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As the saying goes—the plot thickens. A couple of days ago a person who has been following our unfolding doggy drama recommended that I look into a DNA testing kit for dogs called Wisdom Panel MX. The Wisdom Panel MX was developed by Mars Veterinary, a subsidiary of the candy bar maker that also manufactures and sells dog food.

Scientists at Mars spent about 6 years mining and analyzing canine genome databases and were able to develop breed specific probes that can distinguish between 130 different breeds of dogs with close to 85% reliability. That said, while the test may not be able to reliably tell you exactly what you have, the sensitivity of the test is sufficient to tell you what you don’t have i.e., it will tell you whether or not your dog is a purebred or a mix.

 As I mentioned in previous posts, we were purportedly sold two Havanese dogs. If the dogs are truly Havanese, then the Wisdom Panel should reliably verify that assertion. Similarly, if our dogs are not really Havanese or a mix of Havanese and some other breed (s) then the Wisdom Panel tests ought to be able to tell us that as well.

As luck would have it, on our recent excursion to Maine, we literally ran into two relatively uncommon purebred dogs ( at least uncommon to us) —one was a Maltese and the other a Bichon. Moose—the rescue puppy who was advertised and sold to us as a 9 month-old Havanese—looked almost identical to the Maltese. Further, a so-called groomer (who posted a comment on a previous post about Moose) referred to him a Maltese which tended to validate our idea that Moose was not a Havanese but really a Maltese or a Maltese-mix.  

Again, coincidentally, my wife took Sandy (our Havanese puppy that we previously bought from the same breeder who sold us Moose) to be groomed today. Since it was Sandy’s first visit, the groomer asked what breed she was. After pausing for a second, the groomer replied “I am not  completely sure but I don’t think Sandy is a purebred Havanese –she looks like she has a fair amount of yorkie (Yorkshire terrier) in her.”

The Wisdom Panel MX kits arrived by FedEx today and we are taking the dogs to the vet at 4:00 to have blood drawn. Stay tuned for future updates.

Until next time…

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting!!!!!!

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According to Johnson & Johnson, a panel of advisors for the Food and Drug Administration, in a surprise decision, supported keeping Epogen, Procrit and Aranesp from Amgen and Johnson & Johnson on the market for use in cancer patients who are anemic from chemotherapy.

The advisor panel voted 13-1 to keep Amgen's Aranesp and J&J's on the market for use with chemotherapy. The recommendation was very surprising because over the last year FDA has scrutinized the drugs because of safety concerns and recently added new warnings to the labels. Many analysts expected further recommendations for restrictions. Although the advisory panel vote is non-binding, FDA usually follows the advice of its panels when making regulatory decisions. However, it is important to note that FDA has not followed the advice of several advisory panels in the recent past.

The positive advisory panel vote is good news for J& J and Amgen because billions of dollars in revenue are at risk for the cancer indication.  I bet that J & J and Amgen executives breathed a collective sigh of relief after hearing the news!  Maybe that loud noise I heard earlier today was the popping of champagne corks at J & J corporate headquarters in New Brunswick, NJ.  

To quote Mark Twain: “The rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated” is particularly apt for Amgen and J &J after today’s decision.

Until next time….

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting!!!!!!

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Things are not going well these days for Wyeth or the US Food and Drug Administration. In the latest of a series of complaints over FDA's safety review of drugs and industry influence on the agency, a Senate panel found flaws in its scientific objectivity when it reassigned an agency veterinarian over unfounded conflict –of- interest accusations by Wyeth.

The congressional inquiry looked into how the FDA dealt with Wyeth’s accusations against Dr. Victoria Hampshire, an FDA regulator who was helping to review the safety of one of Wyeth’s lucrative veterinary drugs. The case centers on Proheart 6, an injected dog heartworm medication that Wyeth pulled from the market in September 2004 after Hampshire linked the drug to dog deaths. Wyeth later complained about alleged bias by Hampshire. The company claimed that she intend to sell competing drugs through her own Web site. After Wyeth made the allegations, Hampshire was abruptly reassigned to another job within FDA and her case was referred to the U.S. attorney's office for possible criminal prosecution. Federal prosecutors quickly dropped the case, and much to FDA’s chagrin, in 2006, the U.S. Public Health Service named Hampshire veterinarian of the year.

Congressional investigators discovered that FDA referred Hampshire's case to prosecutors on the basis of mistaken allegations about her Web site that could easily have been checked but were not. As it turned out, Hampshire’s did little business at her website and did not sell any products that competed with Proheart 6. In fact, she actually sold Wyeth’s Proheart 6 until the company pulled it from the market. Go figure….

In a letter to HHS Secretary Michael Leavitt and FDA Commissioner Dr. Andrew von Eschenbach, panel Chairman Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) wrote that the panel’s findings suggest “that the scientific process is being compromised internally" at the FDA. Also, he wrote that the case brings into question "the processes that FDA uses in response to industry allegations of wrongdoing by FDA employees."

FYI, a FDA advisory panel narrowly voted to keep Proheart 6 off the market shortly after Hampshire was reassigned in 2004.

Until next time….

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting!!!!!!!!!

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