Pat McKay has been kind enough to provide her wonderful books on natural pet healthcare as free downloads. Follow this link to get your free copy of “Natural Immunity” http://animalhomeopathy.net/id23.html
Polo Horse Deaths: pharmacy error! April 24, 2009
The needless deaths of a string of prized polo horses in South Florida has been determined to be the result of pharmacy error! Looking at the stats below for human pharmaceutical errors should we be surprised that a miscalculation by a compounding pharmacist would result in the death of animals given the “tainted” formula? This is one of the biggest problems with drug based therapies. How can you be sure the drug you were prescribed is the one that you are actually given?
One other consideration is the dependence of the sport horse community on “performance enhancers”. Just like the human sports world, talent doesn’t seem to be enough. Every trainer has their special blends of drugs and supplements supposed to make the horse a better athalete. What really happpens is the horses are injured younger and they have much shorter careers than in times past. We are breeding and training “flash in the pan” horses without the stamina and long term health to perform into their middle age, or even much beyond puberty.
My friend and trainer Ginny Padgett and I still have a dream of raising a healthy horse to run naturally and win. I think this goal is very obtainable. We just need to find a horse owner willing to “buck” the current system.
Medication Error Statistics
Medication errors are a
common occurrence and
continue to be a problem in
the health care industry. It
is estimated that the annual
cost of drug-related morbidity
and mortality is nearly
$177 billion in the United
States.
1
Approximately 7,000
deaths occur each year and
medication errors occur in just
about 1 of every 5 doses given
in hospitals.
2
The FDA states
that there is at least one death
per day and 1.3 million people
are injured each year due to
medication errors.
3
The National Coordinating
Council for Medication
Error (NCCMERP) defi nes a
medication error as being “any
preventable event that may
cause or lead to inappropriate
medication use or patient
harm, while the medication
is in the control of the health
care professional, patient or consumer.” Such events may be related to professional
practice, health care products, procedures and systems including: prescribing; order
communication; product labeling, packaging and nomenclature; compounding; dispensing;
distribution; administration; education monitoring; and use.
2
Common causes of medication errors include incorrect diagnosis, prescribing errors,
drug-drug related reactions, dose miscalculations, incorrect drug administration and lack of
patient education. Other factors that can contribute are job-related stress, improper training
or education and sound-alike look-alike packaging of medications.
3
did aal etPhillips J.
retrospective analysis of medication errors between 1993 – 1998 and found that the most
common types of errors were from administering improper dose (40.9%; 36.4% being
overdose), wrong drug (19%), and wrong route of administration (9.5%). The investigators
also found that the most common causes of errors were performance and knowledge
defi cits (44%) and communication errors (15.8%).
4
By Steven Morgan, Pharm.D. Pharmacy Practice Resident
ftjhthtdddscription
The
A Joint Publication from the University Health System Pharmacy Department, Risk Management and Ambulatory Services
Editor: Brandi Kelly, Pharm. D
EPA to Investigate “spot on” Flea Products April 23, 2009
Here is a link to an excellent article on the dangers of flea and tick products. http://www.apnm.org/publications/resources/fleachemfin.pdf
It seems that the epa has received numorous complaints about topical flea control products. I have seen the list of products that the epa is investigating. It includes, promeris, frontline, hartz products, biospot, among others. Let’s take a closer look at the investigation and what you need to worry about as well as how to protect your pet.
There is a huge difference among the active ingredients in “spot on” flea products. THIS IS WHAT YOU REALLY NEED TO KNOW: there is a big difference between the new flea products generally sold through the veterinarian and spot on products available at major retailers. THAT DIFFERENCE IS THE ACTIVE INGREDIENT: many over the counter products available at major retailers or feed stores contain ORGANOPHOSPHATE INSECTICIDES. These were the products we used 20 years ago because it was all we had. There is a VERY limited margin of safety with organophosphate (permethrin, pyrethrin) products. If you fail to follow manufacturers directions or if you accidentally apply an product made for dogs on cats, the result can be disastrous. “Back in the Day:, we treated many cases of organophosphate toxicity caused by this products, not always successfully.
The bottom line, is that you need to read the package, not all products are created equally. Any product containing either or permethrin or pyrethrin should be avoided at all costs, there are safer products available.
