VMAC Statements/Speeches, January 31, 2005

By Jean Brudd

(Statement made regarding lack of financial relationship with any company or group. Disclosure made regarding paying of own travel expenses in association with attendance at the meeting.)

(Paraphrased) Because of ProHeart 6, I am here in memory of my deceased dogs, Tasha and Niki, and on behalf of my survivor dog, Casey. They each had one shot of ProHeart 6 during the "peak period" of 2002. Casey is still on medication and on the low end of "normal" after two and a half years. I will not be speaking about my dogs today because it is still too painful for me to talk about them.

Some of the individuals speaking this hour are not a group of fanatics on the Internet, as we've sometimes been called. We are here because we have been victims of ProHeart 6; our dogs took ill. Many of them, like my dogs, died.

Some may say, "These are 'JUST' dogs, they can be easily replaced." But not for us. These dogs were and are our family members. For some of us, our dogs are the children we never had and never will have.

I'm sure each of you in this room has bonded with a child. Perhaps it's one of your own. Your love for this child is so great, you cannot imagine your life without him.

Imagine a drug you agreed to be given to this child to keep him in good health. Imagine this child adversely reacting to this drug and there is no known antidote to counteract its adverse effects. Imagine this child having to suffer through the adverse effects for many months until the drug passes from his body, if his body can "live that long."

Imagine the horror of watching day after day your child seizing on the floor, or walking into walls, or not being able to eat or drink, or urinating or defecating on himself, or blood coming out of every orifice of his body, his crying out in pain. And there you sit powerless, not able to do a thing to help him.

All you can do is turn over your child to the doctors, the so-called "experts," and hope the doctors can figure out how to treat him, because they sure as heck don't know what's wrong with him. And it sure as heck cannot be the drug that THEY administered to your child. Your doctor won't admit it if he thinks it is the drug because he doesn't want to be slapped with a lawsuit. And the manufacturer won't admit it because they don't want to be slapped with lawsuits.

Meanwhile, you sit in desperation and pray that God fixes it all, brings you the miracle you are so desperately praying for. But the miracle never comes. You are faced with quality-of-life issues for your child. He's never going to eat or drink on his own, walk, talk, play again. So what do you do? Do you let him suffer, or do you play God and pull the plug? Either way, your child dies, and all you can do is blame yourself because it was YOU who trusted your doctor when he said this product was "safe," but YOU played a part in killing your own child. How do you live with yourself the rest of your life?

Welcome to our world. This is OUR private living hell, the world of thousands of us guardians who have had our dogs, our family members, adversely affected and even killed by ProHeart 6.

If this happened to your child, would you sit idly by? We think not. This product is NOT safe. You know it, and we know it. The manufacturer will say that less than 1 percent of dogs are affected, that it benefits more dogs than it hurts. But when all of the dogs in your household are affected by their product, that's 100 percent. It was 100 percent in my household.

Fort Dodge, we want you to stop the experimenting on our children. Stop the killing. Stop this "poison for profit." Members of the Committee, tell them to leave our families alone. Look into your hearts, and do the right thing by us and by our innocent, loving animal companions. Please . . . do the right thing.

Thank you.