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Why is Cancer
Killing Our Pets?
Cancer in
Pets: Dangers of Vaccines and Pet Food
VACCINES
Over the past
decade or so, many veterinarians have become increasingly convinced
that a number of vaccines are doing more harm than good for our
animal companions. Some remain necessary, even mandated by law,
such as rabies. But not all the annual boosters that have been
traditionally given now appear to be necessary and they may be
leading to several diseases. Among the conditions associated with
vaccines are skin allergies, bladder infections and cancer. The U.
S. veterinary community is currently reviewing most vaccines
protocols.
When it is
time to revaccinate your animal, your veterinarian should consider
the pet's age, his/her lifestyle (indoor or outdoor), his/her
general state of health, the prevalence of the disease in question
in the geographic area where you live, whether your animal is
pregnant, whether or not you board her/him and other factors. Each
case is individual and should be considered as such.
One of the
more no-holds-barred statements about vaccines is Dr. Richard
Pitcairn's warning: "Giving a vaccine to an animal with cancer is
like pouring gasoline on a fire." He also advises not vaccinating
pets who have breast tumors or any other growths or tumors. His
overall recommendations regarding vaccines are these:
1. Try to get your veterinarian to give single or simple vaccines
rather than complex vaccines. Young animals can tolerate a reduced
vaccination schedule, but vaccinating is not advised before sixteen
weeks of age.
2. Annual boosters should be avoided even though they have been
popular. Pitcairn goes so far as to say avoid "any further
vaccinations after the initial series as they are not necessary."
He adds that the latest official medical opinion is that annual
boosters are neither required nor effective, although not all
veterinarians will agree with or even know this fact.
THE PET
FOOD INDUSTRY
Perhaps the
most shocking and informative book about the pet food industry is
Ann Martin's "Food Pet's Die For", published in 1997. As Dr.
Michael W. Fox, vice president of the Humane Society of the United
States, says, "Ann Martin is to the pet food industry what Rachel
Caron was to the petrochemical-pesticide industry." Martin spent
seven years investigating the commercial pet food industry and what
she uncovered isn't pretty.
There are several reasons you really do not want to feed your dog or
cat commercial foods. Perhaps the most compelling moral reason is
that there are rendered, euthanized pets in much of this food.
These pets have been mixed with other materials, including some
condemned for human consumption: "rotten meat from supermarket
shelves, restaurant grease and the “4-D” (dead, diseased, dying and
disabled) animals and roadkill."
The Minister
of Agriculture of Quebec told Martin that dead animals are often
cooked with viscera, bones, fat and fur. In both the United States
and Quebec, this rendering of pets is not illegal. Martin points to
an article originally published in the San Francisco Chronicle in
which an employee and ex-employee of a rendering plant admitted that
their company rendered approximately 250,000 to 500,000 pounds of
animals, scraps and more, including "somewhere between 10,000 and
30,000 pounds of dogs and cats a day."
That's enough
to make most of us sick, isn't it? Martin, a Canadian writer who
lives with several animal companions, went a bit further in her
investigations and discovered that some pets are euthanized with
sodium pentobarbital and then rendered. This poison does not break
down and goes into commercial pet food and feed for cows, pigs and
horses. For the detailed report by the FDA's Center for Veterinary
Medicine on popular commercial
pet foods containing pentobarbital, click
here. When you read the report, please know
that AD (animal digest) is
animal waste (to be polite)!
Two thirds of
the pet food manufactured in the United States contains added
preservatives, according to the Animal Protection Institute. There
are also coloring agents, emulsifiers, lubricants, flavoring agents,
pH control agents, synergists and solvents. "Of the more than 8,600
recognized food additives today, no toxicity information is
available for 46% of them," the institute says.
EQ (ethoxyquin)
is the most common antioxidant preservative in pet foods. It has
been found in some dogs' livers and tissues months after the animal
stopped ingesting it. Ethoxyquin is manufactured by Monsanto
Chemical, the largest manufacturer of bioengineered foods. EQ is
listed as a hazardous chemical by the Occupational Safety and
Health Administration (OSHA) and is considered a pesticide by the
USDA. It is used in most US dog food, but is banned in Europe. The
FDA's Center for Veterinary Medicine requested that pet food
manufacturers voluntarily reduce the maximum level for ethoxyquin by
half to 75 parts per million.
Courtesy of 'New Living' Newspaper
March 2001
Judys Health Cafe is pleased to
announce that none of the products offered
contain any of the above ingredients,
including
Healthypetnet's Life's Abundance Natural & Holistic Dog
and Cat Foods |