Frontline and advantage both contain active ingredients with a wider margin of safety. The primary complaint I hear after application of these products is local irritation and itching at the site of application. Occasionally, I see transient hyperactivity associated with these products. I have yet to see death associated with these products.
That said, you as a pet guardian, should work on environmental control and not put chemicals directly on your pet. Approximately 75% of the flea burden exists in the environment and not on the pet. So, controlling fleas in the environment is more important that treating them on the pet itself.
The other thing that needs to be discussed is that HEALTHY PET’S DON’T ATTRACT FLEAS! If you are actively engaged in a program of holistic health for your pet, you will notice a drop in the flea population naturally over time. How great is that!
More on the Clinical Success of Homeopathy April 12, 2009
Homeopathy In the Time of Epidemic
David Riley was asked to study the evidence for homeopathy. He thought it was baloney, but researched it, and the results surprised him. He published his research in Lancet and said, either homeopathy works or the double blind placebo trial is flawed. So David Riley presented the research. This is good, but not enough to show the effectiveness of homeopathy. So I presented a sixteen page paper on the historical evidence for homeopathy from its treatment of epidemics. The conference I presented it at was held in the University of Connecticut Health Center in September 2003 and called “Statistics for Homeopathic Practice.” I gave my talk to eighty medical students during lunch. When I started talking about iatrogenic illness, everyone stopped talking and eating. At the end of my talk fifteen students asked me how they could learn homeopathy. I was asked for this paper, but I replied I should flesh it out more and do a fuller study.
My current version has more than 200 pages. Bradford wrote the Pioneers of Homeopathy and the Logic of Figures. But I took little from his book, because not all his results were from genuine homeopathy. In London the death rate during an epidemic from allopathy was 70% and from homeopathy was 33%. But this wasn’t genuine homeopathy. When you get the statistics for genuine homeopathy it would be 6% or less. They got the health statistics and compared the death rates in 1898 for allopathy and homeopathy. If you compute what the death rate would be for average homeopathy if homeopathy was universally used, of the 70 million people then living in the United States 500 thousand people who died that year would have still been alive. Once I collated all the evidence I saw that the greater the success of homeopathy as compared to the failure of allopathy, the greater the political repression that followed. But no one knows this story. The plan of the book goes disease by disease, starting with typhus. Typhus was spread by Napoleon’s army. 200,000 soldiers of Napoleon’s army died from during the retreat from Russia. One hundred eighty three of them were treated by Hahnemann and his death rate was zero.
There is not a single report showing the superiority of allopathy over genuine homeopathy. That holds true up to the present day. The death rate from homeopathy in the 19th century is better than the results obtained by modern medicine. For example, pneumonia. One out of twenty five will die of it. It is the eighth leading cause of death. Today the average death rate is 18%. When acquired from community it is 12% and when acquired in a hospital it is 50-70% percent. With allopathy, before 1912 the death rate was 32%. With homeopathy the death rate was 4%. Allopaths claim homeopaths only treat easy cases. But Sir William Wilde examined the hospitals and said the cases in homeopathic hospitals was fully as virulent as in allopathic hospitals. P.P. Wells said, “A 2-3% death rate is still too high for pure homeopathy, I have treated patients for 43 years who had pneumonia and have not lost a single case.” My own experience is that I have treated 120 cases, some on their death beds and not lost a single case. One patient was in a coma with cancer of the lung. His niece, a nurse, gave me a report of his symptoms and he recovered quickly. He lived another six months. Another patient of mine with AIDS and pneumocystic pneumonia did not respond to antibiotics. He developed cryptococcal meningitis. The treatment for this led to kidney and liver failure. They put him on high doses of prednisone. He was comatose and was on morphine because of pain of meningitis. The patient recovered after homeopathic treatment. So its unthinkable that anyone treated properly for simple pneumonia would die.
