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| Hpathy Ezine - April, 2007 | ||||
Epidemic Related to Pet Foodby Paul Herscu, ND |
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| Dear Colleagues, I hope you are all well. I would like to thank you for your kind responses to my updates on the pet food problems. I am glad that so many of your animals responded to my suggestions. Note I am using the word epidemic here, in that the way we look at this situation is very similar to the discussions we had in Herscu Letters #32-38 involving epidemics. The Pet Food Problem Several weeks ago I began to hear from different people across the country that their animals were sick and could I try to help them or their veterinarian, try to help their animals. At first nothing seemed odd about it. The first case, a dog with vomiting, diarrhea, and a foamy vomit at the mouth, seemed very similar to another dog I had recently seen while teaching in Italy, who had the classic symptoms of liver/kidney failure or liver cancer. It turned out to be cancer that had affected the liver. I suggested for this new animal, based on the symptoms, Lycopodium, similar to the animal I had seen in Italy. I mentioned to the pet owner that the animal probably has liver damage of some sort and to check it out. In fact both liver enzymes and kidney readings were very high. Interestingly enough, this animal recovered quickly with the homeopathic treatment. There was nothing too unusual for me in this story yet. I often have vets that study with me call in special circumstances. What made it unusual was that this telephone call was followed by another and another, from different vets. I suspected something was afoot. Soon after, the news broke about the possibility that rat poison, melamine, or maybe some other toxin, was in the food and it all began to make sense to me. I continue to have the opportunity to treat many of these animals, by assisting vets who have been bombarded with such cases. All the animals are doing well, except for one who is fighting for its life at the time of this writing. Its liver is fine now, though its kidneys are still damaged. What follows is where I think we are, wholly based on my understanding primarily of my model of provings, and the way it intersects with the model of epidemics, and previous similar episodes where we treated during epidemics: 1. Pets are fed on either table scraps or pet food. 2. Most vets that are in the natural health field have shied away from the more common prepared foods/pet foods and have asked pet owners to feed wholesome foods, similar foods as they are eating. (To get a clear sense of what that might be, you might want to contact your vet or The Academy of Veterinary Homeopathy: http://www.theavh.org or the American Holistic Veterinary Medical Association: http://www.ahvma.org). As a plug, I would like to suggest that all vets join these organizations. You do not have to do everything they suggest. However, when unusual circumstances arise, you might have resources that you might not have otherwise. 3. The animals that are fed on table scraps or a raw food diet have not become ill, but some animals that are fed on prepared pet food have. 4. From our discussions of provings and epidemics in the past, I would like to say, for those who have or treat animals that have eaten tainted food, here is what I have seen and here is what I would recommend:
Hopefully, this short note has made sense thus far. To this I would add one more point. This is a one time piece of advice, used here, and should be used ONLY within the first weeks of exposure to the tainted pet food. If I had an animal living with me, and I knew for sure that it had eaten the food that seemed to be making other dogs sick, I would give my dog one dose of Lycopodium 30c, one time. Period. This is an animal whi is strictly not sick. I believe it will afford the animal a certain level of protection. It has no side effects, no lasting effect, and will not hurt the animal, but may keep it from developing problems in the future. I hope this helps you make sense of what others may have been forwarding to you from me. I am also wondering about the future difficulties and discussions that will ensue in a few months. Soon people will begin to discuss the point that if you test all foods for animals and people, there is a certain level of contaminants. The question is how much is too much, what should we settle for? This is one place where homeopathy could have major input, but probably will not due to a lack of consistent definitions. In closing, I would like to mention my hope and aspiration that in the future, homeopathy will be better situated to prepare for future epidemics, so that we may help not just our pets and animals, but ourselves, our families, and our human patients as well. Best of luck in all your endeavours, Paul Herscu ND P.S. Understanding this topic is not just important to dogs and cats, but will come back to haunt each of us in coming epidemics. There is a very clear method of understanding what is going on during an epidemic and it is not just about knowing which remedy or remedies might have effect. We are in the position to offer effective and widespread help, but certain philosophical factors and their applications must be understood; which will inform remedy selection and follow-up care and will make our work more predictably accurate and effective. This is not in place in our community at this time. If you would like to be on an email list in order to receive occasional epidemic updates, please let us know by emailing us at nesh@nesh.com. We have written on this topic extensively and will put a timeline of that work on the website www.nesh.com in the next few weeks. |
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