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false document in order to facilitate Hartz’ core mission: sickening, injuring and killing pets through recklessly outdated, poorly manufactured poisons in exchange for lucrative profits.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.

 

---

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".

---

 

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

We start dropping some serious “truthy” knowledge tomorrow.

=^..^=

 

---

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

---

Let’s Get “Technical”

---

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

---

Today, we’d like to draw attention to the contents of pages 2-4 of Hartz’ “Executive Summary of EPA Evaluation of Pet Spot-On Incidents”, titled “SUMMARY OF EPA SAFETY AND APPROVAL CRITERIA (SPOT-ON REGISTRATIONS)”.

Dr. Melinda Fernyhough deceptively tries to pass off this portion as coming from the EPA but, as we’ve already pointed out, no part of this pack-of-lies comes from anyone but Hartz Mountain Corporation.

Pages 2-4 of Hartz’ “Executive Summary” document is an excerpt (pages 14-16) from a larger Hartz document entitled “Hartz Technical Monograph Canine”, found on the “For Vets” Page of Hartzultraguard.com.

If you visit the “For Vets” Page link above, you’ll notice a link to the Hartz Technical Monograph Feline document as well. Our affiliate was happy to find this, as a document addressing cats would have been far more relevant to the case. Unfortunately, this link was mysteriously broken though Hartz has finally seen fit to post it in an effort to save face and make our claims appear inaccurate, but we all know about Hartz’ “broken” links by now, don’t we?

During the course of tracking down other “missing” information on the Hartz website, our affiliate revisited the “broken” link to the Hartz Technical Monograph Feline document on the “For Vets” Page of the Hartzultraguard.com website, mentioned above.  We will spare our readers the details, but wish to point out the canine version of this document is available through many different channels. The feline version proved far more elusive, but in the end it was uncovered. Since receiving our affiliate’s response, Hartz has tried to clean up these “loose ends”, but the “broken” link in their “For Vets” Page persisted until the beginning of May 2012.

In our affiliate’s case; this document, like its canine counterpart, has little relevance to Hartz’ “Executive Summary of EPA Evaluation of Pet Spot-On Products”, but it makes some interesting statements. Statements found in this document make it quite clear why Hartz preferred to keep it hidden until we forced them to post it:

(Hartz Technical Monograph Feline, Page 4, Paragraph 4, Sentence 5)

“Unfortunately, the likelihood of purchasing an inappropriate product or using a product incorrectly increases when veterinarians are not part of the equation.”

So, in light of this admission, why does Hartz continue to distribute its products through retail channels? It’s simple…

 

---

No conscientious Veterinarian would ever recommend a Hartz product.

---

 

Since the problem our affiliate experienced with Hartz’ product 2596-147, dozens of veterinarians were contacted. In the conversations, more than three-quarters of them immediately named Hartz as the worst offender in the flea and tick control market, unprompted, stating they have treated many animals that have had the misfortune of coming into contact with these poisons. As for the remaining 1/4 of veterinarians surveyed, when asked about Hartz directly, they did not have positive things to say either.

Also, this Feline Monograph document speaks highly of the benefits of newer flea treatment options, like neonicotinoids, phenylpyrazoles and semicarbazones.

(Hartz Technical Monograph Feline, Page 15, Paragraph 1, Sentence 2)

“New products have revolutionized flea control and provided veterinarians and pet owners with a broad range of weapons.”

So, why does Hartz continue to use dangerous pyrethroid and pseudopyrethroid products? To answer this, you have to look at who owns Hartz Mountain Corporation: Sumitomo Corporation. You may recall, we mentioned Sumitomo before.

Sumitomo Corporation has long been one of Hartz’ primary chemical providers but; in 2004, amidst another round in Hartz’ history of legal troubles, Sumitomo quietly acquired Hartz Mountain Corporation, creating an international pet-care business. With this move, Sumitomo began to profit on both the chemical manufacturer and end-user side of the pet-care industry.

With 26 of Sumitomo Corporation’s 31 patented Environmental Health Division Products being pyrethroids, it’s obvious why they have worked so tirelessly, despite the facts, to unethically defend the viability of these outdated, unnecessary, dangerous products.