An editor of a medical journal challenged Lippe to publish his mandatory report to the state for the two previous years. He had not lost a single case ill from acute disease. He had the largest medical practice in Philadelphia. In 1849 here was an epidemic of scarlet fever. Lippe treated over 150 cases and lost none. Allopaths lost 90% of their cases and the rest were crippled for life. These results are not unique to Lippe. The homeopathic literature is full of these stories. When there was an epidemic of cholera in New York in 1849 the public demanded that the authorities convert one of the hospitals to homeopathy. They refused. In Genoa a rich person tried to build a hospital to treat victims of cholera with homeopathy. The authorities refused. This sort of response was universal. It was not just the AMA. If homeopathy were universally used, there would be a dramatic drop in the death rate. But people are trying to destroy homeopathy. Not only the morbidity from disease, the morbidity from allopathic treatment would be eliminated. Between 450,000 and 500,000 people a year die each year from iatrogenic disease. There is not just death, there are long term bad results from allopathic treatment. The doctor who organized a conference on autism said his child was normal at two years old. She got a vaccination, screamed all night long, then stopped talking.
In Carlisle Lippe had treated scarlet fever. An allopathic doctor, John Armstrong, had lost all the cases he had treated. Then three of his four children came down with scarlet fever and he went to Lippe. They were cured and he became a homeopath and moved to New Jersey. I think it was because he had treated his own children differently than his other patients and felt guilty.
Greed, prejudice, arrogance, contempt for truth, and ignorance dominate our so-called modern society. We have to fight for homeopathy. The American Revolution has not happened yet. Breaking from England is not as beneficial as homeopathy would be. The AMA was formed with the goal of destroying homeopathy. Homeopathic practitioners earned twice as much as allopathic physicians. Allopaths started converting their practice, but didn’t learn the principles of homeopathy. In 1880 not one school of homeopathy was teaching the Organon. Nash said he had never heard of it until he graduated.
In Quebec all tradespeople have access to homeopathy as part of their insurance coverage. In the US life insurance policies once gave a discount to their clients who used homeopathy on the proven actuarial evidence that their death rates were lower.
I plan to publish my book on April 10, 2005, the 250th anniversary of Hahnemann. In my book I also show the value of the prophylactic value of homeopathy.
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What the Conventional Medical Establishment doesn’t want you to Know April 12, 2009
Homeopathy has a very successful history in both the US and Europe. Despite what the “evidence based” medical community would say about homeopathy not being proven to be effective. It has proven itself over and over again in the face of the worlds more deadly epidemics to be superior to conventional medical therapy. The following link will take you to a very interesting slide presentation showing the effectiveness of classical homeopathy in the treatment of: influenza, chlorea, diptheria.
http://docs.google.com/gview?a=v&attid=0.7&thid=12086b13cc671dfa&mt=application%2Fpdf&pli=1
LIFE LESSONS FROM THE FAMILY DOG April 5, 2009
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/31/life-lessons-from-the-family-dog/
This is a very moving story of the relationship of a man suffering from prostate cancer and his relationship with his beloved 10 year old miniature poodle. It is a hard story for anyone with training in alternative medicine to read. He talks of all the health problems his little dog suffers from and the long list of drugs the dog must take: The problems include:
- seizures
- recurring bladder infections
- painful arthritis
- and urinary incontinence
You can look at this from the conventional drug paradigm and give a drug for each symptom: the way she is currently being treated.
We can look at it from a classical homeopathic standpoint. This is a clear picture of vaccine damage. Vaccines have been scientifically proven to cause or exacerbate seizures. They have also be shown to cause cystitis in cats (we can translate this to dogs and other animals). Arthritis is chronic inflammation exacerbated by repeated vaccines. This dog would greatly benefit from a properly prescribed homeopathic remedy. He quality of life would improve dramatically and some of the medications could probably be discontinued.
From a Traditional Chinese Medicine standpoint this is a clear picture of deficiency in the kidney meridian. The kidney meridian is associated with the bones and the marrow (which includes the brain) as well as the actually actual organs of kidneys and bladder. By strengthening this meridian through acupuncture and Chinese herbal therapy this little dog could have a much better quality of life.
We need to learn to look outside the box, especially when the treatment being given is not providing adequate quality of life. He describes this dog as though it is aged and close to death. Remember she is only 10 years old. This is barely middle aged for a mini-poodle and yet she suffers from several issues associated with old age. She is way too young to be this old.
Not so Sad April 2, 2009
We discussed the case of Chanel a few posts back. The poor dog that suffered over vaccination and seizures. After giving her a single dose of a homeopathic remedy, her life has changed for the better. She is now what the foster parent calls a “normal happy dog”. We are currently working on weaning her off her seizure medication.
