This is getting stranger and stranger:
Yesterday, I spoke with a vet from Pfizer (who manufactures Revolution). She told me a few things. First of all, apparently, the product has been EXTENSIVELY tested on pregnant and lactating bitches with no ill effect whatsoever. Even more, whenever there's a flea infestation, the product is used on lactating bitches but not directly on the pups to treat both mom and babies - it is transmitted via the mother's milk - again, without any harm.
She explained that the way the product works is that it contains a substance that destroys neurotransmitters in insects which are completely different from neurotransmitters in mammals. And that this substance is completely harmless in humans and other mammals.
She also told me something else that you might find interesting: apparently, the norms for testing and approving products for animals are even MORE stringent than those for humans...! Hum!
She checked the database in which all reports must be filed - they are obligated by law (she assured me that Bo's is going in there as well). For the ten or so years the product has been used, there is one similar report, in 2002, in a cat that had skin problems. But other products (which had not been similarly tested) had also been used simultaneously and consequently, the blame was put more on the other products than on the Revolution. She found no similar cases in dogs. However, she could check only the Canadian database and I'd still be curious to know what the American database might contain...!
Now, where it gets really weird is this: she spoke to the doctor who treated Bo at the vet hospital. And this doctor told her that the pups were breathing when they were born, but they couldn't keep them alive.
And this same doctor told me, when it happened, that the pups were born dead and that, because their skin looked a little dehydrated and no so elastic, they thought they might have been dead for a little while (maybe hours or a day).
My question is: who is she lying to...??? And why...????
I have a feeling she might have been lying to me.
And I have a feeling I might know why: We got to the hospital with Bo around 5AM, 30 minutes after the first baby was born. And they started giving ocytocin to provoke contractions. From everything I'd read on this site and others, I knew that there shouldn't be more than two hours between births... and yet, this doctor kept telling me that we could wait, that because the X-rays showed no pup in the birth canal, it was safe to wait and try more ocytocin before going to the c-section.
I figured she knew what she was talking about... so we waited. Shot after shot, we waited... Until, finally, at 9AM (4 HOURS LATER) I said: enough. Get them out!!!
So maybe, after all, it wasn't the Revolution... maybe it was just pure and simple incompetence...
Why else would she lie, other than to protect herself? |