Earlier this year, Sumitomo Corporation struck a deal with a major manufacturer in the Japanese pet-care market, Unicharm, and will transfer 51% of Hartz Mountain Corporation to Unicharm in May of this year. Sumitomo will still maintain a significant interest in Hartz Mountain Corporation after this date and will no doubt continue providing their outdated chemicals.

Still more to come.

---

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

---

Hartz and Its Nasty Little Habit of Putting Words in the EPA’s Mouth

---

Click this link for the previous article in our Hartz “Executive Summary” exposé: More Fun with Charts!

---

As you may have guessed, Hartz doesn’t always like what the EPA has to say. So, what does Hartz do when they don’t like the EPA’s words? Simple, they change them.

As usual, we will be referencing the EPA Public Advisory published in March 2010 along with Hartz’ deplorable Executive Summary of EPA Evaluation of Pet Spot-On Products to prove this point.

Near the beginning of Hartz’ “Executive Summary” document, it claims:

(Hartz’ Executive Summary of EPA Evaluation of Pet Spot-On Products, Page 1, Paragraph 1, Sentence 3)

“Below is a copy of the EPA’s Summary of findings from the enhanced reporting, as well as the changes proposed by the EPA for the future.”

To be clear: no portion of Hartz’ “Executive Summary” document comes from the EPA, nor is the EPA ever directly cited in Hartz’ “Executive Summary”. All this deceitful information comes straight from Hartz Mountain Corporation.

In this “Executive Summary” document, originated by Dr. Melinda Fernyhough, Hartz deceptively claims the EPA made the following statement in their Public Advisory, published in March 2010:

(Hartz’ Executive Summary of EPA Evaluation of Pet Spot-On Products, Page 1, Bulleted Section 1, Bullet 2 [this portion is posed as coming from the EPA])

“For both dogs and cats, the main organ systems affected were the dermal, gastrointestinal, and nervous systems and, although most reports were classified as minor, all products had some reported deaths and major incidents.”

This is wholly inaccurate.

The EPA does not make a blanket statement about dogs and cats in this regard, and with good reason. In the case of dogs only, the EPA states:

(EPA Public Advisory published in March 2010, Page 4, Bulleted Section titled “General Findings for Dogs”, Bullet 1, Sentence 3)

“Although most incidents were classified minor, all products had some deaths and/or incidents classified as major…”

This has been poorly worded by the EPA, but we will clarify.

In the case of dogs, Sergeant’s product 2517-94 had zero reported dog deaths. There were six cat deaths, but this product is not sold for use on cats and therefore, those deaths are misuse and should not be counted against Sergeant’s product 2517-94.

In the case of cats, the EPA makes no comment about all products having some reported deaths and major incidents. The reason for this is Summit Vetpharm LLC’s product 83399-9. This product had zero reported deaths or major events.

Hartz doesn’t stop putting words in the EPA’s mouth there.

(Hartz’ Executive Summary of EPA Evaluation of Pet Spot-On Products, Page 1, Paragraph 2)

“(When reviewing the incident reports, as the EPA itself makes clear, these incident reports are not investigated or validated by the Agency for accuracy in any manner; they are taken at face value and no effort s [sic] made to screen out demonstrably false or otherwise inaccurate reports.)”

If Hartz wishes to draw attention to the fact the EPA is aware some of the reports it receives may be false, we feel compelled to share the EPA has fined Hartz in the past for cases of under-reporting and not reporting incidents. The previous link is for a fine from 2008. The EPA stated they did not receive a report from Hartz for the calendar year 2007 on or before March 1^st, 2008:

Hartz denied this, claiming they had sent the required information in time and provided the EPA with Federal Express tracking #799809068158 for a document delivered to the USEPA in Edison, New Jersey on February 26, 2008. The EPA decided to drop this fine solely for the purposes of settlement.

What we at Broken Hartz wish to point out is, in accordance with the EPA’s submission guidelines for any adverse domestic animal events, Hartz should have been submitting this information quarterly to the EPA with a grace period of 60 days. This means the majority of the information submitted to the EPA for 2007 was late, regardless of the above fine being dropped. Additionally, Federal Express is no longer able to track this number without being provided account information, so our Broken Hartz affiliate officially requested Hartz provide the proof-of-delivery document they gave to the EPA to prove compliance. We doubt Hartz would like our affiliate to scrutinize this document, so we aren’t holding our breath.

