draggonlaady: (Grinding Bones)
Researchers at the University of Florida Emerging Pathogens Institute have attempted to identify the Top 10 riskiest combinations of foods and disease-causing microorganisms.

• Poultry contaminated with Campylobacter bacteria topped the list, sickening more than 600,000 Americans at a cost of $1.3 billion per year. Salmonella in poultry also ranks in the Top 10, with $700 million due to costs of illness. Infections with these microorganisms can cause acute illness such as vomiting but also can lead to hospitalization or death. Campylobacter infection can also cause paralysis and other neuromuscular problems. The report questions whether new safety standards announced by the USDA for young chickens and turkeys are sufficient, and recommends evaluating and tightening these standards over time.

• Salmonella is the leading disease-causing bug overall, causing more than $3 billion in disease burden annually. In addition to poultry, Salmonella-contaminated produce, eggs and multi-ingredient foods all rank in the Top 10. The report recommends that the FDA and USDA develop a joint Salmonella initiative that coordinates efforts in a number of foods.

• Four combinations in the Top 10 – Listeria in deli meats and soft cheeses, and Toxoplasma in pork and beef – pose serious risks to pregnant women and developing fetuses, causing stillbirth or infants born with irreversible mental and physical disabilities. The report recommends that agencies strengthen prevention programs for these pathogens and improve education efforts aimed at pregnant women.

• Norovirus is the most common food borne pathogen and is largely associated with multi-ingredient items that can become contaminated, often by service-industry workers who handle food. The researchers recommend strengthening state and local food safety programs through increased funding, training and adoption by states of the most recent FDA Food Code.

• The report lists E. coli O157:H7 as the sixth pathogen in overall burden, with the majority due to contaminated beef and produce. The report recommends federal agencies continue to target E. coli O157:H7, due to the particularly devastating injuries it causes in small children, including kidney failure, lifetime health complications, and death.

Campylobacter in poultry — costs $1.3 billion a year
Toxoplasma in pork — costs $1.2 billion a year
Listeria in deli meats — costs $1.1 billion a year
Salmonella in poultry — costs $700 million a year
Listeria in dairy products — costs $700 million a year
Salmonella in complex foods — costs $600 million a year
Norovirus in complex foods — costs $900 million a year
Salmonella in produce — costs $500 million a year
Toxoplasma in beef — costs $700 million a year
Salmonella in eggs — costs $400 million a year


(“Complex foods” is defined by the researchers as "a category created to capture outbreaks associated with non-meat dishes comprised of multiple ingredients, and for which a specific contaminated ingredient could not be identified. The nature of these outbreaks suggests an important role for contamination, cross-contamination, and other mistakes during handling, preparation, and cooking.")

I am a bit surprised by this list, as it is significantly different than the frequency of recalls. Almost all the recalls on the FDA list are produce or "complex foods", followed by fish and cheese... but then, most of those recalls are associated with no illness or few complaints. Interesting disparity, between the two lists, and makes me wonder how it is that so many potential produce contamination events occur but are caught, while so many meat and dairy contamination events slip through.

The researchers do point out that produce incidents are moving up the list, so maybe some of my skewed perception of incidence is from the short amount of time I've been paying attention?

Salmonellosis due to contaminated produce (tied for 8th) has been recognized by others as a growing problem (Lynch et al. 2009, Maki 2009). In an analysis of foodborne outbreaks from 1998 to 2008,we found that of those due to Salmonella in produce, more than half were associated with tomatoes, sprouts or cantaloupes.3 Salmonella in eggs (10th) remains a major concern, though risks have significantly declined over the last twenty years (Braden 2006).


Anyway; I guess I'll read more of the report later, for now I'm supposed to be working...
draggonlaady: (Vampire Cat)
I may have mentioned this issue several years ago, but here it is again. There's a shocking disparity between regulations for animals and humans treated with radioactive substances.

From personal experience at the University Teaching Hospital, horses treated with Technetium for bone scans are kept in isolated stalls with special disposal of all bedding for 3 - 5 days. Cats treated with Iodine 131 for thyroid disorders are kept in isolation upwards of a week. When I went in for a hyda-scan and was treated with Technetium, not only was I not isolate AT ALL, I was not even given any information on potential radiation dangers (minimal, I know, but still, it's the principle of the thing) before undergoing the procedure, and I was not warned AT ALL about potential radiation exposure to people/pets/babies, nor was I asked if I expected to come into contact with pets or babies. Not a single bloody word of it. So the parts in that article about humans not always following directions? fuck 'em. Humans aren't always GIVEN directions.

