News Briefs for the Week of April 21, 2002
By Marcella Durand for Cat Facts
- Compounding Pharmacies Under the Microscope
To avoid the bruises, bleeding and trips to the emergency room occasioned by having to give their cat a pill, many cat owners have been turning to compounding pharmacies for their pets' prescriptions. A compounding pharmacy creates custom formulations of drugs prescribed by a doctor or veterinarian.
Custom compounding means drugs can be formulated at very specific doses, or in different forms or flavors than are commercially available. After all, it’s pretty obvious that most cats would prefer tuna-flavored pills to antibiotic-flavored ones (wouldn't you?). Compounding pharmacies can also make cat-size doses (sometimes pills only come in dog or human doses), or topical applications that can be absorbed through the cat's skin.
Unfortunately, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has announced that it has started an investigation of compounding pharmacies doing business over the Internet. According to Steven F. Sundlof, director of the FDA Center for Veterinary Medicine, "We recognize that there are some legitimate firms, so we're trying to make sure that we don’t interfere with... their ability to... work through veterinarians in providing the clients with the needed drugs at a fair market price." However, the FDA is concerned that some compounding pharmacies may sell drugs directly to consumers without a veterinarian's prescription, and may use bulk drug chemicals to prepare imitations of approved drugs.
Basically, if you'd like to find an easier way to give your cat her medication, ask your veterinarian first if he or she can recommend a compounding pharmacy.
- More Proof That Pets Reduce Stress
There are some matches that seem made in heaven: Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, vanilla ice cream and hot fudge sauce, daffodils and spring. But stressed-out stockbrokers with high blood pressure and pets in shelters?
At the State University of New York at Buffalo, 24 stockbrokers who had recently been prescribed Lisinopril for their high blood pressure were told, as part of a study, to go to the shelter and pick out a cat or dog. Another 24 stockbrokers, unlucky souls, remained petless as a control group.
The study found that the effectiveness of the Lisinopril to lower blood pressure was enhanced in the group of stockbrokers with pets. "The pets in the study are not replacing the drugs, they are enhancing the ability of the drugs to work," says Karen Allen, PhD, one of the researchers. "If the drug lowers your blood pressure, the pet is lowering your stress and they work together."
Allen emphasizes that none of the stockbrokers participating in the study had a pet before, and that the people who got to go the shelter and pick out a pet were selected at random. "It is the pet that's changing things, not the person who has a predisposition to never having a stress response," she concludes.
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