Just to show you how bad FDA is. I lost my 6 yr old hearing/signal assistance dog (pictured on the left) to Rimadyl a year ago. Her name was Shane. I took her in for her shoulder limp. She died three days after she was given this drug, Rimadyl. It has killed many dogs and owners have been fighting FDA to remove it from the market. They won't. It's money. It was marketed for humans, but found unsafe so given to dogs! FDA has my case # and I have been fighting them and its maker, Pfizer, on this one. Info. of how many dogs have died aren't reported accurately.
I can't yet post a link, but I am going to paste some info here.
Rimadyl: Most Arthritic Dogs Do Very Well On This Pill, Except Ones That Die
Wall Street Journal Staff Reporter - by Chris Adams
You might call it a made-for-TV drug. Approved for human use in the U.S. but not marketed that way, an arthritis medicine called
Rimadyl
languished for nearly 10 years in developmental limbo, then emerged in a surprising new form. Instead of a human drug, it was now a drug for arthritic dogs. And it became a hit. With the aid of slick commercials featuring once-lame dogs bounding happily about, Rimadyl changed the way veterinarians treated dogs. Clients would walk in and say, 'What about this Rimadyl?' " says George Siemering, who practices in Springfield, VA.
Today, those TV spots are gone. The reason has to do with dogs like Montana. A six-year-old Siberian husky with stiff back legs, Montana hobbled out of a vet's office in Brooklyn, N.Y., six months ago accompanied by his human, Angela Giglio, and a supply of Rimadyl pills. At first, the drug appeared to work. But then Montana lost his appetite. He went limp, wobbling instead of walking. Finally he didn't walk at all. He ate leaves, vomited and had seizures and, eventually was put to sleep. An autopsy showed the sort of liver damage associated with a bad drug reaction. Pet drugs are big business; an estimated $3 billion world-wide and Rimadyl is one of the bestsellers. It has been given to more than four million dogs in the U.S. and more abroad, brought Pfizer Inc. tens of millions of dollars in sales, and pleased many veterinarians and dog owners.
But the drug has also stirred a controversy, with other pet owners complaining that nobody warned them of its risks. Montana's owner, Ms. Giglio, is among them. After she informed Pfizer and the Food and Drug Administration of her relatively youthful dog's death, Pfizer offered her $440 "as a gesture of good will" and to cover part of the medical costs. Insulted by the offer and a stipulation that she agree to tell no one about the payment except her tax preparers. She refused to sign and didn't take the money. "There's just no way in my conscience or heart I can release them from blame," she says.
After reports of bad reactions and deaths started streaming in to the FDA, the agency suggested that Pfizer mention "death" as a possible side effect in a warning letter to vets, on labels and in TV ads. Pfizer eventually did use the word with vets and on labels, but when given an ultimatum about the commercials mention "death" in the audio or end the ads -- Pfizer chose to drop them. Pfizer's director of animal-products technical services, Edward W. Kanara, says that when reports started coming in, "we acted extremely promptly based on the information we had." Pfizer points out that reported adverse events involve less than 1% of treated dogs.
Since Rimadyl's 1997 launch, the FDA has received reports of about 1,000 dogs that died or were put to sleep and 7,000 more that had bad reactions after taking the drug, records and official estimates indicate. The FDA says such events are significantly underreported. While the numbers include cases "possibly" related to Rimadyl, it is hard to be sure. Many dogs given the arthritis drug are older, and few are autopsied after they die. Pfizer says it analyzed cases of Rimadyl-treated dogs that died in 1998 and found a link to Rimadyl to be "likely" in 12% of cases and "not likely" in 22%; it says there was too little information for a judgment about the others.
Rimadyl Still Approved
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Additional Information: The Senior Dogs Project, Rimadyl Alternative