Though for amusement value, my co-worker followed me around for a while with a Geiger counter to establish "minimum safe distance".

Now, in reality, what this probably means is that regulations for animals are stricter than actually necessary, but still.
draggonlaady: (Default)
Reproduced entirely from someone else's work; I did not write this!
How to read articles about health and healthcare

By Dr Alicia White

If you’ve just read a health-related headline that’s caused you to spit out your morning coffee (“Coffee causes cancer” usually does the trick) it’s always best to follow the Blitz slogan: “Keep Calm and Carry On”. On reading further you’ll often find the headline has left out something important, like “Injecting five rats with really highly concentrated coffee solution caused some changes in cells that might lead to tumours eventually. (Study funded by The Association of Tea Marketing)”.

The most important rule to remember: “Don’t automatically believe the headline”. It is there to draw you into buying the paper and reading the story. Would you read an article called “Coffee pretty unlikely to cause cancer, but you never know”? Probably not.

Before spraying your newspaper with coffee in the future, you need to interrogate the article to see what it says about the research it is reporting on. Bazian (the company I work for) has interrogated hundreds of articles for Behind The Headlines on NHS Choices, and we’ve developed the following questions to help you figure out which articles you’re going to believe, and which you’re not.

Does the article support its claims with scientific research?

If an article touts a treatment or a lifestyle factor that is supposed to prevent or cause a disease, but doesn’t give any information about the scientific research behind it, or refers to research that has yet to be published, then treat it with caution. A lot of caution, like balling the article up and throwing it in the (recycling) bin.

Is the article based on a conference abstract?

Another area for caution: news articles based on conference abstracts. Research presented at conferences is often at a preliminary stage and usually hasn’t been scrutinised by experts in the field. Also conference abstracts rarely provide full details about methods, making it difficult to judge how well the research was conducted. For these reasons, articles based on conference abstracts should be no cause for alarm. Don’t panic or rush off to your GP.

Was the research in humans?

Quite often the “miracle cure” in the headline turns out to have only been tested on cells in the laboratory or on animals. These stories are often accompanied by pictures of humans, creating the illusion that the “miracle cure” came from human studies. Studies in cells and animals are crucial first steps and should not be undervalued. However, many drugs that show promising results in cells in laboratories don’t work in animals, and many drugs that show promising results in animals don’t work in humans. If you read a headline about a drug or food “curing” rats, there is a chance it might cure humans in the future, but unfortunately a larger chance that it won’t. So no need to start eating large amounts of the “wonder food” featured in the article.

How many people did the research study include?

In general, the larger a study the more you can trust its results. Small studies may miss important differences because they lack statistical “power”, and small studies are more susceptible to finding things (including things that are wrong) purely by chance. You can visualise this by thinking about tossing a coin. We know that if we toss a coin the chance of getting a head is the same as that of getting a tail – 50/50. However, if we didn’t know this and we tossed a coin four times and got three heads and one tail, we might conclude that getting heads was more likely than tails. But this chance finding would be wrong. If we tossed the coin 500 times – gave the experiment more “power” – we’d be much more likely to get an even number of heads and tails, giving us a better idea of the true odds. When it comes to sample sizes, bigger is usually better. So when you see a study conducted in a handful of people, proceed with caution.

Did the study have a control group?

There are many different types of studies, and they are appropriate for answering different types of questions. If the question being asked is about whether a treatment or exposure has an effect or not, then the study needs to have a control group. A control group allows the researchers to compare what happens to people who have the treatment/exposure with what happens to people who don’t. If the study doesn’t have a control group, then it’s difficult to attribute results to the treatment or exposure with any level of certainty.

Also, it’s important that the control group is as similar to the treated/exposed group as possible. The best way to achieve this is to randomly assign some people to be in the treated/exposed group and some people to be in the control group. This is what happens in a randomised controlled trial (RCT) which is why they are considered the “gold standard” way of testing the effects of treatments and exposures. So when reading about a drug, food or treatment that is supposed to have an effect, you want to look for evidence of a control group, and ideally evidence that the study was an RCT. Without either, retain some healthy scepticism.

Did the study actually assess what’s in the headline?

