Looking Back

Hello All!

You may remember we’ve talked about Hartz Mountain Corporation’s TheTruthAboutHartz.com website before.

It was allegedly taken down years ago in the wake of public criticism, but we still managed to unearth Dr. Charles T. Gaskins’ shamefully fraudulent work, due to the fact Hartz is sloppy.

The discovery of Gaskins’ full report was a key factor in our debunking of Dr. Melinda Fernyhough’s nasty little “Executive Summary” document.

Here is what you see if you visit TheTruthAboutHartz.com today:

That may have been the end of the story but, thanks to the Internet Archive, we invite you to hop in the Wayback Machine and take a gaze upon TheTruthAboutHartz.com as it was on May 4, 2009.

Not many remember what this site looked like or the “facts” it contained. Well, as Hartz said, “It’s Time to Set the Record Straight”.

Seeing as how Hartz linked to the following page seven times from their homepage, deemed as “facts”, we feel it pretty safe to say this was what they were most interested in showing to the public:

You may be wondering why we didn’t just use the archive in the first place when looking for information on TheTruthAboutHartz.com. Actually, we had forgotten about this excellent resource until Tiny Timmy brought it up in her tribute to the now defunct BioSpotVictims.org.

Not everything gets archived but, thankfully, Hartz Mountain Corporation’s deceitful “masterpiece” was captured before being taken down.

Enjoy!

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Inconsistency

We’d like to focus attention on a sparsely mentioned, but extremely important factor in this whole matter: the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, Rodenticide Act (FIFRA).

Here is a very brief overview of this important document from the EPA (found on this page from the EPA’s website):

(This paragraph comes from the top of the page)

“The objective of FIFRA is to provide federal control of pesticide distribution, sale, and use. All pesticides used in the United States must be registered (licensed) by EPA. Registration assures that pesticides will be properly labeled and that, if used in accordance with specifications, they will not cause unreasonable harm to the environment. Use of each registered pesticide must be consistent with use directions contained on the label or labeling.”

(This part comes from the “Overview of FIFRA” section of the page)

“The first pesticide control law was enacted in 1910. This law was primarily aimed at protecting consumers from ineffective products and deceptive labeling. When the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) was first passed in 1947, it established procedures for registering pesticides with the U.S. Department of Agriculture and established labeling provisions. The law was still, however, primarily concerned with the efficacy of pesticides and did not regulate pesticide use.

FIFRA was essentially rewritten in 1972 when it was amended by the Federal Environmental Pesticide Control Act (FEPCA). The law has been amended numerous times since 1972, including some significant amendments in the form of the Food Quality Protection Act (FQPA) of 1996. In its current form, FIFRA mandates that EPA regulate the use and sale of pesticides to protect human health and preserve the environment.

Since the FEPCA amendments, EPA is specifically authorized to: (1) strengthen the registration process by shifting the burden of proof to the chemical manufacturer, (2) enforce compliance against banned and unregistered products, and (3) promulgate the regulatory framework missing from the original law.

FIFRA provides EPA with the authority to oversee the sale and use of pesticides. However, because FIFRA does not fully preempt state/tribal or local law, each state/tribe and local government may also regulate pesticide use.”

To say FIFRA is a complex document would be an understatement.

We at Broken Hartz continue to examine FIFRA and will get into it more in the future but, for now, you need only focus on these things:

1. FIFRA was enacted to protect consumers, but through various modifications along the way it now serves the manufacturers’ interests more than anything. This is due primarily to companies being able to hide many crucial pieces of this puzzle from the public by claiming these details to be Confidential Business Information (CBI). This applies to such things as the identities of “Other Ingredients” in these products as well as sales data.
2. FIFRA governs the labeling of these products in an effort to increase public safety.

The reason we are talking about FIFRA today is simple.

If you come to us from the Twitter front, you’ve probably caught this tweet more than a few times:

 

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(The above tweet is available in the Twitter section of the BH Warrior Kit. It has been slightly modified to come from #BHWarriors instead of us.)

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The bit.ly link in the tweet above goes to an actual page on Hartz.com.

We hope this webpage is very familiar to all of you by now.

Why?

Because it’s the same crap document Hartz’ Resident Veterinarian, Dr. Melinda Fernyhough, submitted to Rite Aid about our case, resulting in “The Hartz Exposé”.

It even still references us:

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(The portion we’ve highlighted in the screenshot above is one of the pieces we referenced in “Hartz and Its Nasty Little Habit of Putting Words in the EPA’s Mouth.”)

(The section highlighted in this piece is where Hartz lied about Advantage having FDA-Approved products You can also catch a glimpse of one of Dr. Charles T. Gaskins’ “contributions”.)

