Many of you have noticed television advertisements offering fax, mail, or internet-ordered medications for your pet at a reduced cost. While we have no problem prescribing medications from reputable sources, we do have very real concerns regarding these television ads and the companies behind them. The reasons for our concerns may directly affect your pet and its well being. 

Because of this concern, we want you to know several things regarding these sales so you can make an informed decision:

• The major veterinary pharmaceutical manufacturers and distributors do not sell medications to these advertisers and catalog houses. Instead, these promoters rely on secondary sources to obtain their inventory for sale to pet owners. These sources are either from foreign countries and have been illegally diverted, or from veterinarians who have breached their ethics and are purchasing and selling to these companies. Many of the drugs sold are regulated prescription-only medications and are not safely administered without a veterinarian’s care, pretesting, or follow-up testing to determine levels of toxicity and organ function.
• There have been incidents where heartworm medicine was requested by a client but was denied twice by the veterinarian because the dog did not a have a current negative heartworm test. The vet was concerned because of the potential adverse, even fatal, reactions when heartworm preventative is administered to an infected animal. However, the internet company ignored the vet’s instructions and sent the medicine directly to the client with another veterinarian’s name on the label, a veterinarian the owner did not even know.