I know that the MARS company has done testing with foods that reduce the incidence of bladder stones. Lets say you dog has bladder stones which a very painful condition. Dogs that have stones are at an extremely high risk to develop stones again. So let say that your vet asks you if you would like your dog to participate in an experiment. You are to feed your dog a certain food. You have the option to say no. Half those that said yes would be given the experimental food, and half would be in a control group, and given either their normal food, or a food just like the prescription food, but without the ingredient that was thought to be reducing the stone formation. Your food would be given to you free; vet checks and surgeries to remove new stones would be free. How is this a bad thing? Participation in these types of experiments is very humane. A person should always be aware that his dog might not be given the prescription food, but how is this hurting the dogs? We are always experimenting on our dogs, giving this or that and seeing what works, these experiments are on a wider level, and if done properly can rule out variables that could affect the outcome. In other words, the results are much more reliable than antidotal evidence, as in, "Try this, it worked for me." We must not forget that a company cannot claim any health benifits if they haven't done many tests to show that this is true. Smaller companies get away with making health claims because they slide right by the governments laws, and often come back as a new company by the time the government catches them.
The type of animal experimentation that I can't handle is a breeder's experimentally breeding dog together without any type of real knowledge. Puppies are born that that suffer miserly because of genetic illnesses. Let stop supporting that! |