Two New Drug Risk Warnings from FDA

Estradiol Spray May Pose Risk for Kids and Pets - Menopausal women who use a spray form of topical estradiol (Evamist) to control hot flushes should avoid touching children and pets with treated areas of the skin, the FDA warned.

The agency said it had received eight reports of children ages 3 to 5 who showed breast enlargement and other signs of estrogen exposure after contact with women using the product.

Directions for use of the product -- approved in 2007 -- call for it to be sprayed onto the inside of the forearm.

"Patients should make sure that children are not exposed to Evamist and that children do not come into contact with any skin area where the drug was applied. Women who cannot avoid contact with children should wear a garment with long sleeves to cover the application site," the FDA recommended.

Continue reading: Product Alert, Rx from MedPage Today: http://bit.ly/cgDlVj

FDA Finds Pneumonia Risk with Daptomycin - The FDA said that the intravenous antibiotic daptomycin (Cubicin) may be linked to an increased risk of eosinophilic pneumonia -- a rare but serious potential side effect -- and requested that a new drug label warning be added. 

The agency reviewed the medical literature and adverse event reports for daptomycin and identified seven cases of eosinophilic pneumonia between 2004 and 2010 "that were most likely associated with Cubicin" on the basis of six criteria, the agency indicated in a Drug Safety Communication.

"Based on these reviews, FDA determined that eosinophilic pneumonia can be associated with Cubicin use and requested that the manufacturer of Cubicin include this information in the Warnings and Precautions and Adverse Reactions, Post-Marketing Experience sections of the drug label," according to the statement.

In 2007, the daptomycin label was amended to include pulmonary eosinophilia as a potential adverse reaction.

Continue reading: Product Alert, Prescriptions from MedPage Today: http://bit.ly/a7JXoc

Learn more about these drugs at RxList

Pet Health: FOOD

My friend and holistic vet, Rick Palmquist, sent along this information to me about Dr Pitcairn's blog. Dr. Richard Pitcairn has written several books on holistic and homeopathic veterinary, including the Complete Guide to Natural Care for Dogs & Cats.

Here he writes about the controversy of feeding grains.  I make home cooked food for my dog and cat, and often use organic brown rice or organic barley.  Belle, my Golden Retriever, loved home cooked organic whole oats as a puppy, with banana. Learn more -

Feeding Grains to  Cats and Dogs, from Dr. Pitcairn

Since the last edition of our book was published there has been a strong movement towards feeding dogs and cats primarily meat and bones. Along with this, the strange idea has been put forth that grains are harmful or poisonous. Likely this is an exaggeration of the concept that grains in large amounts are not the optimal diet. The situation is more complex, however, than most realize.

The first question is if grains are not good for animals. The short answer is that grains are well accepted by animals if they are properly prepared. By this, I mean that the animal digestive tract is shorter than the human so the grains must be well cooked to be digestible.

Well, then, are they are in some way harmful? They are not if the quality is good. By “quality” we are meaning that the grains are complete, not just “leftovers” from milling. Also they need to be fresh, not rancid or spoiled. One would assume this is obvious but the fact is that commercial pet foods can use the leftovers and rejects from the production of human foods – the spoiled, contaminated, nutritionally inadequate floor sweepings – as their source of grains. Much of the concern about the harmful effect of grains in food for animals is because of the poor quality grain used in many commercial foods. The formula is like this:

Poor quality grain in commercial food = diminished health in animals = avoidance of grain based commercial foods = all grains are bad.

You can see that the first 3 steps make sense but the last conclusion does not as it is not taking into account that the health problems seen in animals has to do with the quality of the ingredient rather than the nature of it, e.g. that it is from grains.

Research into animal nutrition as cited in “Nutrient Requirements for Dogs” and “Nutrient Requirements for Cats” published by the Subcommittee on Dog Nutrition and Cat Nutrition by the National Research Council (about as reliable as one is going to find outside of the industry) reports that growing dogs fed a diet of up to 62% starch (which is an unusually simple carbohydrate, grains being much more complete) were able to digest 84% of the starch and use it for growth and energy. Even more significant these puppies had no apparent health effects from such a diet, growing the same as the group fed no carbohydrates.

Cats have been shown to be able to digest over 96% of starch fed to them.