Also, Hartz’ summation regarding the EPA’s statement attaches far stronger wording than is actually used in the EPA Public Advisory published in March 2010:

(EPA Public Advisory published in March 2010, Page 4, Paragraph 3, Sentences 2 and 3)

“…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.”

As for Hartz’ suggestion the incident reports were not investigated or validated by the Agency for accuracy in any manner; that is also fallacy. We support this assertion, citing this portion of the EPA Public Advisory:

(EPA Public Advisory published in March 2010, Page 9, Paragraph 5)

“Incidents which were not evaluated: Not all incident reports were included in the evaluations by the EPA. Incidents which were generally not included:

• Incidents with no EPA registration number
• Incidents from other countries
• Efficacy reports
• Incidents which were considered generally ambiguous
• Incidents which also involved use of other pesticides or drugs because effects may have been associated with the other product
• Incidents which involved multiple animals because it was difficult to tell which animal was affected and to what degree
• Multiple reports or contacts with the registrant for the same incident”

Out of the over 44,000 incident reports submitted to the EPA, only 28,319 were deemed suitable for inclusion in the report, meaning more than 1/3 of the incident reports received were screened out. Clearly, these reports were not taken at face value and many efforts were made to screen out inaccurate reports.

Watch out, Hartz. We doubt the EPA is going to be happy about this.

More to come.

P.S.

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.

Lastly; 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.

---

Click this link for the next article in our Hartz “Executive Summary” exposé: Dr. Charles T. Gaskins, Dr. Melinda Fernyhough and a Little Thing Called Conflict of Interest

---

More Fun with Charts!

---

Click this link for the previous article in our Hartz “Executive Summary” exposé: Rite Aid Corporation Still in Bed with Hartz

---

In a previous post, we had some fun with charts, using data from all individual reports for the products listed in the EPA Public Advisory published in March 2010.

Here are two more interesting charts, representing legitimate interpretations of the incidents reviewed in the EPA Public Advisory published in March 2010.

The following chart shows, if your dog experiences an adverse reaction to any of the Spot-On dog products listed in the EPA Public Advisory Published in March 2010, what the likelihood is (based on percentage of reported events) of your dog experiencing Death or a Major, Moderate or Minor event. As you can see, in the case of an adverse event, your dog is 2.5 times more likely to die from a Hartz product than any of the other brands found in the EPA Public Advisory published in March 2010. Hartz also tops the list for Major events and Moderate events, clearly making it the most dangerous of these products.

Likelihood of Death, Major, Moderate or Minor Event if Your Dog Experiences an Incident With a Manufacturer’s Product Listed in the EPA Public Advisory published in March 2010:

This next chart shows, if your cat experiences an adverse reaction to any of the Spot-On cat products listed in the EPA Public Advisory Published in March 2010, what the likelihood is (based on percentage of reported events) of your cat experiencing Death or a Major, Moderate or Minor event. As you can see, in the case of an adverse event, your cat is 3 times more likely to die from a Hartz product than any of the other brands found in the EPA Public Advisory published in March 2010. Hartz also tops the list for Major events and comes in second for Moderate, clearly making it the most dangerous of these products.

Likelihood of Death, Major, Moderate or Minor Event if Your Cat Experiences an Incident With a Manufacturer’s Product Listed in the EPA Public Advisory published in March 2010:

These charts speak for themselves.

More to come.

---

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

---

Hartz Claims Advantage Doesn’t Have FDA Approved Drugs

---

Click this link for the previous article in our Hartz “Executive Summary” exposé: Fun with Charts!

---

We have challenged Hartz’ claims of being committed to providing factual information and also shed some light on the false nature of their charts.

Now we’re ready to tackle a brazen lie Hartz makes in their infamous Executive Summary of EPA Evaluation of Pet Spot On Products. Page 5, Paragraph 1, Sentence 3:

“Frontline® and Advantage® are NOT prescription products nor are they registered with the FDA.”

This is inaccurate, but first additional information and clarification is necessary.

Prior to our Broken Hartz affiliates’ email to the distributor involved in this case Rite Aid Corporation, on 1/21/12, they had found some resources citing Frontline as being FDA approved. We are unable to substantiate Frontline’s FDA status. Since the product recommended by the Broken Hartz affiliates’ Vet was Advantage, we see no harm in removing Frontline from the equation.

