We wish to expand on our discussion from Thursday’s posting.
While Hartz was busy lying to someone on Facebook, another conversation was taking place, hidden from view.
A few weeks ago we were contacted by a Hartz victim in Canada who had applied Hartz Ultraguard One Spot Treatment for Cats and Kittens on two cats. Both of these cats reacted to the product with neurological issues. Chewie, sadly, did not survive:
“We euthanized him after a 20 minute grand mal seizure. We couldn’t even hold him in the room. My boyfriend and I had to go to Chewie in the lab while one girl held him down. The vet said ‘touch his head, tell him you love him, and let’s do this quickly’. It was the worst thing I’ve ever witnessed an animal go through.” – Hartz Victim
Hartz may wish to deny this video, pointing out the public has no way of knowing what product or brand was used, if any, or if the individual that contacted us was just making the whole thing up for no other reason than to try and pin another death on poor old Hartz.
While it’s true we have not met this individual face-to-face, those familiar with our blog should be aware we know our way around the internet and are not in the habit of accepting claims at face value. Immediately upon contacts of this nature, our team of investigators search for corroborating evidence.
Through research, we discovered:
- The name given checks out as a real name of a person living in the specific city in Canada this individual claims as their residence.
- Through IP address confirmation, this individual reached out to us from the specific city in Canada in which they claim to reside.
- Unknown to the individual, they confirmed personal, anecdotal information we had already discovered about the individual this person claims to be.
Additionally, this individual, aside from the video, has provided:
- Photos of the Hartz Ultraguard One Spot Treatment for Cats and Kittens package, claimed by this individual to be the culprit. This demonstrates the correct species product was used:
- The correct Health Canada number (26491) for the Hartz product claimed to be the culprit (This product matches up with US product EPA #2596-147, used by our affiliates)
- A phone number where this individual can be reached
- The case number Hartz assigned to this complaint after the victim contacted them
- Photos of Veterinarian notes on the case of Chewie:
Additionally, this individual has used their actual name through all correspondences with both us and Hartz. They would have gone to great lengths in order to stage what they claim has occurred and, in our opinion, their story more than sufficiently checks out. By the end of this post, we think you’ll agree.
As we’ve already mentioned, this individual contacted Hartz:
“The first thing the Hartz guy said was ‘I’d hate to think there was some sort of cross contamination or worse, if the wrong product was in the wrong packaging’. I thought that was a pretty random thing to say…” – Hartz Victim
Of course, that statement isn’t so random if you know Hartz has had packaging mix-ups in the past for Hartz Ultraguard One Spot Treatment for Cats and Kittens.
In the following screenshot, you’ll see the individual in question reiterated what Hartz said on the phone to the Company’s Facebook account. The Hartz Facebook team made no attempt to dispute that claim:
You’ll notice in this particular screenshot, at the beginning of corresponding with Hartz, the victim had hopes this would get resolved appropriately, though doubts were already forming. Regarding this conversation, the victim says:
“At this time I was still very upset and did not want to fight, I wanted answers. As you can see, I didn’t get one.” – Hartz Victim
Moving on, you’ll notice in the Veterinarian’s notes above, they assert an opinion that Chewie suffered from what appears to be Permethrin poisoning. There is not supposed to be any Permethrin in Hartz Ultraguard One Spot Treatment for Cats and Kittens (2.9% Methoprene), though it is found in Hartz Ultraguard One Spot Treatment for Dogs and Puppies (2.9% Methoprene, 45% Permethrin).
You’ll also note, in the screenshots above, a toxicologist was consulted who supports the Veterinarian’s opinion concerning this case. It resembles Permethrin poisoning (or some other toxic exposure) despite there being no indication on the packaging of Permethrin’s presence or anything other than Methoprene, an Insect Growth Regulator, widely accepted to be safe.