(This one is littered with stuff, but check out the highlighted section where Hartz still references us. For more on Dr. Charles T. Gaskins’ and his violently deceptive charts, check out these posts [1,2])

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Returning to the tweet above, the screenshot of a warning to Hartz about listing their website on packages comes from Page 4, Paragraph 5 of this labeling amendment document for Hartz UltraGuard Pro Flea and Tick Treatment for Dogs and Puppies (EPA# 2596-150), but it applies to all Hartz products.

In this document, the EPA cautioned Hartz:

“Should you wish to add/retain a reference to the company’s website on your label, then please be aware that the website becomes labeling under the Federal Insecticide Fungicide Rodenticide Act and is subject to review by the Agency. If the website is false or misleading, the product would be misbranded and unlawful to sell or distribute under FIFRA section 12(a)(1)(E).”

Upon hearing this, Hartz made the very interesting decision to remove website references.

We guess they didn’t like the EPA’s terms.

The funny thing is, as usual, Hartz seems to have missed something:

“In addition, regardless of whether a website is referenced on your product’s label, claims made on the website may not substantially differ from those claims approved through the registration process. Therefore should the Agency find or if it is brought to our attention that a website contains false or misleading statements or claims substantially differing from the EPA approved registration, the website will be referred to the EPA’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance.”

So, seeing as how we know Hartz is lying on its website, why are we posting this on our blog, giving them ample time to delete the evidence?

Because, like the tweet says, we have archives.

If you’ve been around the BH camp long enough, you already knew this but, if not, check out the culmination of “The Hartz Exposé”.

We’ve had Hartzy pinned down for quite a while now.

For an even more in-depth report of what happened after we told Hartz we found what they had done on their website, check out this post.

ATTENTION HARTZ MOUNTAIN CORPORATION:

It would seem you have violated the terms of FIFRA.

That may cause a problem.

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Could You Define, “Truth”?

Truth Week is here!

Loyal BH readers are already aware of Hartz’ website, TheTruthAboutHartz.com, through great posts like the powerful culmination of our Hartz “Executive Summary” Exposé.

This little “truth” campaign came quickly after the EPA’s announcement it was intensifying scrutiny of spot-on flea and tick products. The EPA had grown concerned after receiving more than 40,000 complaints in 2008 for a variety of brands from both retail and veterinary channels. The results of this investigation became the EPA Public Advisory published in March of 2010.

According to Consumer Affairs, in response to the crackdown:

“Ecker and other Hartz officials said the ingredients in their companys [sic] topical flea and tick products are among the safest on the market. And they cite Professors [sic] Gaskins [sic] analysis to back their claim.”

Consumer Affairs then states:

“To address those fears [regarding using flea and tick products] — and combat what the company calls misinformation about is [sic] products — Hartz recently launched a Web site called The Truth About Hartz.”

As if a company requiring a “truth” campaign isn’t suspicious enough, the centerpiece of this deceptive act was Dr. Gaskins’ “An Analysis of EPA Adverse Effect Data: July 1, 2006 – June 30, 2008”. Broken Hartz has not only addressed the large conflict of interest that resulted from Hartz’ decision to use Dr. Gaskins for this “independent statistical analysis”, but we’ve also uncovered the shameful manner in which Dr. Charles T. Gaskins’ willingly conducted himself, creating a violently false document in order to facilitate Hartz’ core mission: sickening, injuring and killing pets through recklessly outdated, poorly manufactured poisons in exchange for lucrative profits.

Dr. Gaskins’ report, wielded by Dr. Melinda Fernyhough, made up the core of her reckless “Executive Summary of EPA Evaluation of Pet Spot-On Products”, submitted to our affiliates by a tragically inept member of Rite Aid’s legal team. This was how Broken Hartz began.

There are claims Hartz came under so much criticism for this website it was forced to revise some of the information or face more embarrassment at the hands of its critics.

That sounds familiar. Here are instances when we’ve embarrassed Hartz into making a change (1, 2, 3).

By the time the EPA released its Public Advisory in March of 2010, Hartz decided to shut down the website and it continues to be “temporarily unavailable” (Well… almost unavailable).

Prior to and during Hartz’ campaign, there were several comments and reviews sprinkled around the internet by an individual using the handle “Truthfairy”. Broken Hartz has made light reference to “Truthfairy” previously, but we’d like to take this week to focus attention on this odd little fairy that, for some reason, made it a personal mission to spread the “truth” about Hartz right when they needed it most.