This one is a bit tricky to explain without going into a lot of detail about “proxy outcomes”. To avoid doing that, here is the key thought: the research study needs to have examined what is being talked about in the headline and article. (Somewhat alarmingly, this isn’t always the case.) For example, you might read a headline that claims “Tomatoes reduce the risk of heart attacks”. What you need to look for is evidence that the study actually looked at heart attacks. You might instead see that the study found that tomatoes reduce blood pressure. This means that someone has extrapolated that tomatoes must also impact heart attacks, as high blood pressure is a risk factor for heart attacks. Sometimes these extrapolations will prove to be true, but other times they won’t. So if a news story is focusing on a health outcome that was not examined by the research, treat it with a grain of salt.

Who paid for and conducted the study?

This is a somewhat cynical point, but one that’s worth making. The majority of trials today are funded by manufacturers of the product being tested – be it a drug, vitamin cream or foodstuff. This means they have a vested interest in the results of the trial which can affect what the researchers find and report in all sorts of conscious and unconscious ways. This is not to say that all manufacturer-sponsored trials are unreliable. Many are very good. But it’s worth looking to see who funded the study to sniff out a potential conflict of interest for yourself.

Should you “shoot the messenger”?

Sometimes journalists take a piece of research and misrepresent it, making claims the scientists themselves never made. Other times the scientists or their institutions over-extrapolate, making claims their research can’t support. These claims are then repeated by the journalists. Given erroneous claims can come from a variety of places, don’t automatically ‘shoot the messenger’ by blaming the journalist.

How can I find out more?

It’s not possible to cover all the questions that need to be asked about research studies in a short article, but we’ve covered some of the major ones. For more, go to Behind the Headlines at www.nhs.uk/news for daily breakdowns of healthcare stories in the media.

Score!

Oct. 14th, 2010 11:51 am
draggonlaady: (Vampire Cat)
Science 1:Rinderpest 0

(Vaccine haters: -infinity)
draggonlaady: (Default)
Stolen whole-cloth from Dr Goldacre's website. If you want to pass this on, please credit him:
http://www.badscience.net/2010/07/yeah-well-you-can-prove-anything-with-science/


Yeah well you can prove anything with science

July 2nd, 2010 by Ben Goldacre in bad science

Ben Goldacre, The Guardian, Saturday 3 July 2010

What do people do when confronted with scientific evidence that challenges their pre-existing view? Often they will try to ignore it, intimidate it, buy it off, sue it for libel, or reason it away.

The classic paper on the last of those strategies is from Lord in 1979: they took two groups of people, one in favour of the death penalty, the other against it, and then presented each with a piece of scientific evidence that supported their pre-existing view, and a piece that challenged it. Murder rates went up, or down, for example, after the abolition of capital punishment in a state, or comparing neighbouring states, and the results were as you might imagine. Each group found extensive methodological holes in the evidence they disagreed with, but ignored the very same holes in the evidence that reinforced their views.

Some people go even further than this, when presented with unwelcome data, and decide that science itself is broken. Politicians will cheerfully explain that the scientific method simply cannot be used to determine the outcomes of a drugs policy. Alternative therapists will explain that their pill is special, among all pills, and you simply cannot find out if it works by using a trial.

How deep do these views go, and how far do they generalise? Professor Geoffrey Munro took around a hundred students and told them they were participating in a study on “judging the quality of scientific information”, now published in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology. First, their views on whether homosexuality might be associated with mental illness were assessed, and then they were divided into two groups.

The first group were given five research studies that confirmed their pre-existing view. Students who thought homosexuality was associated with mental illness, for example, were given papers explaining that there were more gay people in psychological treatment centres than the general population. The second group were given research that contradicted their pre-existing view. (After the study was finished, we should be clear, they were told that all these research papers were actually fake, and given the opportunity to read real research on the topic if they wanted to).

Then they were asked about the research they had read, and were asked to rate their agreement with the following statement: “The question addressed in the studies summarized… is one that cannot be answered using scientific methods.”

As you would expect, the people whose pre-existing views had been challenged were more likely to say that science simply cannot be used to measure whether homosexuality is associated with mental illness.

But then, moving on, the researchers asked a further set of questions, about whether science could be usefully deployed to understand all kinds of stuff, all entirely unrelated to stereotypes about homosexuality: “the existence of clairvoyance”, “the effectiveness of spanking as a disciplinary technique for children”, “the effect of viewing television violence on violent behavior”, “the accuracy of astrology in predicting personality traits”, and “the mental and physical health effects of herbal medications”.