Happy Healthy Schnauzer
Are Drugs Safe? March 26, 2009
“Properly prescribed and administered” drugs caused death in 106,000 hospital patients making adverse drug reactions the 4th leading cause of death. Journal American Medical Assoc, 4-15-1998.
This is an older study, but I doubt things have improved much. The American public has been totally deceived by the drug companies and their multi-million dollar ad campaigns. DRUGS DON’T MAKE PEOPLE OR ANIMALS HEALTHY, THEY MAY ALLAY SYMPTOMS BUT THEY RARELY LEAD TO A LONG TERM INCREASE IN HEALTH AND WELL BEING.
When I went to vet school (a long time ago) the word CURE was still being mentioned. Rarely do you hear that term used anymore. The new term is manage. We MANAGE disease, especially the chronic ones, we rarely if ever are able to cure using conventional drug based therapies. This is what sends most of us in the alternative world looking for answers outside the pharmaceutical industry. We want to cure our patients. Cure: the alleviation of symptoms and a return to health without the need for ongoing treatment.
Homeopathy is the only method of treatment that I have found that can CURE chronic disease. Once again visit www.beyondflatearth.com and spend some time reading this fascinating book, change the way you think about health and healing. You won’t be disappointed.
Tail Chasing Linked to High Cholesterol! March 26, 2009
Wow, this one threw me for a loop. Who knew that obscessive compulsive behavior such as tail chasing could be linked to high cholesterol? Probably the the makers of cholesterol medications!
Stay tuned as we watch for veterinarians to start pushing cholesterol lowering medications to their patients. The statin drugs have been linked to a host of complications such as liver disease and muscle aches and weakness in humans, therefor many humans are opting out of taking these medications. A new market must be found, and profits must be made; so therefor we find a need for lower cholesterol in our animal companions.
I am waiting with baited breath for the new lipitor commercial featuring a tail chasing dog.
Probiotics and Irritable Bowel Syndrome March 20, 2009
A new study shows that probiotics are beneficial in the treatment of irritable bowel disease. Diarrhea and vomiting are common problems in both domestic dogs and cats. IBD is also a very common diagnosis in small animal medicine. Often times, drug therapy is considered the only answer. Probiotics are a must in my book, especially in animals with a history of chronic antibiotic use. Probiotics replace the normal gastrointestinal bacteria. Once established these friendly bacteria will populate the gut and “squeeze” out the pathogenic bacteria. They will also help to make sure incoming food is properly digested, helping to prevent leaky gut syndrome.
This article came from Rueters this am:
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Probiotic products, which contain living microbes that aid digestion, may help relieve the symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome, according to Dr. Nourieh Hoveyda and colleagues from University of Oxford, UK.
Irritable bowel syndrome, or IBS, is a common disorder affecting up to 30 percent of the population by some estimates. Symptoms may include chronic abdominal pain, bloating, diarrhea, and constipation.
The causes of IBS are unclear and there has been debate whether it is mostly due to psychological factors or biological triggers, or perhaps a combination.
The evidence supporting the effectiveness of most treatments for IBS is weak, the authors of the current study explain in the journal BMC Gastroenterology. Hoveyda’s team conducted an analysis of published studies to assess whether probiotics alleviate symptoms in patients with IBS.
Treatment duration ranged from 4 weeks in six studies to 6 weeks in two studies, 8 weeks in three studies, and 6 months in two studies, plus one study of 20 weeks.
Combined data from the studies suggested a modest improvement in overall symptoms after a few weeks of treatment, the authors report.
As many as half of the trials reported significant improvements in abdominal pain, flatulence, bloating, and quality of life.
Only a few trials reported side effects connected to treatment, but there were few differences between probiotics and placebo groups in this area.
“In patients with IBS, probiotics showed a modest improvement in overall symptoms,” the researchers conclude. Interestingly, however, the two studies that contributed the most data to the analysis failed to show a beneficial effect with probiotics, they point out. This may relate to the type of microorganisms found in the probiotic products.
“Longer term trials are recommended as IBS is a condition that is chronic and usually intermittent,” the investigators add. “However, further research should focus on the type, optimal dose of probiotics, and the subgroups of patients who are likely to benefit the most.”
SOURCE: BMC Gastroenterology, February 16, 2009.