 

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Important Note: This is only an artist's rendering of "Truthfairy". Any similarity to persons living or dead is strictly coincidental and, yes, that's a barrel of dead "Truthcats".

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Broken Hartz is very excited for truth week, primarily, because we know Hartz is not.

We start dropping some serious “truthy” knowledge tomorrow.

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Click this link for the next article in our Truth Week series: Truthfairy in the Amazon

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It “Figures”

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Click this link for the previous article in our Hartz “Executive Summary” exposé: Misuse Revisited

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Broken Hartz would like to step back for a moment and place some increased attention on Dr. Charles T. Gaskins’ involvement in this ugly affair.

If you’ve downloaded Dr. Melinda’s shameful “Executive Summary” document, you’ve already seen this nasty little bit of deception, titled “Figure 3”:

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THE FOLLOWING FIGURE COMES FROM HARTZ MOUNTAIN CORPORATION

THE PREVIOUS FIGURE CAME FROM HARTZ MOUNTAIN CORPORATION

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Dr. Melinda used this violently false chart, provided by Dr. Charles T. Gaskins to make the following statement:

(Hartz’ Executive Summary of EPA Evaluation of Pet Spot-On Products, Page 5, Paragraph 5)

“As you can see, Methoprene used in products like Hartz Ultraguard® FLEA Eggs & Larvae treatment for cats and Kittens totaled just over 1000 reactions for all of 2008, while the products the consumer pointed out at [sic] ‘safe alternatives’ (i.e. Frontline® (which contains Fipronil) and Advantage® (which contains Imidacloprid), accounted for over 15,000 reactions for 2008.”

Dr. Melinda packs the lies in tight on this one but here’s what it boils down to:

1. This chart does not represent total Adverse Reactions for 2008. Look back at the asterisk notation in Figure 3, “*Some reporting periods <24 months” This forgotten artifact leads to the logical conclusion that all non-asterisked products had reporting periods of 2 years or greater, not only 1 year, as Dr. Melinda falsely stated. This revelation clued our affiliate in to the fact there was more to this chart than met the eye and led, in part, to the discovery of Dr. Gaskins’ full report. Discovery of this report confirmed that, among other things, the true reporting period was from July 1, 2006 – June 30, 2008.
2. Dr. Melinda takes the liberty of comparing (s)-Methoprene to multiple chemicals at once in an attempt to make (s)-Methoprene’s numbers looks smaller, but the lies don’t stop there.
3. Dr. Gaskins’ report includes minor human incidents, such as skin rashes, along with the animal reports. Interesting, but irrelevant to the matter being discussed.
4. Dr. Gaskins’ “Imidacloprid” section does not just represent Advantage, it represents Bayer’s Advantix product as well. Our affiliate never mentioned Advantix and this product features a combination of active ingredients (8.8% Imidacloprid and 44% Permethrin). Also, the “Fipronil” section of Dr. Gaskins’ “Figure 3” includes products with roughly equal amounts of (s)-Methoprene and Fipronil.

Logic would dictate, the best way to handle products with more than one active ingredient would be to report the product in both active ingredient chemical classes, but that’s not how Dr. Gaskins saw it. Instead, he decided to solely assign these numbers to the class where they would do the most damage to Hartz’ competitors. This is a shameful act.

By Dr. Gaskins’ raw data, the true numbers for sole-active-ingredient occurrences (minus human incidents) of Imidacloprid, Fipronil and (s)-Methoprene breaks down thusly:

• Imidacloprid only – 1,866
• Fipronil only – 1,395
• (s)-Methoprene only – 1,022

That’s a far cry from Dr. Melinda’s unscrupulous claim, but a true comparison can’t be made at this point either. As previously mentioned, the EPA makes it quite clear that comparing absolute numbers for these products is incorrect because some products are more popular than others. Because of that, we need to look at these numbers as we have in the past.

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The following chart shows, in the case of an adverse reaction during the timeframe of Dr. Gaskins’ report, the percentage likelihood of a dog or cat experiencing Death, a Major Event or a Moderate/Minor Event from either (s)-Methoprene, Fipronil or Imidacloprid:

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As you can plainly see, in the case of an Adverse Event, (s)-Methoprene seems to be more dangerous than either Fipronil or Imidacloprid.

This is a vastly different story than the one portrayed by Dr. Melinda and, as mentioned before, Dr. Gaskins’ dismissal of the difference between Moderate and Minor events is another example of poor practice.