Their views on each issue were added together to produce one bumper score on the extent to which they thought science could be informative on all of these questions, and the results were truly frightening. People whose pre-existing stereotypes about homosexuality had been challenged by the scientific evidence presented to them were more inclined to believe that science had nothing to offer, on any question, not just on homosexuality, when compared with people whose views on homosexuality had been reinforced.

When presented with unwelcome scientific evidence, it seems, in a desperate bid to retain some consistency in their world view, people would rather conclude that science in general is broken. This is an interesting finding. But I’m not sure it makes me very happy.

Ganked

Jun. 9th, 2010 04:11 pm
draggonlaady: (Default)
From the venerable Uncle Warren (no no, this one's safe for work. Really.)

http://www.physorg.com/news195302053.html

Plastic antibodies!
draggonlaady: (Default)
So. Since, once again, the people in the media seem to be having back-flipping shit-fits about something relatively innocuous, I thought I'd post a bit here.
Some suggestions for interpreting the news:
1: nothing is as scary as the media wants you to think.
2: source material is your friend. Look it up, ignore the screaming, read it, think about it, make up your own opinion.
3: all politicians are batshit. All of them, from every party. Only crazy people want to be politicians.

Now, that said. You can listen to the woman on whatever news channel you prefer, who is wailing "Oh my GOD, the government hates women and wants us all to die and is forbidding insurance companies from paying for mammograms, OHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGOD!!!!"

Or, you can go to the US Preventative Services Task Force website and actually read the recommendations they made and the statistics they based that recommendation on.
http://www.ahrq.gov/CLINIC/uspstf/uspsbrca.htm

The recommendations are ONLY recommendations-not policy, and certainly not anybody telling the insurance companies that they can not cover something. And really, how often has THAT happened, anyway? The government forbidding insurance to cover something, I mean. Seems to me that it's always been the other way 'round, and the if the gub'ment gets called in, it's to kick the insurance co in the butt and say "cover some of this, you bastiches."

The recommendations are made on the basis of general population statistics, evidence on the rates of cancer development, detection, and change in rate of death associated with preventative measures, as well as analysis of costs of those preventative measures (No! shut up and breathe! not just to the insurance company-costs include the stress and trauma and unnecessary testing, painful biopsies, and worry associated with false positives. The more testing you do, and especially the more testing of younger women you do, the more false positives and therefore the more cost/actual positive you accrue.)

The recommendations are specifically stated to be based on a general population model, and known high-risk individuals (family history, etc) should discuss more frequent testing with their doctor.

And really, people. Don't you want your doctors making decisions based on comprehensive analysis of the most recent data available, then applied on an individual basis to individual cases? Because that's what I want my doctor doing, and recommending every test available for every possible thing that I probably don't have is not going to make me happy.

Now. Please repeat the above, only substitute "cervical cancer" for "breast cancer" and "pap smear" for "mammogram". Thanks.
draggonlaady: (Default)
Just a blip I found that I thought I'd throw up here after the recent conversation
about organic/conventional farming and locally produced food.

From Newsweek:

"A New Yorker leaves a smaller carbon footprint drinking a French Bordeaux shipped across the Atlantic (2.93 pounds of carbon per bottle) than drinking a Napa merlot (7.05 pounds). That's because when it comes to calculating carbon costs, the method of transportation matters as much as the distance. Shipping freight by sea generates less than half the emissions associated with airplanes or tractor-trailers."
draggonlaady: (Vampire Cat)
And another article, focusing on the mentality behind the widespread rejection of all the scientific evidence pointing away from vaccination as a cause of autism.

"A Broken Trust" by Liza Gross; Senior Science Writer/Editor, PLoS Biology, Public Library of Science, San Francisco, California, United States of America

http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.1000114
draggonlaady: (Default)
I'm way behind on my reading, as usual. This article is from Newsweek, published in February 2009. It's a fairly decent explanation of the whole MMR/thimerosal/autism thing. Some key points:

