It was an ordinary day. Reading the Thursday, May 3, 2007 "Lifestyle" section of Lancaster Newspaper's Intelligencer Journal. The headline of the story I was reading was titled "FDA may put end to flavoring pet medications." The story told about drug compounding to add flavoring to drugs to make them taste better for adults and children as well as animals. But, the Food and Drug Administration warned some compounding pharmacies that they cannot sell reformulated medicines for pets or people. Our veterinarian, Dr. George Nyland, orders compounded drugs for kittens, puppies small dogs and animals who are difficult to give a pill to such as cats. He said it would be a problem if he can't get compounded medicines for his customers. Many other vets also commented for the article telling of the hardships that will be created without the use of compounded drugs. Most pet owners see compounding drugs as a necessity. What will happen if vets can't create compounded drugs. Perhaps the FDA will allow vets and those pharmacies that make pet medicines to continue to make compounded medicines. This article I recently found was dated 14 years ago and I assume that compounding of pet medicines still exists so the FDA must have changed their mind on the topic. In the article that I had found, a few local pet owners were asked to give comments about how they would handle giving their pet medicines if they could not be flavored or made into smaller pills. One pet owner was Phyllis Bath who has to give her 14-year-old cat high blood pressure pills. She hated them, so the vet made them into a liquid and now the cat has no problem taking them.
Front page of the daily newspaper in Lancaster, PA. Carol and Otis are featured on the cover! |
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