Interestingly, if we humor Dr. Melinda and allow (s)-Methoprene to be compared to Fipronil and Imidacloprid combined, we get the following chart:

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The following chart shows, in the case of an adverse reaction during the timeframe of Dr. Gaskins’ report, the percentage likelihood of a dog or cat experiencing Death, a Major Event or a Moderate/Minor Event from either (s)-Methoprene or Fipronil and Imidacloprid combined:

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The willful attempt to deceive the public by these two culpable individuals and Hartz Mountain Corporation is, in a word, disgusting.

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Click this link for the next article in our Hartz “Executive Summary” exposé: “Misinformation on the Internet”

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Dr. Charles T. Gaskins, Dr. Melinda Fernyhough and a Little Thing Called Conflict of Interest

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Click this link for the previous article in our Hartz “Executive Summary” exposé: Hartz and Its Nasty Little Habit of Putting Words in the EPA’s Mouth

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The report Hartz used to create Figures 3 and 1 found in their “Executive Summary of EPA Evaluation of Pet Spot-On Products” comes from a Hartz document, entitled “An Analysis of EPA Adverse Effect Data: July 1, 2006 – June 30, 2008” authored by Charles T. Gaskins, PhD; Professor of Animal Science; Washington State University. You may recall, we mentioned Dr. Gaskins before.

Here is a link to Dr. Charles T. Gaskins’ report.

The document, “An Analysis of EPA Adverse Effect Data: July 1, 2006 – June 30, 2008”, claims in multiple areas to be an “independent statistical analysis”, however, Broken Hartz wishes to point out, Hartz’ decision to utilize Dr. Charles T. Gaskins for this “independent” analysis created a large conflict of interest.

Dr. Melinda Fernyhough, Hartz’ Manager of Scientific Affairs (and the originator of Hartz Mountain Corporation’s “Executive Summary of EPA Evaluation of Pet Spot-On Products”) earned her BS Degree in Animal Sciences, DVM and PhD from Washington State University. Dr. Charles T. Gaskins was a professor during the time of Dr. Fernyhough’s attendance.

One year after practicing in a small animal clinic, Dr. Fernyhough accepted the position of Manager of Scientific Affairs with Hartz. In this same year, Dr. Fernyhough was named to the Friends of Animal Sciences (FAS) Board of Directors. Dr. Charles T. Gaskins was chairman of this Washington State University organization one year prior and continued to be a member of FAS afterwards.

Out of the 28 Veterinary schools in the country, Washington State University is typically ranked slightly below average.

Here is the link to the grad-schools.usnews link referenced in the screenshot above.

With more prestigious schools available and the obvious conflict of interest, we find it questionable for Hartz to use Dr. Charles T. Gaskins or any Washington State University alumni for the purposes of obtaining an “independent statistical analysis.”

Furthermore; the report compiled by Dr. Charles T. Gaskins, although created for the purposes of addressing the EPA Public Advisory published in March 2010, makes no attempt to match up with the products found in the EPA’s Public Advisory.

Dr. Gaskin’s report not only includes nineteen products that bear no relevance to the EPA’s Public Advisory, but it also mysteriously omits three of the products that are listed. Those three products, conveniently enough, are the Sergeant’s dog product (2517-94, mentioned in a previous post) that had no dog deaths in 2008, Summit Vetpharm, LLC’s cat product (mentioned in the same previous post) that had no deaths or major events in 2008 (83399-9) and Summit Vetpharm, LLC’s dog product (83399-6). This product had just two dog deaths and no major events in 2008; but we feel it was, more importantly, left out because it would make the omission of Summit Vetpharm, LLC’s cat product more noticeable.

Lastly, Dr. Gaskins saw fit to merge the Moderate and Minor events together, but these event distinctions exist because they are so different and to ignore the differences is poor practice.

Still more to come.

IMPORTANT NOTE:

As with the last post that mentioned these products, we at Broken Hartz wish to strongly caution readers about the above named products (Sergeant’s product 2517-94 and Summit Vetpharm LLC’s product 83399-9).

While these products had no reported deaths, the Sergeant’s product contains 45% Permethrin, a very dangerous pyrethroid responsible for many deaths cited in the EPA’s Public Advisory and it’s accompanying documents. Chemicals act quite predictably and logic suggests the only reason for disparity is any deaths went unreported or Sergeant’s simply chose to lie on its incident reports.

Additionally; Summit Vetpharm LLC, during the time of the EPA’s Public Advisory, was primarily held by Sumitomo Corporation the same company that owns Hartz. Sumitomo transferred it’s primary shares of Summit Vetpharm LLC a little while ago and in May of this year, they will hand over majority stock of Hartz to Unicharm, a large player in the Asian pet-care market. Sumitomo is also the manufacturer of Permethrin, the chemical referenced above.

More on Sumitomo later.

