Doctors are overmedicating their patients, often for reasons that are poorly understood. They do it because the pharmaceutical industry has devoted billions to skew studies and push drugs that are inadequately or incorrectly studied on the general population.
But you may be surprised to hear that pets are being over medicated as well.
According to Dogs Naturally Magazine, vets are getting away with murder. Visits by pet owners to the veterinarian used to be a pretty irregular thing. Pet owners are being inundated with commercial messaging that stirs up fears of all manner of health concerns for their pets.
Many pet owners obsess about the health of their animals and treat them as if they were children. In fact, as many people forgo parenthood- they replace it with pet ownership. This skewed form of attachment lends itself to some strange behavior, making it all the easier for opportunistic vets to over medicate little Fluffy.
It is increasingly common that house pets get regular doses of flea and tick drugs, heartworm preventatives, flea and tick shampoos, deworming medication, and other pharmaceuticals. It is even becoming more common that people actually give their animals psychotropic meds for anxiety, depression, and more.
Most people over the age of 40 remember a time when animals rarely took medication- if ever. In today’s world, the pharmaceutical industry has convinced us that we are not complete human beings without their drugs. So why would our animals be any different?
The veterinary clinic of today is a very different place to what it once was. While many modern treatment options for dogs and cats are better than those available in the past, we are going too far. Like doctors treating human patients, many vets have allowed themselves to be influenced by pharmaceutical manufacturers, and the result is killing animals.
It has become a standard to over-service obsessive pet owners, and fleece them. People are paying for vaccinations that animals don’t need. They are feeding their animals heavily processed pet foods that are full of synthetic substances. Many of the ingredients of these products come from China, are very poorly regulated, and are damaging the immune systems of cats and dogs.
Just like with the human medical establishment- once you’ve paid a bundle for excessive “care” for your pet, you’d better keep your checkbook handy. That’s because the drugs and care that pets are getting are causing allergies, cancer, intestinal distress and other conditions that have to be treated using – you guessed it – more medical intervention!
The truth is, overactive veterinary practices are hurting animals with dogs taking the brunt of the abuse. Today’s vets simply have too many drugs at their disposal.
In 2008, there was a massive surge of complaints to the EPA over flea and tick medication for dogs. In that same year, The Center for Public Integrity published a study that claims animals are under serious threat of overexposure to pesticides, and that it is harming cats and dogs in a variety of ways.
The NRDC reports that these products contain substances that can harm an animal’s nervous system. Worse yet, it isn’t just the animals that are being exposed to these toxic substances. The people who live with dogs and cats that are dosed with pesticides are exposed to them as well- and children are especially vulnerable.
When combined with the whole cornucopia that more and more pets are being dosed with, the chances that an animal faces of becoming sick as a result go through the roof. In addition to the drugs mentioned already, dogs and cats are also being given anti-obesity pills- which is more for the pet owners who never take the animal out for walks. They are being given anti-anxiety pills- to help them get through the pain of separation while owners go on long vacations. Dogs are also being given drugs that are meant to boost their cognitive functions in some cases.
The list of drugs for dogs is continuously growing.
The problem is, of course, largely in the hands of a veterinary industry that is pushing drugs on naïve pet owners. But pet owners also bear some of the responsibility.
As more and more people replace human relationships with animal relationships they become susceptible to the kind of smothering love that moves people to force their animals to live out their lives indoors. It is a disturbing trend with a host of causes- and you can be sure that the companies profiting from it are not going to help us find the cure.
~ Health Scams Exposed
