Teeth and Fleas

Yes, we do realize this is a strange title. Teeth and fleas don't have anything in common, do they? Well, actually they often do. Your vet.

This is not to knock your vet. There are many good vets who care about their patients and will work with your humans to do everything possible to help you to get well or to stay well.

But since we don't have a voice or a vote at the vet's, it is each human's responsibility to make a wise and informed final decision on what is done for us. There's a lot they won't understand and they just have to rely on a vet's expertise, but in non-emergency/non-lifethreatening visits, decisions will arise such as which vaccinations we should receive.

Some of you are already aware of the current controversy over some vaccines and their repeated use in relation to cancer. If your human isn't already aware, this is only one of many sites on the pet vaccination controversy.

Yesterday Jan's friend Mark sent her a link to one she'd never heard of. Dog dental vaccine. (From what we can find, there is not yet one for cats, since the bacteria in a cat's mouth is different from a dog's.) It has evidently been around for a year or so and is now being heavily promoted.

We have been reading a number of kitty and woofie blogs recently where they were visiting the vet for dental cleaning or tooth removal. We can only imagine the shock of one poor kitty mom who had no notification the vet intended to take out 7 of her kitty's teeth. Aside from the horror of her furbaby losing 7 teeth, from some of the prices other cat owners are saying they were charged, the increase to the bill was likely several hundred dollars. (Jan would faint!)

So we got to thinking, since pet tooth removal is happening more often, how willing would humans be to pay for a vaccine to save them green papers and save their furbaby's teeth? So we checked the link to the vaccine company. Although we don't believe we want to try the vaccine, the information looks innocuous.

But wait, Jan's friend emailed her back telling her to check the MSD info. We hijacked her email and scrolled down the site page. At the bottom is the Material Safety Data Sheet link. If you can't open this link, just use the link to the vaccine company and scroll down.

What? Formaldehyde! Who injects dogs - or any living being - with formaldehyde? It's a potential cancer hazard!

Mark further emailed: My major was chemistry. Formaldehyde is a semi cyclic (unattached cycle) hydrocarbon because it's missing a connective molecule like a halo benzoic or halogen ion. That crap is interactive degenerative with LIFE.

Okay, we admit we have no idea what that means. Except for the degenerative with life part. (Degenerative: Of illness; marked by gradual deterioration of organs and cells along with loss of function.) Jan says she would never allow us to be injected with formaldehyde, but, unfortunately, if a vet ever suggested we should have the vaccine, the word "formaldehyde" would never be mentioned by the vet.

And now for the fleas. There has been an email circulating on the dangers of the new flea product Promeris which is available only from your vet. If you check snopes.com or other rumor sites, the validity of this is still unresolved. But on About.com there is a link in the comments below the email to a statement confirming the incident from Fort Dodge, manufacturer of the medication. There are other Promeris complaints on the internet. Some vets will not carry the product. Others are waiting to see how the new product does over time.

Jan had a problem last year with a couple of us and Advantage. She doesn't intend to try Promeris on any of us, so we aren't pro or con from personal experience. But we hope any human planning to use it - or any other potentially toxic product - on their furbaby will do some research and make an informed decision.