Msnbc: Americans, Pets & Drugs

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Yet another market for the drug companies.

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Misty L. Trepke

http://health./

 

Americans lovingly stuffing pets with meds as more consider furry

friends family, spending rises to keep them healthy

By Jeff Donn

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17489668/%CA

 

 

Updated: 8:51 a.m. MT March 12, 2007

WAYNE COUNTY, N.C. - With aging, itfs become a routine faithfully

endured by the Guffords. Each day starts with a blood sugar check

and a shot of insulin. Then a couple of pills, maybe mashed into a

bowl of tuna and canned carrots. Mixed with dry chow.

All for their 12-year-old dog.

 

Brownie takes more drugs than his human companions put together. He

has been medicated in recent months for diabetes, infections, high

blood pressure and his finicky gut that rebels at red meat. Since

2005, he has taken drugs for everything from anemia to a spider bite.

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gHefs our baby, hefs a family member, I would want somebody to do

that for me,h explains Ann Gufford.

She estimates spending $5,000 over the last two years on medicine

for her baby, a mixed beagle-cocker spaniel. He has lost a couple of

steps on the squirrels outside their little home near Goldsboro. His

hearing is failing. Still, without some of the drugs, hefd probably

be gone.

 

gYou cannot put a price on that,h says Mrs. Gufford.

gAnd I donft want to,h adds her husband, Ben.

Pets treated for human ailments

Americans have begun to medicate their dogs, cats and sometimes

other pets much as they medicate themselves.

 

They routinely treat their pets for arthritis, cancer, heart

disease, diabetes, allergies, dementia, and soon maybe even obesity.

They pick from an expanding menu of mostly human pharmaceuticals

like steroids for inflammation, antibiotics for infection, anti-

clotting agents for heart ailments, Prozac or Valium for anxiety,

even the impotence drug Viagra for a lung condition in dogs.

Increasingly, they buy at people pharmacies or online and sometimes

pay with health insurance.

 

Until recent decades, American veterinarians still concentrated on

care that reflected the countryfs agrarian roots: keeping farm

animals healthy to protect the human food supply. Instead of being

medicated, a very sick animal was quickly sacrificed to save the

herd. Pets were typically kept outside with the cows, chickens and

pigs. A dog was lucky for a dry place in a crude shelter; a cat, for

a warm spot in the barn.

 

Within the last five years, pets have finally overtaken farm animals

in the pharmaceutical marketplace, claiming 54 percent of spending

for animal drugs, according to the trade group Animal Health

Institute.

 

Keeping more than 130 million dogs and cats alone, Americans bought

$2.9 billion worth of pet drugs in 2005. Though equal to only 1

percent of human drug sales, the market has grown by roughly half

since the year 2000.

 

gAs more and more drugs are being developed for people, more and

more drugs are being developed for veterinary medicine. Itfs really

a parallel track,h says Dr. Gerald Post, founder of the nonprofit

Animal Cancer Foundation.