A quick recap is necessary.
For those of you largely unaware of the matter at hand, Hartz Mountain Corporation manufactures flea and tick treatments that have received thousands of complaints over decades from well-intentioned pet owners, whose pets experienced a multitude of side effects: nausea, hair loss, seizures and in far too many cases, death. Many Veterinarians adamantly disapprove of this family of products. Good places to get an idea of the level of evil we are dealing with here are hartzvictims.org and hartzkills.org.
Hartz has an appalling safety record dating back to the 80′s and 90′s with their product, Blockade. They were forced to reformulate their products, but their reformulated versions continue to injure and kill and were named in a 2010 Public Advisory published by the EPA. Horrifyingly, the EPA has not forced removal of these products until they are proven safe.
So, aside from the obvious, why did we need you to know this?
While mining the AVMA (American Veterinary Medical Association) website for information on how to report disreputable Veterinarians that choose to defend these poisons, forsaking their Veterinarian’s oath for a fat paycheck, we came upon the following:
Tomorrow (2/1/12), the AVMA will be naming their recipient of the Karl F. Meyer-James H. Steele Gold Headed Cane Award. That’s a quite a mouthful.
“The award recognizes the achievement of an individual concerned with animal health who has significantly advanced human health through the practice of Veterinary Epidemiology and public health.”
And who has the AVMA entrusted to decide the winner of such an honored distinction?
“Nominations should be emailed to Dr. Charles Thoen, AVES President and Dr. Melinda Fernyhough, AVES Secretary.”
Did you catch that?
That’s right, Dr. Melinda, otherwise known as Hartz Mountain Corporation’s Manager of Scientific Affairs and Resident Veterinarian, often found commenting in forums, suggesting the blame lies with improper use of Hartz products, not improper use of the term “pet care”. Dr. Melinda has been suspected of trolling forums as well, but whether or not Dr. Melinda and “Truthfairy” are one in the same has not been confirmed. It’s interesting to note, however, the two of them have never been photographed together 
Truthfairy responding to a complaint posted on HartzVictims.org and someone suggesting she's really Dr. Melinda
Truthfairy's "Review" of a Hartz flea product on Amazon, followed by someone claiming this is really Dr. Melinda
The Hartz affiliation with this award is far from ending there. Hartz Mountain Corporation is actually sponsoring this damn thing!
WTF?
While we at Broken Hartz understand the role Epidemiology plays in public safety and, by extension, the need for flea control in order to preserve human health standards; we are appalled to find the AVMA has chosen to allow a company that profits from selling inferior, outdated, unnecessary solutions to a problem when safer, FDA regulated, alternatives are readily available.
We no longer need to play Russian roulette with our pets in order to protect society from fleas.
Get with the times, AVMA.
UPDATE: Truth Week
We ended up doing a whole series on “TruthFairy”! Check it out.
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