Medicine

In today’s release from the Goldwater Institute, “The Nanny State Comes to My Mailbox," Andrea Woodmansee complains about the fact that a birthday card from Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano contained the statement “One of your most important roles as a parent is to make sure your baby is immunized." I find it more objectionable that the state spends money to send out cards for all births instead of on more useful things (or did Ms. Woodmansee get special treatment as a result of her proximity to power?) than I am that the card contains an accurate statement about the importance of immunization. This state contains numerous anti-vaccination conspiracy theorists who put the rest of us as well as their own children at risk by not having them vaccinated. Failing to have children vaccinated is arguably a form of child abuse–failing to take reasonable steps to give the child proper medical treatment. I can’t bring myself to be exercised about Janet Napolitano promoting vaccination when we have a President who doesn’t respect Constitutional limits on his power. Does anyone doubt that Barry Goldwater would have prioritized George Bush’s abuses of power over Janet Napolitano’s birthday card promotion of vaccination as a subject of critical attention? ...

We were looking for places to buy arthritis medication online for our eight-year-old Queensland Heeler/Border Collie mix, and I was surprised to find how sleazy many of them are–hiding the true identity of the companies or individuals behind them with private domain registrations, postal mailboxes, etc. For example, discountpetmedicines.com had a great price, but turned out to actually be a directory service operated by a company called OnTrack Professionals, Inc. (an Oklahoma corporation whose registered agent is John M. Gerkin, an attorney who was just named as a Special Judge for Washington and Nowata counties in September). The directory service points to a Yahoo store called entirelypets.com. Entirelypets.com has a Network Solutions private registration: Domain Name: ENTIRELYPETS.COM Administrative Contact: EntirelyPets.com, EntirelyPets.com [email protected] ATTN: ENTIRELYPETS.COM c/o Network Solutions P.O. Box 447 Herndon, VA 20172-0447 570-708-8780 Its website gives a mailing address in Norfolk, Nebraska that’s a private mailbox service: 710 South 13th Street Suite 900 PMB# 384 Norfolk, NE 68701I went into the site’s online chat: Please wait for a site operator to respond. Chat Information You are now chatting with ‘Herman’ Herman: Welcome to EntirelyPets.com! How can I assist you? Jim: Hello, Herman. I’m trying to find out if there is a legitimate corporation behind entirelypets.com before I do business with you. Jim: How can I verify that? Herman: That’s an excellent question sir. We have been in business for over 6 years now. The name of our corporation is HealthyPets, Inc. We are certainly legitimate. If you would like to speak with one of our reps you can call us at 1-800-889-8967. Jim: Is that a Nebraska corporation? Herman: That is both a Nebraska and California Corporation. All of our shipments are made from CA, but our main branch is here in Nebraska. Jim: OK, thank you very much!I looked up information on HealthyPets, Inc., and found that there is no Nebraska corporate registration for a company with that name, but there is one in California: HEALTHYPETS, INC. Number: C2133197 Date Filed: 2/5/1999 Status: active Jurisdiction: California Address 43450 MINTWOOD ST FREMONT, CA 94538 Agent for Service of Process M GHUMMAN 43450 MINTWOOD ST FREMONT, CA 94538M. Ghumman turns out to be Mandeep Ghumman, DVM, and it turns out that HealthyPets, Inc. has a long history of registering domains in the names of other online pet stores and vets, and then losing them to those other pet stores and vets in WIPO arbitration hearings: petsuppliesforless.com and lambiarvet.com (awarded to the owners of petsupplies4less.com and lambriarvet.com in 2003). kvvetsupply.com (awarded to KV Vet Supply in 2001) drfostersmith.com (awarded to Dr. Foster & Smith in 2000) The site at the HealthyPets.com domain–which includes references to HealthyPets, Inc.–does not sell any prescription medications, so far as I can see, though clearly at least the entirelypets.com site, which contains no references to a real company, does. I also found a record of complaints about HealthyPets, Inc. at ripoffreport.com, which points out that they use other domains like naturalpets.com, petmedications.com, and toppetmed.com, as well as reports on a number of consumer complaints about the company. I decided to go instead with 1800petmeds.com, which is a publicly traded company whose CEO is named and pictured on the site, figuring that I’d rather pay more than do business with a sleazy company. As it turns out, 1800petmeds.com has a price-matching policy, and actually offered us a better price than entirelypets.com was offering. ...

Christine Maggiore, an HIV-positive former clothing executive who is convinced that HIV does not cause AIDS, refused to take AZT to prevent maternal-fetal transmission of the virus or have her children tested. Maggiore is the author of an HIV skeptical book and has gone on numerous TV shows to argue for her views. Her 3-year-old daughter, Eliza Jane Scovill, died in September, and the coroner diagnosed the cause of death as AIDS-related pneumonia. Maggiore has now found another HIV/AIDS denier, a veterinary pathologist and toxicologist, to criticize and question the coroner’s report. Orac dissects the vet’s criticisms here. (For more on HIV/AIDS skepticism, I recommend Steve Harris’ “The AIDS Heresies” which was published in Skeptic magazine vol. 3, no. 2, 1995.)

You’ve got to hand it to the Amish. At least they are consistent, unlike the vast majority of the IDiots out there who poo poo the notions of evolution while at the same time readily partaking in its fruits–medicine that would be impossible were it not for our understanding of germs and genetics. But not the Amish, who let their kids get polio rather than question “The Word.” I’m not sure what you’d call them, but you can’t call ’em hypocrites.