I'm sorry, but I take serious issue with this. Firstly, yes I do know that obesity is a big problem for pets, and that it causes numerous health problems (heart disease, diabetes, arthritis) and reduces the animals' quality of life etc. etc. so yes, I think that obesity should be treated.
But it is not the same as for people where willpower and other things come into play. It is completely controllable by the owner. They can easily limit the amount and calorific content of their pets' food, and they can also easily increase the amount of exercise the animal gets (and if you haven't got the time to walk your dog then you shouldn't have one).
But why this really bothers me is that Pfizer spent 5 years and goodness knows how many millions of dollars in r&d for this drug. And something like the current test for tuberculosis (a disease which kills millions of people every year) was developed in the 1880's and is not effective in many cases. Or sleeping sickness. A disease that infects 500,000 people per annum, and the drugs to treat it are archaic, carry a very high risk of adverse reaction and are difficult to administer. 80% of the worlds population carries only 20% of the drugs market.
There are so many things that are wrong with the world, but sometimes you see things that just seem so blindingly stupid you wonder how they were allowed to be.
Oh, and Slentrol is only effective when used as part of a controlled diet and exercise program anyway.
Below, a sleeping sickness patient (another neglected disease), and a fat dog.
2 comments:
You are totally right. I guess money was the issue there. It's untolerable though that there isn't a way how people and/or companies would benefit by helping people and not obese dogs (in the way that you mentioned,not in general). Really can't they walk the dog...?
Yup, it's disturbing. And there are all kinds of low calorie dog foods, so it's not like it's hard to cut down on the number of calories they're eating.
Although, some of the most obese dogs I saw in clinic were on low cal foods, but I highly suspect they were getting fed people food on the side.
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