Moving on, we have seen this argument from Hartz before. They try to confuse the public, using the fact not all Advantage products are FDA approved. We will not bother listing every product in the Advantage family that has received the distinction of being FDA approved to point out the false nature of Hartz’ statement, but it’s appropriate to list:

ADVANTAGE MULTI for Cats: NADA 141-254 (Active Ingredients: imidacloprid and moxidectin)
– Approval Document

ADVANTAGE MULTI for Dogs: NADA 141-251 (Active Ingredients: imidacloprid and moxidectin)
– Approval Document

This is a screen capture from the FDA’s PowerPoint titled “What You Need to Know: Approved vs. Unapproved Animal Drugs”.

Actually, Advantage isn’t the only flea control product line to have FDA approved products. Here are some more examples of FDA approved flea control products:

Sentinel Flavor Tabs and Capstar Flea Management System: NADA 141-204 (Active ingredients: nitepyram, lufenuron and milbemycin oxime)

Pro-Spot Solution: NADA 132-789 (Active Ingredient: Fenthion)

Program Suspension: NADA 141-026 (Active Ingredient: Lufenron)

Revolution: NADA 141-152 (Active Ingredient:Selamectin)

These FDA approved products are indicated for the treatment of flea infestations and are administered in an identical procedure to Hartz spot-on products.

As it turns out, Hartz was being modest! They refrained from mentioning they have a flea control product on the FDA website, too:

Hartz Flea Control Capsules AKA Zodiac Fleatrol Caps: NADA 141-162 (Active Ingredient:S-methoprene)

Additionally, the Hartz product has a distinction on its page that none of the others do:

---

“This product Voluntarily Withdrawn By Sponsor”

---

We guess there was a problem. It’s odd, because as an (s-)methoprene only product, this wouldn’t make sense unless, of course, there’s something questionable in the “secret sauce”.

These products and more can be found by searching the Animal Drugs portion of the FDA’s website.

Additionally, Hartz seems to be confused about the finer points of FDA terminology. “Registered with the FDA” does not mean the same thing as “Approved by the FDA”. Many products are “registered” with the FDA, while not all receive approval.

Again, the above linked products, with one notable exception, are approved by the FDA. Furthermore, these products have been FDA approved for years.

More information from the FDA regarding vital differences between FDA-Approved and Unapproved Animal Drugs can be found here.

Please Note: No members of Broken Hartz are Veterinarians. Please speak with a reputable Vet before using any product on your animal(s).

More to come.

---

Click this link for the next article in our Hartz “Executive Summary” exposé: Rite Aid Corporation Still in Bed with Hartz

---

Fun with Charts!

---

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

---

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.

---

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

---

Proof of Hartz’ “Commitment” to Providing Factual Information

Through a correspondence between some Broken Hartz affiliates who experienced a problem with a Hartz Spot-On Flea Product and a distributor whose position regarding Hartz products remains to be seen Rite Aid Corporation; a document, authored by Dr. Melinda Fernyhough, Hartz’ Manager of Scientific Affairs and Resident Veterinarian (at least for a little while longer, anyway) was produced. To save Dr. Melinda the embarrassment of claiming she didn’t author this, we provide this screenshot of the document’s properties:

The seven page document is filled with bold lies and makes for very interesting reading, to say the least. We plan to share more of this document in future posts but, today, we will address this particular section:

 “Unfortunatley [sic], there is a lot of misinformation on the internet about flea and tick products. Hartz is working constantly to offer factual information about flea and tick products, including a [sic] education tab on our Facebook page that will link you directly to the EPA website for accurate, independent information.”

We agree with Hartz. There is a lot of “misinformation on the internet”, however, we feel the source of misinformation comes from them, not the public.

Hartz has no interest in providing factual information, which brings us to Hartz.com’s Press Releases page:

At the start of our investigation, a couple of weeks ago, this page featured links to twelve different press releases. We clicked through every press release link and found three of the twelve links did not work.

One broken link was to an article called “Nature’s Collection Fundraiser” and the other two non-functioning links were, conveniently enough, “Hartz recalls Naturals® beef treats” and “EPA Flea & Tick Topical Advisory Update”.

