February 2011 Newsletter

February 2, 2011
Two new articles to read:
Building A Healthy Immune System for your pet
www.onlynaturalpet.com/KnowledgeBase/knowledgebasedetail.aspx?
articleid=47&click=73886&utm_source=cheetah&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=012711_ARTICLE
Preventing Cancer in pets
http://onlynaturalpetblog.com/2011/01/28/preventing-cancer-in-pets-a-holistic-perspective-by-dr-jean-hofve/

This one is VERY important to read
Pets poisoned by your pills. Human medications on top 10 toxins list
www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41317308/ns/health-pet_health/
It’s important to note that this ISN’T about the medication prescribed to our pets by veterinarians but the way we
handle out medications at home. Dropped pills, unsealed bottles etc. It’s about being extra careful.

Most of you will remember that last fall I connected with a leading vet teacher at the James L. Voss Veterinary
Teaching Hospital at Colorado State University. She was kind enough to let me ask her some questions that
have been on my mind for a long time. I didn’t ask too many as I didn’t want to inundate her. I hadn’t heard from
her in a long time and figured she either got too busy (she was REALLY busy over the holidays) or she picked
apart my questions and decided to blow me off. It turned out to be that she was indeed busy and sent me an
email last week. Needless to say I’m floored with her answers and very, very pleased! She also gave me some
incredibly exciting news which I’ll include here. I wanted to make sure and share this info with all of you because
it gave me a glimmer of hope as to the future of feline medicine. (Notice I have underlined and bolded some
things I find very important):

First I asked her what her thoughts were on B12, how often she uses it and what doses. This is her response:
I do indeed use cobalamin and the official scientific answer is that we have no information on the best dose. We
certainly do know that the cobalamin is not absorbed well in the Ilieum in IBD and injectable supplementation is
helpful. I generally do use 0.25 ml, weekly, long term in IBD cats. In a larger or more sickly cat I would go 0.5 ml.

I asked if she knew of any statistics being kept on feline IBD, pancreatitis, other GI disorders, etc.:
To be honest, there is no overall monitoring body to keep track of IBD stats. When they do this type of thing in
humans, they are able to do so because of insurance company information. If a researcher decided to do an
incidence study, it would still probably only be the incidence of a few clinics at which they had access to records.
This is an incredible time-consuming task and so it requires a devoted researcher with time and money. The
closest thing to a central record would be to tap into the computer system of Banfield Inc., but honestly, this will
not be representative for a number of reasons: you would have to define IBD (as you know this is tricky)
somehow - clinical signs? biopsy? (unlikely to be fully worked up a clinic like Banfield) response to therapy? the
information would be extremely variable and perhaps not comparable. I fully believe that our perceived incidence
is increasing - a) many factors like those you mention and also b) increased awareness both on the part of vets
and their proactive owners.

I also asked whether she considers x-rays any help in determining thickening of the intestines, pancreatitis, IBD,
etc. I suggested it was a waste of time and money as it really doesn’t show much and 9 out of 10 times they need
to do an ultrasound anyways. Why not go for that in the first place?
YES YES YES! Radiographs are really useless to assess your organs of interest, the gut and pancreas. AND it
takes a trained experienced ultrasonographer to assess these things accurately so it is worth your time and
money to find a board-certified individual to perform this diagnostic. Many vets have an ultrasound these days,
and have taken some training, but this is nothing like someone who has trained for YEARS looking at the
pancreas and intestine. This is the difference of a board certified ultrasonographer. You can actually see the
pancreas, liver and intestine and tell if the latter is thickened. Thickening of the intestines should never be called
from an x-ray. This can be visually misleading.

Lastly I asked about better guidelines for treating GI diseases because the current “one size fits all” regimen is
clearly not working! Too many variables and just like a human patient, each cat is different with a different
reaction to medications, foods, treatments, etc.:
Unfortunately in vet med, particularly in feline med, there is so much to know and research, that it is dependent
upon motivated individuals and funding etc to make any advances. Science proceeds very slowly unfortunately.
But good news! Frankie's Fund received a donation over the holidays and we are earmarking the money to start
a clinical study for IBD! We hope to get this rolling in the next few months. Dr. Craig Webb is our IBD guy here,
and I have asked him to spearhead the stem cell trial for IBD. I will keep you updated on our progress with this.

