Previcox Emails
"Amie" (from AU) Sent: Saturday, December 23, 2008 (update) Hello, Mel Further to my story about Amie, who died 16th
November 2008. I wrote to Merial in Australia and the USA and have heard
back from Merial Australia but not Merial USA. Their head vet in Australia, Dr Claire J.<name withheld> initally telephoned me and said that Previcox was so safe it wasn't possible that our dog could have becomet ill from taking it and no deaths had ever been reported in Australia due to Previcox. She said that she would carry out an investigation
by talking to our vet and the consulting vet who carried out an
endoscopy on Amie when she was losing weight, vomiting and had a protein
count so low that she was at death's door after
taking Previcox for 3 days. Prior to taking
the Previcox she was so healthy you wouldn't believe it. I liken the investigation of Previcox by Merial to
an investigation by the police of the police department. Dr J. got back to me and concluded, after talking with both vets, that Amie had Protein Losing Enteropathy (PLE) and that it had nothing to do with Previcox. She evaded my question about how it was possible for
Amie to suddenly have PLE after 3 days of taking
Previcox when she had no signs of ANY
illness before starting Previcox. We don't doubt that Amie had
PLE, we also are of the opinion that she developed this after 3 days of
taking Previcox. We KNOW that pet owners know their animals so well and are so in tune with them that we feel that the "experts" should sit up and take notice. We have lived with Amie and her brother Josh for 12
years, 24 hours a day and they have been everywhere and done everything
with us. There's not much that we and other loving pet owners don't know
about their pets. They are/were our children. I found Dr J. very biased and
unwilling to admit that Previcox was anything but safe.
She also stated that the reports people posted about Previcox on the Internet were anecdotal and without foundation. She also pooh-poohed Leaky Bowel syndrome as being fanciful and unproven. She also stated that the vet
who had given Amie an endoscopy said there was no sign of intestinal
damage, whereas he told my wife in the op
theatre that there were bleeding lesions in the stomach/small intestine.
We have no doubt that there were caused by 3 days of taking Previcox and
caused her PLE. So, to me, I sense a coverup. My wife is yet to
confront the vet with the conflicting details about the lesions, but we
will continue to press on and try. We will take it to the Ombudsman and
relevant government departments. Thank you so much for your time and your Web site.
You are doing a great service to those who feel so frustrated and sad
about the damage done to their pets by the drug companies and the vets
who give them lip service. Sincerely, Fred B.
From Mel, K911-
Fred, How would this Dr. Claire J. know of each and every death in AU attributed to Previcox? Is there a blog somewhere for vets only? I am outraged not only by this smug behaviour but also by the audacity of telling other dog owners just how inaccurate they are about their own dog's health. The old adage of "money talks" is certainly apparent here and other vet clinics throughout the world. It is interesting to note that only ONE vet has written us stating that he too believes Previcox to be a dangerous drug while others who write are almost chastising in the way they try to suggest that we do not know the facts. All pretty much have this same line down pat, "We have had no bad instances of using this drug." I follow up with "Please tell me how you go about monitoring the dogs who have been prescribed Previcox and how often you hear of adverse reactions. I would sincerely like to know, please reply." I have yet to receive any information from any of these vets who so vehemently deny what others have written regarding the deaths of their dogs. There are many practicing vets though who do have an animals best interest at heart. The vet who prescribed the Previcox to Rowdy while we were on vacation seemed to be of that sort. He was very upset to learn Rowdy had died. Vets who know the dangers of this drug, especially for older dogs but choose to protect their financial investment rather than their client are a disgrace to their oath.
"Amie" (from AU) Sent: Saturday, November 15, 2008 2:42 PM
Hi, last night we lost our friend Amie,
Labrador cross, aged 12. She'd had a good life and rewarded us
with her love, devotion and trust.
In May this
year (2008), I was walking Amie and same litter brother, Josh,
and being on open land I let them off lead as usual, when in the
distance Josh spied a cat climbing a fence post. He took off and
Amie followed and there they were jumping and barking at the cat
sitting on top of the fence post. I called them off and noticed
that Amie was limping. She'd previously had an op for a
replacement cruciate ligament in her other rear leg and we were
hoping that this wasn't going to be another.
The limping
didn't ease, so off to the vet and he
prescribed a 10 day course of anti-inflammatory Previcox.
After a few days on the drug Amie started vomiting and then she
had violent diarrhoea. The vet suggested a visit to a
canine clinic 3 hours away in Brisbane. She was treated as an
emergency case, put on a drip overnight and the next day was
given an endoscopy. This was a $3000 exercise, but of course,
our dogs are so important that they've always had the best of
everything. The endoscopy wasn't
conclusive, but some stomach lesions were found. Her protein
levels were way down low and the specialist thought it was
something similar to Irritable Bowel Syndrome. Other than
to prescribe several drugs, he said there wasn't much that he
could do.
Amie had drugs
for controlling the vomiting, controlling the diarrhoea and
controlling the pain. she was put on Hills special food, low
fat, high protein but her weight loss was dramatic.
Always fairly robust, she was shrinking
fast and her ribs were very visible and she was losing muscle in
her legs. She had trouble walking any distance and we could see
that she was in real trouble. Our local vet came and gave
her a steroid injection to help build muscle and it did seem to
work for a week or so but the second steroid injection didn't
have any effect.
We noticed at
the start of her vomiting and diarrhoea that she had developed a
violent reaction to chicken meat, always her favorite. We also
found that commercial dog food almost always has chicken meat in
it even when labeled Beef, Veal, Turkey or Lamb. Of all the cans
whose ingredients we studied we could only find one brand that
didn't list chicken among its ingredients.
She was by
this time off medication. Her vomiting had stopped, the
diarrhoea was spasmodic, firm stools one day and diarrhoea the
next but her protein levels wouldn't increase whatever we did.
She had virtually no muscles left in her legs and it was a
struggle for her to stand, but she worked around it.
The vet said that she wasn't in pain and we
decided that we'd work with Amie and as long as she was
bright-eyed, was eating, wagging her tail and going out into the
garden for her toilet needs we'd put off making the decision to
have her put down as long as there was no pain and she wanted to
keep going. Over her last few weeks we'd thought many times that
she was close to the end, but she'd always be bright-eyed and
happy the next day.
Saturday 15th
November started off well for her. She ate heartily, was doing
lots of tail wagging and we thought she was o.k. During
the evening we found her lying in a pool of urine and we knew
that this was going to be a bad time for her. She was such a
fussy dog that she would never willingly have allowed that to
happen. We made her comfortable sat with her, stroked and
comforted her and within a couple of hours she gasped a couple
of times and it was over for her. We assumed that her biggest
muscle, her heart, had shrunk, like the rest of her muscles, and
could no longer cope.
There's no way that we
can prove it, but to us it was so coincidental, the
administering of Previcox and her inability to extract protein
from her food. She was absolutely fine before the
Previcox, all her problems started during the Previcox course.
My sister, a
people medico in U.K. said that vets don't seem to give animals
protective medication (selective COX-2 inhibitor) WITH anti-inflammatories
as doctors do to humans.
We'll miss her dreadfully, she was part of us
as we were part of her. We know that we were lucky to have her
for so many years, but we'd hoped that she
would grow old gracefully and with dignity, not spending the
last 6 months of her life as she did.
Fred B.
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