1: MMR (Measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine does NOT contain thimerosol
2: Thimerosal does contain mercury, and had been used in vaccines since the 1930's. The U.S. Public Health Service made a statement urging a change in preservative because even though there are "no data or evidence of any harm" from thimerosal, children's cumulative exposure to mercury from vaccines "exceeds one of the federal safety guidelines" for mercury. This is mostly because the number of vaccines recommended has increased steadily as new vaccines are developed and approved.
3: The initial study claiming to find a connection between MMR and autism had nothing to do with thimerosal; there are 2 separate issues that people keep mashing into one. (NEITHER of which has been shown in further study to have a correlation with autism.)
4: The initial MMR/autism study included only 12 children.
5: In 2002, a Royal Free (UK) study of 473 children had found no difference in the rates of autism between those who had received the MMR and those who had not. Scientists in Finland, studying 2 million children, reached the same conclusion in a 2000 paper. So did scientists at Boston University, studying the medical records of 3 million children, in 2001. In 2004 a study of the medical records of 14,000 children in Britain found that the more thimerosal the children had been exposed to through vaccines, the less likely they were to have neurological problems.
draggonlaady: (Default)
British science writer silenced in libel case
Friday, 5 June 2009

by Kerensa McElroy, published on Cosmos Online (http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/news/2796/british-science-writer-silenced-over-chiropractic-controversy)

Science writer Simon Singh has been silenced by English libel laws.


"While there is still the slightest chance of defending my rights as a journalist then I am determined to continue with this legal battle. Indeed, I look forward to the opportunity to discuss the evidence for chiropractic in court," said Singh, who announced his decision to fight on Wednesday.

Singh has published a number of best-selling popular science books, including Fermats's Last Theorem and The Code Book. His latest, co-authored with the professor of complementary medicine Edzard Ernst is titled Trick or Treatment? Alternative Medicine on Trial.

The controversy started in 2008, when Singh wrote an opinion piece for Britain's The Guardian newspaper discussing the history of chiropractic and a claim by chiropractors that it could cure a variety of childhood illnesses. The article was timed to coincide with Chiropractic Awareness Week, an event organised by the British Chiropractic Association (BCA).

Chiropractic is an alternative health care treatment which involves manipulating the spine using short but forceful hand movements.

The BCA took the bait of the opinion piece. However, instead of engaging in a constructive scientific debate, and putting the evidence for their claims forward, they sued, claiming Singh had defamed them.

The offending passage of his article read: "The British Chiropractic Association claims that their members can help treat children with colic, sleeping and feeding problems, frequent ear infections, asthma and prolonged crying, even though there is not a jot of evidence. This organisation is the respectable face of the chiropractic profession and yet it happily promotes bogus treatments."

A preliminary ruling by the Royal Courts of Justice in London stated that Singh's article contains "the plainest allegation of dishonesty and indeed it accuses them [the BCA] of thoroughly disreputable conduct."

Singh denies that he used "bogus" to mean that chiropractors know they are offering a sham treatment. Instead, he says, most believe the treatments to be genuine, even if studies show they offer little real benefit.

The ruling is bad news for Singh. Losing a future trial, based on this ruling, could cost him up to £1 million (A$2 million). The libel case has already cost him up to £100,000 (A$200,000) in legal fees. Instead of proceeding to trial, Singh announced on Wednesday that he has decided to appeal the ruling. If he loses his appeal, he says he will take the case to the European Court of Human Rights.

"While this case is alive there is an opportunity to raise a whole series of arguably more important issues, particularly the appalling state of English libel laws," he said in a statement.

Thousands of people have already signed an online petition backing Singh, which says "We, the undersigned, believe that it is inappropriate to use the English libel laws to silence critical discussion of medical practice and scientific evidence."

Eminent signatories who have stepped up in support of Singh include a Nobel laureate; evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins; former science advisor to Tony Blair, David King; Lord Rees of Ludlow, president of the British Royal Society; Philip Cambell, the editor-In-chief of the journal Nature and actor and comedian Stephen Fry.

"The English libel laws are an international laughing stock, and the effects are especially pernicious where science is concerned," Dawkins told the The Independent.

The petition: (I think this is probably only of use to sign if you are a UK citizen?) http://www.senseaboutscience.org.uk/index.php/site/project/334
draggonlaady: (Default)
So, my standard statement: the term "organic" food pisses me off. By the very definition of the word, everything you eat had better be organic or you won't process it, you carbon-burner, you.

Anyway, study reported by the BBC found no significant differences in nutritional value between food crops raised using pesticides/fertilizers/etc and "organic" crops. This study did not, mind you, address potential differences in ecological impact between methods.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8174482.stm
draggonlaady: (Default)
I love this guy. Really.

