To judge by your local veterinarian's
stern insistence on regular heartworm pills for your dog, you'd think
we're in the midst of a brutal epidemic, leaving piles of the dead in its
wake. I think there's an epidemic, too, but of a different sort: of
disease-causing toxicity instilled in our pets by heartworm preventative
pills.
Granted, heartworm is a serious
condition. An infected mosquito bites your dog (cats are rarely affected),
injecting microscopic worms that first hibernate, then gain access to his
bloodstream. The worms find their way to the heart, where they grow to as
long as twelve inches, constricting the
heart's passages and causing symptoms that range form coughing to labored
breathing to hart failure. If the image of giant worms literally blocking
the life blood of your dog isn't horrifying enough--and it can seem more
so when viewing a real heart preserved in a jar of formalin, on display in
a veterinarian's office as a sales tactic for heartworm preventative--the
fact that they spawn hundreds of thousands of baby larvae, called
"microfilaria," which circulate through the bloodstream, is
nothing short of grotesque.
A few caveats are in order, however. Only
a small percentage of dogs who get heartworm die of it, especially if
they're routinely tested twice yearly for early detection. Even in
untreated dogs, after a period of uncomfortable symptoms, the adult worms
die. The microfilaria do not grow into adult worms on their own. To reach
the next stage in their life cycle, they have to be sucked back out of the
body by another mosquito, and go through the other stages of their
maturation process within the mosquito. Only when that mosquito alights
again on a dog and bites it can the microfilaria reenter the bloodstream
with the ability to grow into adults. The chances of a
microfilaria-infected mosquito biting your dog the first time are slim. Of
it happening to the same dog twice Very slim. And after two decades of
pervasive administration of heartworm pills in the U.S., the chances of
your dog contracting heartworm in most parts of this country even a first
time are slimmer still. Early in my career, I saw and treated hundreds of
cases of heartworm disease, most with routine medication, yet witnessed
only three deaths (the last was in 1979). By comparison, we're seeing
cancer kill dogs on a daily basis. To my mind, the likelihood that
toxicity from heartworm pills is contributing to the tremendous amount of immune
suppression now occurring, especially in cases of liver disease and
cancer, is far greater and more immediate than the threat of the disease
they're meant to prevent.
The most common form of heartworm
prevention is a monthly pill taken just before and during mosquito season.
(Many veterinarians recommend giving it year-round, even in areas of the
country that experience winter.) Its toxins--ivermectin, for
example--sweep through the body, killing any microfilaria that have been
introduced by mosquito bites in the previous month, and thus preventing
the growth of adult worms. Some brands also contain other toxins to kill
intestinal parasites. The other approach to treatment is with a daily dose
of the drug diethylcarbamazine, starting several weeks before mosquito
season. The drugs called for in either course of treatment are, simply
put, poisons. Unfortunately, while they kill off microfilaria, they have
the toxic effects of poisons, and can be especially damaging to the liver.
I've saved a 1987 product evaluation for diethylcarbamazine mixed with
oxibendazole, a preventative also used for hookworm. The evaluation,
published by the company itself in a medical journal, reported that of 2.5
million dogs give the stuff, the company received only 176 reports of
problems. Including cases of liver toxicity and fatalities. To me, 176 is
too many. But also, how many more went unreported? The evaluation
concludes, "Of course, not all incidences are reported to the
manufacturer, so the true magnitude of occurrence is really unknown."
The manufacturer would argue, no doubt, that many of the symptoms I've
seen cannot be linked in any provable way to any of the heartworm
preventatives. Perhaps--though the anecdotal evidence has long since
persuaded me not to put dogs on the stuff. But I have seen one obvious,
immediate effect of these once-a-month preventatives in case after case:
when you give a dog that pill, over the next few days, wherever he
urinates outside, his urine burns the grass. Permanently! In some cases,
you can't grow grass there until you change the soil. What, I wonder, can
it be doing internally to your dog in that time?
When the first daily preventatives came
out, my brother and I witnessed evidence of hemorrhaging in the urine of
several dogs put on them. We stopped the medication; the bleeding stopped.
We started it up again; the bleeding resumed. When we reported this to the
manufacturer, we were informed that the company was aware of the problem
from other complaints. Aware--but not about to pull its product form the
shelves. All we could do was to stop giving the medication ourselves to
the dogs we treated. Since then, the company has changed ourselves to the
dogs we treated. Since then, the company has changed the product,
diminishing this side effect and bringing it into the realm of
acceptability for use in areas of high heartworm incidence.
The dogs I treat form puppy hood receive
no heartworm preventative pills. It may be said, of course, that I
practice in an area where cases of heartworm are pretty infrequent. But
while my clinic is in Westchester County, just north of New York City, my
practice encompasses patients from around the country. In the last decade,
98 percent of my patients, on my recommendation, have not been given
heartworm preventative. In that time, I've seen less than a handful of
clinical cases. Two of them I treated herbally, starting with heart
support supplements (a heart glandular, vitamin E, Co-Enzyme Q IO) and
regular doses of black walnut, and herb known to kill parasites. (It comes
in a liquid extract form; I recommend putting a dropperful in the food or
mouth at each meal.) The third I treated medically, with a new drug
(Immiticide) reported to be a lot less toxic than intravenous arsenic, at
a lower-than-recommended dosage. All three are clinically normal--no
evidence of heartworm recurrence--years after treatment.
As a precaution, I recommend that all
dogs be tested twice a year for heartworm. For clients who insist on amore
active form of prevention, I suggest doses of black walnut given two to
three times a week, as I've actually reversed clinical heartworm with it.
(For a thirty-pound dog, one capsule three times weekly during mosquito
season in areas that have reported any incidence of heartworm.) We also
use a homeopathic nosode. In areas where the chances of heartworm exposure
appear greater than those in my own--like southern Florida and the
Bahamas, where the chances of contracting it are high--I recommend adding
to this regimen the conventional daily heartworm pill, given three times
weekly. Veterinarians trained in homeopathy can get your pet on a good
nosode program for heartworm prevention.
Excerpted from The Nature of Animal
Healing by Martin Goldstein Copyright© 2000 by Martin Goldstein.
Excerpted by permission of Ballantine, a division of Random House, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or
reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Dr.
Martin Goldstein earned his B.S. and
D.V.M. from Cornell University. He has written numerous articles about
holistic veterinary medicine and alternative therapies for many magazines,
journals and related publications. He has many happy and healthy dogs and
cats, all of which are living proof of the philosophy contained in his
book, The Nature of Animal Healing.
The information provided here is for
educational and entertainment purposes only, and should not be relied on
as medical advise for your pet, or in lieu of consultation with your own
veterinarian. We urge you to always consult your veterinarian for specific
advice and diagnoses concerning your pet.
