Pet Care - Dietary Information - Veterinary Diets

Veterinary Diets

Medicines are classified by law according to how much their use needs to be regulated by a responsible person. This is to ensure the safety of humans, animals and the environment.

GSL –general sales list medicines can be sold by anyone. (Over-the-counter)
PML –prescribed merchant list medicines are restricted to stockists who are familiar with their safe use. This might apply to wormers, sheep dips etc.
POM – prescription-only medicines can only be prescribed by a doctor or vet. This would apply to powerful or dangerous medicines or those which might have far-reaching effects.

Some pet foods are sold only through veterinary surgeons. This is not because they are POM medicines. In fact they are not medicines at all. Their use is restricted not by law but by a marketing decision by the manufacturer to restrict the supply of their products. They argue that this is because pets suffering from disease should be under the care of health care professionals and that the diets should only be used in the light of an accurate diagnosis.

This would be a sound argument if veterinary diets were only used in that way. In reality, a definitive diagnosis is often impossible even with considerable expense and using invasive techniques. Some veterinary Diets are not even intended for specific diseases. For instance, there is a veterinary diet which is intended to slow senility. The manufacturer’s recommendation to vets is that it should be given to all dogs over seven years of age!

Veterinary diets designed for diseases tend to be aimed at a specific condition whereas pathological conditions affect more than one organ system at the same time. For instance, high liver enzyme levels are, in most cases, due to an (undiagnosed) problem elsewhere in the body which is having a secondary effect on the liver.

A holistic diet promotes the health of the whole body rather than a specific organ or function. Certain veterinary foods of a specialist nature can be justified in cases of advanced, life-threatening disease.

A recent article in the trade journal Pet Product Marketing poses the question “Why can’t retailers sell “prescription” diets?” but raises more questions than it answers. As the article points out, a product intended for the treatment or prevention of disease of animals has to be licensed as a medicine and veterinary/prescription foods are not so licensed. Why should it be necessary, as the food manufacturers claim, to have veterinary medical supervision when the product is not a medicine?

Burns Pet Nutrition already offers a simple option for pet owners. Burns products can replace most of the veterinary/prescription foods but at a fraction of the cost. We have been recommending this for years with pet owners consistently reporting significant health benefits when changing to Burns from veterinary diets.

If your pet is on a veterinary/prescription diet, give us a call at Burns. Our nutrition team can discuss your case and tell you if there is a suitable alternative Burns product. We can also provide ongoing nutritional support and advice. Your pet food supplier should have a chart from Burns listing the veterinary/prescription diets together with suitable alternative Burns products.

This will go hand-in-hand with the Petcare Trust proposal for a specialist nutrition qualification for retailers which will educate retailers on health and nutrition topics.

JOHN BURNS BVMS MRCSV (John Burns' article on veterinary/prescription diets)