Because of this, the toxicologist inquired if there was a dog in the house that may have been treated with a Permethrin product or some other toxic substance. The veterinarian consulted with the Hartz victim, then noted:
“Called [Hartz Victim]. Discussed info from toxicologist. Confirmed dog in house, however, he was treated with Revolution (Selamectin)”
Revolution is an FDA-Approved Animal Drug, for use on both cats and dogs. As the Veterinarian notes, Revolution contains Selamectin, which kills fleas and flea eggs, along with treating for mites and a variety of worms. It does not match the profile of a possible culprit in this case.
The Veterinarian and toxicologist’s findings followed in line with the Hartz representative’s readily-offered suspicion that perhaps Permethrin was mistakenly placed into Hartz’ cat packaging, causing the death of Chewie.
This prompted the individual in question to post these notes from their Veterinarian on Hartz’ Facebook wall:
After posting this information on Hartz’ Facebook wall, the individual in question reached out to us.
Here is where this already interesting case takes an even more interesting spin.
“Vet AND Toxicologist agree. The symptoms, timing of onset, even reputation of this product and brand – the only conclusion is that Hartz killed my cat
The lab tech even said ‘we see this all the time’” – Hartz Victim
“This picture lasted exactly 7 minutes on the Hartz fb page before someone deleted it” – Hartz Victim
This was followed up privately shortly thereafter with the following revelation:
“I went back and it’s there!! People even slammed them in the comments… so weird. So I posted it, it was removed… then re-appeared?
I asked them in a public forem for a written apology [:)]
*forum
Can you see it from your page?” – Hartz Victim
No, we could not see it from our page, nor could we see it using various control methods.
Clearly, there was a discrepancy.
Here is a portion of what the Hartz Victim (represented in black) was seeing:
Here is what we were able to see:
So, it became apparent we were witnessing a different Hartz tactic. This tactic is a bit more advanced than Hartz’ typical course of action: deletion.
The flaw in this plan is people really don’t take kindly to a product that causes them to inadvertently sicken, injure or kill those they love.
These kinds of people have a habit of finding each other and uniting. Through that, there were individuals watching this case unfold from both sides of the privacy setting, exposing Hartz’ intent to lure this victim into thinking this comment had been left in the public domain when it had, in fact, been hidden.
Unfortunately for Hartz, this individual (represented in black) was on to them.
In the screenshot above, the victim states:
“Isn’t this form a good DM as it is only visable [sic] to some people?” – Hartz Victim
“time dated screen shots from another computer show this is not a public message.” – Hartz Victim
To this, a Hartz Facebook “prisoner”, probably long forgotten, made themselves known:
“[Hartz Victim], Hartz removed this picture from their page, so it’s no longer visible to the public. Basically, they don’t want others to know about how dangerous their products are so they can keep making a profit. Sad.” – [Name Removed]
So, we come back to Hartz claiming other sites are guilty of misleading the public while, at the same time, they hid Veterinary documents pointing to the very serious possibility of a deadly packaging error.
The likelihood something of this nature would be limited to one package is highly unlikely and we hope Hartz is taking a close look at what is happening with Health Canada product #26491, though we are not holding our breath.
The individual in question makes one last point on this posting, regarding Hartz’ request for contact information:
“Hartz has all my info and has been able to ‘reach out’ to me at any time.” – Hartz Victim
It has been days now since the individual in question called Hartz out on their Facebook grouping tactic, with no response:
“I believe I am just being ignored.” – Hartz Victim
In the meantime, we checked back on the posting that led to Thursday’s piece.
We notice Hartz has removed a comment since the time of our last entry. We have accented the comment in question in the following screenshot from June 27, 2012:
Here is a susbsequent screenshot, taken on June 30, 2012, showing Hartz’ decision to remove the comment, which had received 5 “likes”:
“Don’t use Hartz. It’s terrible for your pets” – [Name Removed]
Upon closer inspection, we noticed this posting consists of 7 comments, even though a Facebook glitch notes 10 comments in the preview of this posting:
It would appear Hartz has removed 2 other comments before we got any screenshots of this posting.
We wonder what else they chose to censor.
=^..^=