I have offered up ANYTHING they would like me to do to help in that study and I also have asked her permission
to use her B12 dosing and regimen on my B12 page. I haven’t heard back yet but she’s extremely busy and it’s
worth it for me to be patient as she’s really nice and very helpful. I even decided to mention diets and grains
being fed to obligate carnivores as a problem but didn’t mention any specific brands. So we’ll see what the
response is to that. And along that very subject Shadow’s mom Tina sent me a very interesting, if not comical,
link. Apparently a story was written online about how Science Diet was the best food out there and people
PUMMELLED this guy with comments saying it’s junk and he’s an idiot! LOL. Anyways, Science Diet was so
upset they wrote this letter in response. If you’d like to read the original article that started it, there’s a link on this
website for it. Get ready for a good laugh and feel free to read the comments below, I’ve added mine:
www.truthaboutpetfood.com/articles/science-diet-responds-to-consumer-blasting.html

February 21, 2011
I can’t remember if I included this in my last newsletter so I’ll include it again.
Dental Care for Pets, By Jean Hofve, DVM
www.onlynaturalpet.com/KnowledgeBase/knowledgebasedetail.aspx?
articleid=126&click=73891&utm_source=cheetah&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=021111_ARTDENTAL
Silly me actually gave credit to the wrong folks last newsletter for some of those links. Sorry about that! I know, it’
s no big deal but I like to make sure the right people who help me out get the credit for it. So WHOOPSY! LOL.
Linda was the one who gave me the info about the Biofreeze and Tracey was the one who gave me the cute
dogs who love kitties link. I think all this snow is rotting my brain.

I found this last night and keep in mind this is NEW research.
Chromium-6 Is Widespread in US Tap Water - Cancer-causing chemical found in 89 percent of cities
sampled: The National Toxicology Program has concluded that hexavalent chromium (also called chromium-6) in
drinking water shows “clear evidence of carcinogenic activity” in laboratory animals, increasing the risk of
gastrointestinal tumors. In September 2010, a draft toxicological review by the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) similarly found that hexavalent chromium in tap water is “likely to be carcinogenic to humans.”
www.ewg.org/chromium6-in-tap-water.

For those of you who saw the movie Erin Brokovich, you’ll understand why this is so important. Ms. Brokovich
fought a very long time to get hexavalent chromium removed from water supplies in California and many people
there died from cancer because of that chemical. It seems the public has been duped into believing the battle
was won. The good news is that Lisa Jackson from the EPA began looking into this within 72 hours of the
information getting out. There is a petition on that site to help speed things along and make it known we want
answers as to why this is still being used and to REMOVE it.

On that note, please consider using an over the counter or under the counter water filter in your house. Brittas
and other low cost filters do NOT remove these chemicals. Nor do they remove parasites and other chemicals
such a chlorine, fluoride, lead, mercury, arsenic. Etc.

February 22, 2011
Hi everyone, I wanted to send this important safety and health information out. Remember a few weeks ago the
FDA sent out a notice to recall antiseptic wipes because of contamination and a rare form of bacteria? Turns out
they knew about it well before sending out the information.

Problems with sterilization, contamination
Documents show that FDA officials expressed concerns following visits to the Triad plant from July 15 to July 17,
2009, and again from April 19 to May 18, 2010. Inspectors reported that the company could not validate the
processes used to ensure quality or sterility not only of alcohol prep pads and wipes, but also other products
used for intimate care.
www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41694606/ns/health-infectious_diseases/

And there’s more, keep reading. These are all products we use on a day to day basis not only for ourselves and
our kids but for our pets with certain medical conditions! There are more than just antiseptic wipes that are
contaminated and they’re sold at stores we all shop at: CVS, Walgreen’s, Kroeger’s, Safeway. These products
are also sold under generic labels through grocery stores in many countries. Not sure if this article has anything
to do with this but I just googled the Triad Group and their website says it’s down for maintenance. This article
was on the main page of msnbc’s health section today so I’m willing to bet they’re experiencing a high volume of
email. I’m not sure if it states “manufactured by the Triad Group” on these products or not but look for that name
and H&P Industries. If you’re really ticked off, try making a phone call to any of the stores that’s listed as
distributors and see what they have to say about this. They probably don’t even know about it.

Newsletter Archive
February 2011