[Porsche-O-Phile]

Did your dog get into your stash again?

Sammy, I think you're confusing "holistic" care with "alternative" care. The latter is arguably quack medicine with herbal remedies and aromatherapy, reflexology, acupuncture and all that stuff. There's some validity to it, but it's not the conventional "western-style", clinical medicine that's rooted in science. "Holistic" care is different - it involves more of a cooperative approach to care (though obviously in veterinary medicine this would be owner/vet more than pet/vet because of communication barriers). At least that's my understanding.

I find your dismissal of the entire incident and attitude towards a very real problem to those of us that actually love and care about our pets pretty callous. For what? To defend the stellar reputation of the Chinese? That wasn't my intent in posting this - it was merely to make people aware of the fact that this is still a potential problem out there and precious little has been done about it.

As far as the whole thing being a media fabrication - do you feel the same way about the genocide in Darfur? The Holocaust? C'mon - you're a smart guy - certainly smarter than that. Tell one of the thousands of pet owners that saw their dogs/cats die in writhing pain due to renal failure that it was "made up". I know an individual personally (co-worker) whose pets got sick from this. Fortunately she survived. I got lucky in that I didn't happen to have any of the affected food at the time. . .

Just take an involved approach to your pets and be a responsible caretaker/owner/companion. That's all I'm suggesting and ultimately I think that's all this particular vet is advocating.