^{2} as has happened when things get busy in the veterinary office.  And never agree to any kind of medication, even a drug you've used before, until you do the research yourself - a hard lesson that I have finally learned.

I wish I had known then about the prescription death rate in PEOPLE^{3} and that many drugs (and vaccines) are "deadlier than disease"^{4}.

Actually, the research I've done since is a real eye-opener and something every pet owner and parent should take time to absorb.

Reference & Related Articles and Information, dig for gold below

{1} Prescription Inserts Human medications include a list of drug side effects but you have to ask for (demand!) the veterinary prescription insert.

{2} Dispensing drugs without advising owners of potential side effects as in Vets Ignore FDA Guidelines is not an easy pill to swallow!

{3} Adverse Reaction Death Rate In PEOPLE Prescription drugs = over 215 million emergency room trips p/year and are the 5th leading cause of human death.

{4} Medication marketing from vaccines to Vioxx, is big business for veterinarians and medical doctors who are often Prescribing Death

Copyright © TheDogPress.com 0601151163  http://www.thedogpress.com/Columns/Drug-SideEffects-0610_Liquorman.asp

click to share this article - Copyright © ii NetPlaces Network / TheDogPress.com - All Rights Reserved