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Originally Posted by Nancy1999  I see you posted here and it health and diet and I’ll just repeat what I wrote on the other thread.
I hope people don't stop using it because of this news. I can't open the second link, so I can’t comment on what it says, but the first link basically states Heartgard may not be as effective as they advertise it to be, what product is? It doesn't say anything about it not be safe, or that it could harm our dogs. If you dog gets heartworms, and you have proof that you’ve bought the product Heartgard will treat you dogs for the heartworm at no cost to you, so this tells me that they believe the product to be effective. We have to remember that some people may buy the product, but that doesn’t mean they remember to give it to their dogs every month. |
That's what it says in the article that the company's response is to any questioning regarding a decline in efficacy in the medicine. How can they stand by their product and at the same time claim that the owners are simply not remembering to administer the medicine? The company can claim that this is the case, but through statistical analysis it is very easy to determine if it is more likely than not that the medicine is at fault. What (apparently) did happen is that this company is passing the buck of responsibility onto the shoulders of the consumer rather than the product. Yes, it is true that not every single product is "effective" as it claims to be but this is a result of either purposely misleading of the public or when you have a biased sample. Since (from the article) we can infer that the problem is not a biased sample--then it is instead a company purposely misleading the public about the effectiveness of a product which I find unethical for the following reasons:
1) This makes it difficult for us to find the proper medicine for our dogs. I'm not saying that we should stop giving heartworm medicine to our dogs, but the lack of information DOES deter us from looking for other heartworm medicines that may be more effective.
2) If there isn't reliable data available about the current effectiveness of medicines in the market, then this trumps the scientific process and community from developing something that might be MORE effective than what we have now. If we think that the current heartworm medicine is 20% MORE EFFECTIVE than what the actual true population effectiveness value is, then why bother trying to create something better that is almost essentially "perfect."
I hope nobody is offended by my post. I do not plan on "stopping" to administer heartworm medicine simply because the product is not as effective as advertised--it still is better than not administering anything at all. The point I am trying to make is that I do NOT agree with PURPOSELY misleading the public about how effective the product is. In fact, I think that stating that a product is more effective than it actually is only further breeds the irresponsibility of the owner "Oh I only skipped a month or two of medicine, but it doesn't matter because it's 100% effective all the time so what's the chance my dog will get heartworm in a couple of months?" In addition, I can't imagine the HOOPS someone would have to jump through to get the company to pay for a dog who has heartworm even after using the product if they're willing to destroy documents and claim that the consumer is mostly at fault for their product not working.