FYI for pet lovers; Deadly Pet Food

farfromglorified wrote:

There arguably could be more problems. Absent any mention of a specific regulation, people here seem to be blindly saying "regulation will fix things". Sort of like this:

Certainly regs are not a magic band aid that fixes all problems, but to suggest that they create more problems is silly. I see the results of regulatory agencies everyday and it is for the better. I could get really technical with examples if you'd like.

farfromglorified wrote:

They can create more problems. I'm certainly not suggesting that regulations on pet food are guaranteed to create more pet deaths. I'm simply rejecting the reverse idea: that regulation can only lead to less pet deaths.

Of course it can, to suggest otherwise is silly. Can you give me an example to support your theory? I can give many to disprove it.

farfromglorified wrote:

I'm not sure I understand your example. Are you suggesting that, absent regulation, cost cutting on the front end couldn't possibly lead to bigger costs on the back end?

Maybe I misinterpreted your question. Just for clarification, cutting costs on the front end CAN led to bigger costs on the back end when problems arise from those initial cuts.


http://www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/NEWS/NEW00697.html

farfromglorified wrote:

I certainly do think that. However, I don't think, absent regulations, the medical field would be similar to what it is now.

You do think that? You need to spend some time with me in my lab. Much of the regs are in place as preventative measures, due to past issues, it's a quality control issue. Some of the problems are unknown until they are discovered & pointed out by the regulatory agencies. For example, there is a heart medication called Digoxin http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digoxin. It has a very narrow therapeutic range and can be deadly if too much is administered. We monitor therapeutic drug levels in our lab. Apparently, there can be a prozone effect when the level of drug is too high. This means the substrate in the test is depleted by the high drug level and a falsely decreased drug level is the result. So, then the doctors act on this erroneous result and administer more of the drug to the patient. This can lead to toxic levels and death. This has happened in hospitals and has happened with many different methodologies. Most laboratories were unaware (ignorant) of the problem until it was brought to light by the regulatory agencies. It is now a standard to dilute negative specimens with a known value to ensure no prozone effect is present. Without this reg, some labs might not be so diligent in ensuring quality, due to many factors, including ignorance, laziness, etc. I can dig up statistics on how certain regs have reduced errors, if you like.

farfromglorified wrote:

Certainly. But accountability and government regulation are not necessarily dependent.

I agree, but you can't discount the decreased number of errors & fatalities due to the regulatory agencies. I'm not saying that sometimes it's not over-kill, but you can't argue that regulatory agencies have no effect.

farfromglorified wrote:

I can think of dozens of examples myself. Yet everyday in this country, people die because of erroneous test results, tainted products, ignored processes, and willful negligence.

Absent regulation, could more people be dying from those things? Certainly, yes. However, absent industry consolidation, price controls, restricted competition, witless consumers and wreckless politicians, could less people by dying from those things? Certainly, yes. So it's not just a "to regulate or not regulate" argument.

So what's your problem with regulatory agencies? To 'not regulate' leads to more problems and you seem to agree with this.

farfromglorified wrote:

How about I give you two examples (one hypothetical and one actual) as you requested?

First, let's look at this very situation and a likely hypothetical that could come out of it. It would have cost Menu Foods X amount of dollars to simply withhold all of this food from the market, given the information they had at the time before sending it out to stores. However, it's now going to cost them $X times many factors to suffer the consequences of their actions now, despite the absence of regulation. The recall itself and loss in sales will end up costing them far more than the original withholding would have, even ignoring the fines or lawsuits that will come out of it. So, their cost-cutting on the "front-end" is going to be dwarfed by the losses on the "back-end", regardless of regulatory actions.

I agree with this and I provided an example earlier. So why not abide by the regs, ensure quality control, and prevent further expenses? Actually, having clear-cut standards ensures that you are providing a quality product or services. They make you aware of problems you might not have been aware of to begin with. See above example about therapeutic drugs[/quote]

farfromglorified wrote:

Second, let's look at a past example. The diabetes drug Rezulin was recently removed from the market after pressure from regulatory bodies. Rezulin had a side effect that ended up killing about 100 people, despited hundreds of thousands of people who suffered zero negative consequences from taking the drug. Competing drugs existed on the market, but not all patients responded to those drugs and thousands of people died from untreated diabetes. Existing regulations and "accountability" made it impossible for the drug makers to continue to produce the drug without having to suffer extreme costs that redered the drug as a loss-maker.

Unfortunately, we tend to measure regulations in averages, instead of individual choices. The problem is that "averages" don't eat dog food, don't take medicine, and don't grow crops. Individuals do those things, and you cannot assess them as averages.

I agree with you here, being a pharmacy school drop-out, I'm not familiar with the all the regs they fall under, although they answer to some of the same agencies and I.

Look, I'm not saying that regulatory agencies are perfect. They are not and I have experienced the frustrations. But, the alternative can be harmful (ie no regs at all) I will also say that I have personally seen agencies revoke current standards due to complaints form experts in the field. There is certainly redundancy and over-kill.

farfromglorified wrote:

You're going to have to define "better". What's your standard? Deaths from dog food? Then the best regulation would be to ban dog food. Without dog food, there would be the lowest possible number of deaths from dog food.

Even your proposed regulation, "No Rat Poison In Pet Foods" has problems. Certain types of vitamins will kill rats but are healthy for dogs. So, again, it's the short-sighted, reactionary elements of these kinds of regulations that can end up doing more harm than good.

LOL! Come on now. You are right, that when a problem arises, you can bet there will be a new reg. But it certainly will not cause more harm (death, illness, etc). Maybe it will will cause a company to rethink how they do business, but that's life. How do you see it causing more harm exactly?