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Click this link for the next article in our Hartz “Executive Summary” exposé: Misuse or Mislabeling?

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Fun with Charts!

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Click this link for the first article in our Hartz “Executive Summary” exposé: Proof of Hartz’ “Commitment” to Providing Factual Information

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As Broken Hartz continues to expose Hartz Mountain Corporation for the liars they are, we’d like to talk about Hartz’ love of charts. Hartz thinks charts can hide its lies, but we’ll show a different use for them. To do this, we turn to another portion of the soon-to-be-notorious Hartz document, entitled “Executive Summary of EPA Evaluation of Pet Spot-On Products” (Word document).

Within this document, Hartz claims (on four separate occasions) the information used to create the charts found in their “Executive Summary” to represent all adverse reactions reported to the EPA in 2008.

This is false.

The report responsible for Figures 3 and 1 in Hartz’ “Executive Summary”, was created by Dr. Charles T. Gaskins (more on him in another post), using information from Hartz, gathered from the EPA (using FOIA), spanning July 1, 2006 – June 30, 2008. Dr. Gaskins’ “independent statistical analysis” can be found here.

Continuing, the EPA is quite clear in pointing out it would be inappropriate to try and extrapolate absolute numbers of incidents among the different spot-on products in the EPA Public Advisory published in March 2010:

(EPA Public Advisory published in March 2010, Page 4, Paragraph 3)

“A comparison of the absolute numbers of incidents among the different spot-on products in this report is not appropriate. This is because some products may have more incidents than other products because more of that product is sold and because incident information is voluntarily submitted by pet owners, with varying levels of detailed information, and routine reporting is sometimes lacking. The incidents have not been verified and may have causes other than exposure to the pesticide.”

This same caution is given, with greater emphasis and detail, on page 12 of the EPA Public Advisory published in March 2010 as well as other places. Despite this caution, Hartz has seen fit to make a comparison of the absolute numbers of incidents among the different spot-on products in attempt to show themselves as being the safest, even though a true analysis of these reports proves Hartz to be the worst by far.

Additionally, in this document, Hartz continually tries to focus attention on (s)-Methoprene.

Broken Hartz is not interested with (s)-Methoprene, although we’re sure Hartz wishes we were. Rather, we are interested in the inert, unlisted ingredients. So is the EPA:

(EPA Public Advisory published in March 2010, Page 16, Paragraph 2, Sentences 1-3)

“Incidents were reported for all products, including two products containing s-methoprene as the sole active ingredient. Companion animal safety studies were not required for these products because s-methoprene, which is an insect growth regulator, is of low toxicity to mammals. There are concerns for the potential toxicity of a formulant ingredient being responsible for toxicity of these products in cats.”

While a comparison of the absolute numbers of incidents among the different spot-on products in the EPA Public Advisory published in March 2010 is not appropriate, we have found legitimate methods for interpreting the data compiled by the EPA.

We accessed and analyzed the individual reports for every product listed in the EPA Public Advisory published in March 2010.

The EPA’s “DATA EVALUATION RECORD FOR ENHANCED SPOT-ON REPORTING CAT PRODUCT”, concerning EPA registration numbers 2724-504 (Wellmark), 2724-504-270 (Farnam) and 2724-504-2596 (Hartz) reveals some intriguing information in support of an inert ingredient problem in the Hartz product. These three products are identical in terms of active ingredients (40% Etofenprox, 3.6% s-Methoprene), varying only in the contents of these products’ inert ingredients.

This chart reflects the percentage of adverse events that resulted in deaths and major incidents from dermal exposures only (i.e. proper use).

This next chart is another valid way to use the data gathered by the EPA through their review of pet spot-on incidents.

All products associated with only one chemical class were included in this chart. Since manufacturer specifics have been removed, sales data becomes irrelevant. The data included accurately represents all deaths, resulting from proper use; that can be uniquely attributed to a specific chemical class.

The previous chart is important because it shows Insect Growth Regulators [(s)-methoprene and pyriproxyfen] to be the primary culprits for death from products with only one active ingredient even though insect growth regulators are widely accepted to be non-toxic to mammalian species. Again, this suggests the real problem is with the inert, proprietary ingredients found in these products.

Although this is not the case for the other Hartz products in the EPA Public Advisory published in March 2010, the (s)-Methoprene product (2596-147) was exempt from having to conduct Companion Animal Safety studies, even though previous Companion Animal Safety studies for these products were deemed unacceptable by the EPA.

We’ll have more fun with charts in a future post. Stay tuned.

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Click this link for the next article in our Hartz “Executive Summary” exposé: Hartz Claims Advantage Doesn’t Have FDA Approved Drugs

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