Here is the complete list of Press Release links as well as screenshots for reference. You’ll notice the “Nature’s Collection Fundraiser” link works although, until today (2/18/12) and evidenced by our screenshot, this was not the case:

Hartz’ Unicharm Press Release

---

Hartz’ Pet Week Press Release

---

Hartz’ Examiner Press Release

---

Hartz’ Dog Training Release

---

Hartz’ “Broken” Naturals Recall Press Release

---

Hartz’ Pet Dental Health Press Release

---

Hartz’ Crunch ‘N Clean Press Release

---

Hartz’ “Broken” EPA Advisory Press Release

---

Hartz’ Shelter Donation Press Release

---

Hartz’ Nature’s Collection Press Release was broken until (2/18/12). It has since come down again. A very odd history for this little guy.

---

Hartz’ Nodor Press Release

---

Hartz’ Wounded Warrior Press Release

---

Before going into the next portion, we at Broken Hartz wish to mention we have more than twenty-five years combined experience in web design.

Upon discovering these “broken links”, we decided to research the cause of the malfunctions. To do this, we analyzed the source data for the Hartz.com Press Releases page. You may need to click on the image below to zoom in and get a better look:

The picture above shows the “links” portion of the markup from Hartz’ Press Releases page. These links are used to direct users to the appropriate press release when clicked. A quick review of the links portion of the page showed the three broken links had no defects in the way they had been written. This is further proven by the fact the above “Nature’s Collection Fundraiser” link now works, even though its coding has not changed from the time of our investigation. The point is: there is nothing wrong with these links. They are intentionally broken and Broken Hartz can prove it.

We suspected the “Nature’s Collection Fundraiser” link “error” was planted so it would not be as blatantly obvious that Hartz was hiding the more unsavory press releases from the public’s eye, so we started there. We put our knowledge of how the internet works to use and were able to find a version of the missing “Nature’s Collection Fundraiser” press release on an alternate version of the Hartz.com website:

Hartz’ Broken then Fixed then Re-Broken Nature’s Collection Press Release
(Since the release of this post, Hartz deleted this extra version of the Nature’s Collection link and fixed the link on their main site for a few weeks before intentionally breaking the link again, but the screenshot above displays the web-address where this article was originally uncovered. This particular press release has had an intriguing history.)

---

Now that we had found this press release, it was time to move on to the others. We tried many different ways to locate the missing “Hartz recalls Naturals® beef treats” but were unsuccessful. That wasn’t the case when it came to the “EPA Flea & Tick Topical Advisory Update” press release, however:

Hartz’ Fixed EPA Advisory Press Release
(The link above functioned until 2/21/12. Click here for the screenshot.

For more details on what happened, click here.)

---

Here is a zoomed in view of this very interesting press release:

Hartz considers consumers to be "dummies". This must be why they thought "dummy text" would be appropriate for this press release.

---

The discovery of this bogus article speaks volumes. Hartz clearly has no intention of offering factual information about flea and tick products.

Actually, since compiling this information, we have been checking Hartz’ Press Releases page to see if this truly was intentional or an honest mistake. Today (February 18, 2012), more than two weeks from us noticing these “errors”, Hartz has finally paid some attention to its Press Releases page.

Hartz’ Press Release Page, Updated On 2/18/12

They did not add a new release. They fixed, then re-broke the “Nature’s Collection Fundraiser” link for some mysterious reason, left the broken “EPA Flea & Tick Topical Advisory” link up for a few weeks before ultimately removing it and saw fit to remove the “Hartz recalls Naturals® beef treats” link immediately, further proving their commitment to denial.

Much more to come.

---

UPDATE: HARTZ HAS BROUGHT BACK THEIR “BROKEN” EPA FLEA & TICK TOPICAL ADVISORY LINK AND HARTZ RECALLS NATURALS BEEF TREATS LINK.

---

If you visited the link above to Hartz Press Releases page you may have already seen this.

We’re sure it probably happened a while ago but; as of June 8, 2012 we noticed Hartz has chosen to bring back their “EPA Flea & Tick Topical Advisory” and “Hartz recalls Naturals® beef treats” press releases.

It is quite interesting to note, although Hartz has re-published these releases (and is well aware there were some “problems” with these links the last time they published them), the links are still “broken” despite showing no obvious reason for malfunctioning, other than intentional failure.

This, of course, is no surprise, seeing as how Hartz seems to specialize in creating products that intentionally fail.

---

Click this link for the next article in our Hartz “Executive Summary” exposé: Fun with Charts!

---