FALSE CLAIMS ON NUTRICEUTICAL LABELS:

Molly has sold certain nutriceuticals, especially for her canine patients, for some time now. Aside from the omega-3 fatty acids the main item is a combination product containing glucosamine and chondroitin sulfate called 'Cosequin'. One of Molly's own cats is receiving daily supplements of same. It's not a big market for Molly as she often recommends that owners of large dogs purchase their supplements from a human pharmacy and "work down" on the dose given the weight of their dog. Now, Molly is not a devotee of the religion that could be described as "naturophilia" ie the superstitious belief that there is something "magical" about so-called "natural compounds" that makes them mysteriously better than totally synthetic compounds. Being half-Irish she cannot see the difference between "Protestant chemicals" and "Catholic chemicals" despite her ethnic background, and this is an exact metaphor for the belief that there is something magical about "natural". As with any religion there are also an incredible amount of predators who take advantage of such beliefs to empty the wallets of the believers. The best research in the human field has concluded that there is no benefit to sufferers of osteoarthritis, like Molly herself, from taking glucosamine alone, and the research in the veterinary field is ambiguous enough to draw the same conclusion vis-a-vis dogs. The jury is still out, however, regarding the benefit of glucosamine/chondroitin combinations, and so Molly still either sells or recommends them.

This is despite her knowledge of a much deeper level of dishonesty in the nutriceutical market which she hopes to bypass by her usual recommendation that owners never purchase such drugs from an health food store (they are the ultimate epitomy of crookedness in our society falling way below used car salesmen for shear dishonesty) but only from a pharmacy. This is because Molly is fully aware that health food quackery not only makes false claims for efficacy of certain chemicals but is connected to dishonest manufacturers who routinely misrepresent the actual levels of chemicals in the drugs that they sell, to the extent that there may be none of the chemical claimed on the label in the little funny capsules sold at inflated prices in such drug dens. About the only thing that Molly says is "safe" to buy at a health food store are yeast tablets. Yeast is industrial waste and is ultra-cheap and so there is little incentive to lie about it. Simply weigh it, put it in a capsule and charge a markup of 1000% for the marks.

I know in my heart of hearts that purchase from a pharmacy is no guarantee of honesty in labelling, but I still believe that the pharmacies are a few orders of magnitude above the systemic dishonesty of health food stores because lies are not their total business. Yet something I have recently read gives me pause in that it reinforces the need for vigilance on the part of veterinarians, and by implication pharmacists as well. I am only happy that this paper says that what I have been doing to date in terms of my own sales is OK. Anyways...

The item is a comparative analysis of the amounts of glucosamine and chondroitin present in 7 different nutriceutical products manufactured for the veterinary community and their correlation with label claims. The authors are Bertrand Lussier and Maxim Moreau of the Companion Animal Research Group, Faculte de mediceine veterinaire, University de Montreal (the French speaking veterinary college here in Canada). The research was sponsored by the generic drug manufacturer Novo-Pharm in their expectation that their product 'Novo-Flex' would measure up to various brand name formulations marketed to veterinarians here in Canada. It did more than measure up ! There were six other brand name formulations tested: Kirkland, Equate, Ubavet, Cosequin, Osteo 3, and Con-Glu. The results for glucosamine, the cheaper chemical, were not extraordinary. Only Ubavet and Osteo-3 fell significantly below the label claims, by -28.9% and -15.2% respectively. For the more expensive chemical, chondroitin, however, the variation from label claims was astounding: -98.7% for Equate (practically none available in their pills), -83.7% for Uba-Vet, and -19.9% for Osteo 3. Only the Kirkland product, Cosequin and the generic formulation Novo-flex measured up, all of them exceeding the label claims (which are typically expressed as "minimums").

It's food for thought. It says to me that I should stick with Cosequin for my own sales until further research verifies the Novo-Pharm claims. It also, however, says to me that I should be a little more cautious is recommending pharmacy purchases and should perhaps recommend a "house brand" first over other items on the shelf. I think that i can presume that pharmacy house brands have quality control that is superior to those of the other items on their shelf. Something to look up.

Once more, there is no firm proof that a glucosamine/chondroitin mixture does any good for osteoarthritis sufferers, but like much in medicine this is provisional. The authors of the paper from the Universite de Montreal conclude that federal legislation to enforce compliance with minimal standards of honesty in nutriceutical labels would be desirable. As an anarchist I'd like to avoid this conclusion, but it seems like a reasonable reform in the absence of popular education, particularly as so many anarchists-and other leftists- buy into the obvious lies of health food quackery. Those who attempt to educate the public are small in number as compared to those who attempt to steal from the public, and too many of the supposed friends of the public buy into the popular crooked lies for various ideological reasons.

Molly

COST TO THE CONSUMER:
The owner of the Against Monopoly site (see also our links section) has posted an interesting item on the relative costs of the monopoly granted by drug patents. It is basically a report on a case study published in the American Economic Review of the relative costs and benefits of patent protection in the case of quinolone antibiotics. The generally accepted opinion is that the loss to a developing country is about 150% of the gain to the developed country holding the patent. This, according to the study cited, is a gross underestimate as the conventional wisdom counts the cost to the pharmaceutical industry in a developing country but ignores the cost to consumers in such a country. In the case studied, quinolone antibiotics in India, domestic Indian firms may actually gain as consumers opt for other less expensive domestically produced drugs not covered by patent protection. The Indian government regulates the price of imported drugs, and the loss to the Indian consumer depends upon the letter of the price regulation by their government. According to the study the net loss (read transfer of money from India to countries/companies holding the patents) can range from $144 to $450 million dollars. The gain to the multinationals ranges from $19.6 to $53 million dollars. In other words the loss to the Indian consumer of these drugs is 7 to 9 times the gain of of the foreign companies.
Go on over to the Against Monopoly site for the full article.
Molly Note:
The whole subject of quinolone antibiotics is covered very extensively in the CPS and on the net in a less extensive treatment at the American Family Physician site. For the totally uninitiated the fluoroquinolones are derivatives of nalidixic acid- the old "drink more cranberry juice for your bladder infection" standby. This classification of antibiotics acts by inhibiting "topoisomerase" enzymes in bacteria. There are four classes of this enzyme, one of which, "type II", is the "DNA gyrase" that Molly was under the impression that all quinolone antibiotics acted on. In actual fact the various drugs may also act on the "type IV" topoisomerase, action which is associated with increased activity against gram positive bacteria. in human medicine the "second generation" quinolones such as ciprofloxacin have now passed beyond patent protection, and there are now 3rd and 4th generation quinolones that claim better pharmaceutical properties and efficacy. There are actually a whole slew of these drugs whose claims to patents depend upon minor tweaking of the molecular structure. For the average practitioner, both human and veterinary evaluating the various claims can be an exercise in "head banging". In the veterinary field the old standby is enrofloxacin (Baytril). Orbifloxacin (Orbax) nad marbofloxacin (Zeniquin) are also available (at an increased price of course, because they have patent protection). Claims by the companies holding the patent rights to the newer drugs are usually countered by propaganda from the original drug company. Like most veterinarians I depend upon academic reviewers for an unbiased comparison, but I have yet to come upon such, and so I stick with the old Baytril.
In the human field the situation is even more confused, and I pity the doctors trying to make a rational choice amongst the alternatives. Ciprofloxacin, by the way, is now available in Canada at least in generic formulation from both Apotex and Novo-Pharm. Some pharmacies make an automatic policy of generic substitution and some don't. Best to query both your doctor and your pharmacist directly.