"This research was incomprehensible and unreadable. Anybody who claims to have been persuaded by the data quoted here is telling you, loudly and clearly in the subtitles, that they don’t need to understand a piece of research in order to find it compelling. Such people are not to be trusted, and if research of this calibre is what guides our policy on huge intrusions into the personal privacy of millions of innocent people, then they might as well be channeling spirits."

http://www.badscience.net/2009/07/is-this-a-joke/
draggonlaady: (Default)
with the researchers,who agree with the immunologists, who agree with the pediatricians that vaccines are good for kids, and do not cause autism.

This is good.

It is, apparently, not enough for the fine folks at the National Vaccine Information Center.

Barbara Loe Fisher, the center's president, said the court's ruling will do little to change the minds of most parents who suspect a link between vaccines and autism. She said more studies are needed. "I think it is a mistake to conclude that, because these few test cases were denied compensation, it's been decided vaccines don't play any role in regressive autism."

While that statement is probably true when taken by itself and out of context (ie, a judge denying payment on a suit does not prove or disprove a scientific effect), I find it grotesquely laughable that this woman is calling for more studies, when already there have been at least dozens (possibly hundreds?) of studies showing no link between vaccination and autism, only one study ever that did, and at least 2 studies that specifically debunked that one.

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation/story/900721.html
draggonlaady: (Default)
since I read Bad Science. I'm catching up on back issues. Which means lots of links for you lovely folks.

Once more into the breach on Autism vs vaccination... a specious correlation so wide-spread into 'common knowledge' that clients have declined vaccinations for puppies despite my best efforts to educate that them that 1: vaccines don't cause autism, 2: dogs don't get autism anyway, even if vaccines did cause it in humans (which they don't-see 1), 3: dogs get Parvo regularly, 4: even if autism DID happen in dogs, and even if it WERE caused by vaccination, it's not fatal, and 5: Parvo kills dogs in a disgusting and decidedly uncomfortable manner (and we'll just not even get started on distemper...)

http://www.badscience.net/2008/12/its-not-my-fault-i-fall-into-repetitive-self-parody-you-started-it/
draggonlaady: (Default)
Is, in case I haven't said it before, a brilliant column.

On the disturbing tendency of some researchers to define (or re-define) criteria after gathering data:
Now this poses massive problems. Imagine that I am stood facing a barn, holding a machine gun, blindfolded, firing off shots whilst swinging my whole body from side to side and laughing maniacally. I then walk up to the barn, find three bullet holes which happen to be very close together, and draw a target around them, claiming I am an excellent shot.


And we wonder why people are so confused about climate change. *sigh* It doesn't help when the media completely misrepresents scientific findings, and then refuses to clarify or retract incorrect statements, even when contacted by the author of the paper they were reporting in the first place.

http://www.badscience.net/2009/01/the-telegraph-misrepresent-a-scientists-work-on-climate-and-then-refuse-to-correct-it-when-he-writes-to-them/

Also, if anyone out there would like to buy me a gift for no apparent reason, you can do so and support the good Dr. Goldacres; I'd enjoy one of these shirts:

http://222610.spreadshirt.net/en/GB/Shop/Article/Index/article/i-think-youll-find-its-a-bit-more-complicated-than-that-8097922
draggonlaady: (Grinding Bones)
Despite my complaint in September to the FDA, the Parvaid site (http://www.parvobuster.com) remains unchanged.

So, I've a favor to ask. Would you all take a minute, and also complain to the FDA?

Reporting Violations of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act

If you find a violation of the laws and regulations enforced by FDA, you may contact your nearest FDA district office, or:

Food and Drug Administration
Center for Veterinary Medicine
Division of Compliance
7500 Standish Place, HFV-230
Rockville, Maryland 20855

There is a list of phone numbers by region here:
http://www.fda.gov/opacom/backgrounders/complain.html

The email address for the FDA's Center for Veterinary Medicine is CVMHomeP@cvm.fda.gov, which is who I contacted, I got a response saying it'd been passed on to the Office of Surveillance and Compliance, but did not get a direct email address for that department.

Maybe if they get enough people complaining, they'll do something about this site. Not that it stops the bazillion other, similar sites out there, but it's a start, right?

Update

Sep. 9th, 2008 12:53 pm
draggonlaady: (Default)
So I emailed the FDA center for veterinary medicine to ask about the legality of the claims parvobuster.com was making. Just got a reply today.


Thank you for bringing this website to our attention. I have passed it
along to our Office of Surveillance and Compliance for their
consideration. You are correct, putting a disclaimer on the page does
not allow them to make drug claims for these unapproved products.

Sincerely,

CVM Home Page


http://draggonlaady.livejournal.com/148055.html

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