Do these jokers at Big Pharma have no shame?!!? Now, they wanna medicate Fido for "Separation Anxiety" and "obesity"? Oy vey, as my grandma used to say:
Monday, 21 July 2008
Back in the day – before Paris Hilton carried a pooch in her handbag, before professional dog-walking was a serious career, and before "doggy day-care" even existed – the most popular cure for an unhappy canine was, as the nursery rhyme goes, to give the dog a bone.
How times have changed. A surge in the popularity of household animals, coupled with the licensing of several new veterinary drugs, is seeing thousands of American dog owners replace comforting marrow-bones with a chemically enhanced modern alternative: Pet Prozac.
Lifestyle drugs to treat troubled canines for depression, anxiety, bad behaviour and even obesity are being launched by pharmaceutical firms anxious to cash-in on the nation's booming love affair with man's best friend. Most of the new pills are almost identical to those popped by humans – and some are proving very controversial indeed.
This month, the American Veterinary Medical Association's (AVMA) annual convention in New Orleans, attended by more than 10,000 of the country's leading vets, saw a heated debate about the doggie anti-depressants Clomicalm and Reconcile, and a product called Slentrol – the world's first canine anti-obesity pill.
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