I was gung ho to get vet antibiotics, but after talking to several doctors this past week on the subject, I have decided to try for prescriptions for the real thing or to use natural cures. The main common theme was that these animal antibiotics ARE the same drugs as people take BUT with a decidedly different level of purity. Many of them contain several impurities that animals can tolerate but could make humans sick or die. The drugs used for humans are in a much purer form. Besides, let's hear from SEVERAL people out there that have actually used these fish and animal drugs to actually cure real illnesses, and I don't mean the penicillins from the vet. Who out there has actually used the drugs like the amoxicillin in Fish-Mox or the ceflexins more that once? The story I got was that the purity of these can vary from batch to batch. You could squeek by once and get sick the next time. And as far as people (supposedly doctors) on the net saying the drugs are safe, hey, I'm Clint Eastwood in real life. Rember, on the internet nobody knows you're a dog.

-- Talked to lots-o-docs (notwise@youredead.com), December 05, 1999

Answers

I plan on using the fish meds if nothing else is available.

-- Carol (glear@usa.net), December 06, 1999.

Carol-

It's vet meds for me too. I feel they might work faster than a cup of camomile tea or a garlic clove.

-- Mo (Maureen@home.con), December 06, 1999.

Like they say, Any port in a storm!. As for me, I like to get mine from Mexico. They are a third of the price of Vet drugs. You don't even need a prescription for them. But it pays to go to a Mexican Dr. just the same. It helps if you are checked at the border. Take care, HH.

-- The Happy Hoarder (relief@coastalnet.com), December 06, 1999.

The FDA (yes they oversee veterinary drugs, too) requires drugs to be uniquely labeled for easy identification. If these drugs were different in the least (purity, quality, etc), the manufacturers would be required to label them differently. Can you imagine a Dr's (or a Poison Control Center's) problem trying to figure out if that white pill labeled "0110" was an "OK" human pill or a "dangerous" vet pill that little Johnny swallowed?

I bought 5 diff. types and looked each one up by it's markings to find the manufacturer (Abbott, Warner Chilcott, TEVA, etc). These are the same generic drugs that are distributed at your neighborhood pharmacy. But don't believe me, spend $10 on 100 and look it up yourself.

-- Gil (gil@scaley.com), December 06, 1999.

Talked to our vet and he says they are the same as the generics they sell at the pharmacy. It would cost them more to have different production lines for people/animal meds. The vet says that for generic type drugs he and his family have taken vet meds for 15 years.

-- Don Kulha (dkulha@vom.com), December 06, 1999.

There are numerous threads over at www.michaelhyatt.com under Discussion Forum under MEDICAL discussing this subject. There are several nurses there, one who has also been a veterinary nurse before that, and they all say that these are identical. In fact, she's taken the brand names and so forth and verified this, and says the pills even look identical to the ones in her medicine chest for humans. They explain that people won't pay for the high cost of drugs for their animals that they pay for humans, so the drug companies charge what the market will bear. That stands to reason. And those same companies wouldn't like it if all of these internet forums were to tell that story, I am sure, and would try to dissuade people from using them, wouldn't they?

-- Elaine Seavey (Gods1sheep@aol.com), December 07, 1999.

From: Y2K, ` la Carte by Dancr (pic), near Monterey, California

That idea that veterinary drugs are unsafe is probably the party line as per the AMA. Almost all doctors are, at least publicly, 100% in synch with the pronouncements of their AMA. This tendency on the part of doctors comes from the nature of their training, and from the unreasonable power that the club has over them. If the AMA takes a disliking to any doctor, they can easily run them out of business through a process similar to the disbarment of a lawyer. All that has to happen is for the club's leadership to agree among themselves that the target doctor has done something that is "not standard practice."

The AMA will never approve of the idea of people being able to select and purchase their own medicines without first having to pay off an AMA gatekeeper.

Animal meds are the same as for humans. The tricky part is knowing proper dosages. I will consult a doctor when it comes time to take any such medications. If they don't have the human ones on hand, they will be more cooperative in recognizing when the animal meds are appropriate.

Outrageously necessary disclaimer: I am not a doctor. I only play one on IRC.

-- Dancr (addy.available@my.webpage), December 08, 1999.

ITS ALL IN THE PACKAGING

I discovered a while back that to buy ivermectin wormer for my dogs was far more expensive when it came packaged for the dogs in pill form. The same wormer in paste form is given to horses much cheeper. So I just started buying horse wormer and adjusting the dosage for my dog (it takes very, very little). This saved me a bundle of money.

I have also given pig wormer to horses, and it's packaged cheeper. The reason is the same reason that they know humans will pay more, but people won't pay more for animals. For instance, they can't charge someone with 200 pigs to worm, what they will charge someone with one dog to worm, or one or two horses. So they package it all different.

However some caution must be excerised, because some ivermectin for cows has things in it that will kill a horse. As I said it's all in the packaging.

L. Harris

-- Linda Harris (lharris@ckt.net), March 16, 2002.

I just ran across this board by accident and want to clarify a few things. Just to let you know where I'm coming from - I am a first year resident physician in emergency medicine. First - less than 50% of physicians are members of the AMA, and even fewer agree with the position that the organization takes in regard to most things (most of us do care more about our patients than about protecting physicians' earning power). Second - While many of the meds made for pets probably are the exact same meds made for humans, you have no guarantee of this. Unless you are dead broke and have no health insurance, you may be taking a risk on your life by taking these meds. Third - Antibiotics are NOT benign drugs. You should use them only when indicated - and you would be surprised at the number of times they are not indicated. There are definite risks associated with taking them - look up stevens-johnson syndrome or c. dificile colitis or anaphylactic shock - if you don't believe me. The most reliable method for a layperson to know if an antibiotic is indicated is to visit their physician. There's a reason we go through 11+ years of higher education to do what we do - this stuff is not as simple as you may think. Fourth - If you are going to use veterinary medicines, check that you are using the correct doses, at the correct intervals, for the correct amount of time. The last thing you need is for your bacteria to develop resistance to antibiotics. Some day you may find yourself infected by these bacteria and you want them to be sensitive to antibiotics. There's a lot of literature out on the internet - use it. Also, a safe guess is to treat your infection for course 7 days - but beware that some do need longer treatments.

-- J.P. Vernon (jpv@email.com), September 10, 2002.