FYI for pet lovers; Deadly Pet Food

baraka wrote:

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.

Ok, and I don't dispute the main contention here "without this reg, some labs might not be so diligent in ensuring quality".

I'm not trying to sell a "regulation is always harmful" argument here. The benefits of many regulations outweigh the negatives, particularly if one simply looks at a narrow spectrum like a) lives saved or b) costs associated or things like that.

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.

Definitely -- I'm not discounting or arguing those things. I'm simply saying that a) they should not be assumed and b) they should not be seen as the only possible way.

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

It depends. It most certainly can lead to more problems to not regulate. But regulatory agencies also become slaves to those who run them or can buy them. They become lazy, self-serving and often times act contrary to their actual mission. These things aren't always the case, and I'm not trying to represent all regulatory bodies as some kind of Stalinistic machine of oppression.

My problem with regulatory agencies is effectively my problem with cold medicine. Cold medicine can do a great job of treating symptoms, but it doesn't solve the problems. The main problems here are greed and stupidity, and not just the greed and stupidity of the manufacturers. Furthermore, we have ancillary problems like the concentration of food manufacture in distant, consolidated corporations, something regulations and bad consuming help ensure. You can't regulate those things away, you can only treat their symptoms.

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

Definitely agree on the clear-cut standards thing. That's a must not only in a regulatory environment, but in a good business environment as well.

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.

I don't think we're that far off here, at least practically. We're just coming at this from slightly different biases/experiences, and I don't mean that in a negative or disparaging sense either way.

Philosophically, I'm opposed to all kind of regulations but that's part of a much larger view of how I think the world could work and that's probably where we differ greatly. I'm not suggesting that removing regulations and keeping the food/medicine production environment we have today would somehow work to serve people better. It wouldn't.

farfromglorified wrote:

Because of your wonderful "turn around", the government rewards you with all kinds of tax breaks that offset the costs of their regulations to you, while I have to suffer them because my business isn't any better since you passed your regulations.

Your costs remain low, mine remain high. And I'm faced with a decision: do business like baraka Industries or go out of business.

But that's just some fun hyperbole.

You edited your post.

At any rate, in most cases the tax breaks should be based on quality of output, not extent of turn around. If I were you in that situation, I'd petition the government for a redress of grievances.

RainDog wrote:

You edited your post.

At any rate, in most cases the tax breaks should be based on quality of output, not extent of turn around. If I were you in that situation, I'd petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Hehe..."quality of output"? What does that mean?

Let's say I produce 15 tons of dog food a year. 3 dogs die from eating my food.

Let's say you produce 5 tons of dog food a year. 1 dog dies from eating your food.

Who produces better dog food?

baraka wrote:

BTW, there is no doubt that baraka industries would stomp ffg industries and the above accusations are simply slander! he he