Plants that brighten up your house may not be so good for your pets

Lilies Members of the Lilium spp. are considered to be highly toxic to cats. While the poisonous component has not yet been identified, it is clear that with even ingestions of very small amounts of the plant, severe kidney damage could result.

Marijuana (I guess the ASPCA considers this a house plant)
Ingestion of Cannabis sativa by companion animals can result in depression of the central nervous system and incoordination, as well as vomiting, diarrhea, drooling, increased heart rate, and even seizures and coma.

Sago Palm
All parts of Cycas Revoluta are poisonous, but the seeds or “nuts” contain the largest amount of toxin. The ingestion of just one or two seeds can result in very serious effects, which include vomiting, diarrhea, depression, seizures and liver failure.

Tulip/Narcissus bulbs
The bulb portions of Tulipa/Narcissus spp. contain toxins that can cause intense gastrointestinal irritation, drooling, loss of appetite, depression of the central nervous system, convulsions and cardiac abnormalities.

Azalea/Rhododendron
Members of the Rhododenron spp. contain substances known as grayantoxins, which can produce vomiting, drooling, diarrhea, weakness and depression of the central nervous system in animals. Severe azalea poisoning could ultimately lead to coma and death from cardiovascular collapse.

Oleander
All parts of Nerium oleander are considered to be toxic, as they contain cardiac glycosides that have the potential to cause serious effects—including gastrointestinal tract irritation, abnormal heart function, hypothermia and even death.

Castor Bean
The poisonous principle in Ricinus communis is ricin, a highly toxic protein that can produce severe abdominal pain, drooling, vomiting, diarrhea, excessive thirst, weakness and loss of appetite. Severe cases of poisoning can result in dehydration, muscle twitching, tremors, seizures, coma and death.

Cyclamen
Cylamen species contain cyclamine, but the highest concentration of this toxic component is typically located in the root portion of the plant. If consumed, Cylamen can produce significant gastrointestinal irritation, including intense vomiting. Fatalities have also been reported in some cases.

Kalanchoe
This plant contains components that can produce gastrointestinal irritation, as well as those that are toxic to the heart, and can seriously affect cardiac rhythm and rate.

Yew
Taxus spp. contains a toxic component known as taxine, which causes central nervous system effects such as trembling, incoordination, and difficulty breathing. It can also cause significant gastrointestinal irritation and cardiac failure, which can result in death.

Amaryllis
Common garden plants popular around Easter, Amaryllis species contain toxins that can cause vomiting, depression, diarrhea, abdominal pain, hypersalivation, anorexia and tremors.

Autumn Crocus
Ingestion of Colchicum autumnale by pets can result in oral irritation, bloody vomiting, diarrhea, shock, multi-organ damage and bone marrow suppression.

Chrysanthemum
These popular blooms are part of the Compositae family, which contain pyrethrins that may produce gastrointestinal upset, including drooling, vomiting and diarrhea, if eaten. In certain cases depression and loss of coordination may also develop if enough of any part of the plant is consumed.

English Ivy
Also called branching ivy, glacier ivy, needlepoint ivy, sweetheart ivy and California ivy, Hedera helix contains triterpenoid saponins that, should pets ingest, can result in vomiting, abdominal pain, hypersalivation and diarrhea.

Peace Lily (AKA Mauna Loa Peace Lily)
Spathiphyllum contains calcium oxalate crystals that can cause oral irritation, excessive drooling, vomiting, difficulty in swallowing and intense burning and irritation of the mouth, lips and tongue in pets who ingest.

Pothos
Pothos (both Scindapsus and Epipremnum) belongs to the Araceae family. If chewed or ingested, this popular household plant can cause significant mechanical irritation and swelling of the oral tissues and other parts of the gastrointestinal tract.

Schefflera
Schefflera and Brassaia actinophylla contain calcium oxalate crystals that can cause oral irritation, excessive drooling, vomiting, difficulty in swallowing and intense burning and irritation of the mouth, lips and tongue in pets who ingest.

Fearing overseas radiation, Americans seek potassium iodide for pets

Potassium iodide is a medication that may protect the thyroid gland from cancer caused by exposure to some types of radiation.

There is widespread fear, kindled by radiation leaks from nuclear reactors in Japan damaged by a massive earthquake and tsunami last Friday. People are worried not only for themselves but for their four legged companions.

Here is some information that my indispensable Veterinary Information Network provided to me:

In Hawaii, some 1,500 miles closer to Japan than the mainland West, which is about 5,000 miles distant, the frenzy for potassium iodide is even greater.

“Because of our geographic location, we’re sold out. There is none. Anywhere. So that’s causing more panic,” said Dr. Eric Ako, executive vice president of the Hawaii Veterinary Medical Association.

Based on news reports he’s heard that suggest the medication may offer some safeguard against radiation exposure, Ako said he would be willing to dispense it to clients’ pets if it were available. “If I could find documented appropriate dose ranges ... yeah, I’d do it,” Ako said.

Other veterinarians have expressed a similar willingness to accommodate pet owners’ requests. But in the view of veterinary experts in pharmacology, toxicology and oncology interviewed by the VIN News Service, it’s unwarranted.

Besides the fact that significant radioactive fallout is unlikely to occur here from nuclear-reactor leaks in a faraway country, they say, the use of potassium iodide to protect against radiation exposure in dogs and cats is unproven and poses an ethical issue as well.

“People are certainly overreacting,” said Donald Plumb, Pharm.D, author of Plumb’s Veterinary Drug Handbook, the reference book everyone is reaching for to determine what levels of the drug, if any, are appropriate for pets.

“If potassium iodide is needed, it’s needed first for people and not animals, and there’s limited quantities of it,” Plumb said. “At this time, there doesn’t seem to be any reasonable way that pets should be getting this in the United States.”

Nor people, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. “There is no public health event requiring anyone in the U.S. to take KI because of the ongoing situation in Japan,” the agency states on its website, referring to potassium iodide by its chemical abbreviation KI.

The body needs iodine to produce thyroid hormone, which regulates metabolism. The idea behind taking potassium iodide in a nuclear emergency is to prevent the body from taking up radioactive iodine in the environment.

In veterinary medicine, potassium iodide is used to treat actinobacillosis (woody tongue) and actinomycosis (lumpy jaw) in ruminants; and the chronic skin infection sporotrichosis in horses, dogs and cats, according to Plumb's Handbook.

The reference book provides no information about dosage levels to counter radiation exposure.

“I don’t know that anybody knows what is a reasonable dose of iodine for dogs and cats to prevent damage from ionizing radiation,” said Dr. Sharon Gwaltney-Brant, a toxicology consultant at VIN formerly with the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) Animal Poison Control Center. “The only studies ... have been done in humans.”

In the case of a true nuclear emergency and assuming supplies of potassium iodide were adequate to justify distribution to animals as well as people, Plumb said, veterinarians would be left to extrapolate from dosages for children the levels for veterinary patients.

(Dosages for children range from 16.25 mg every 24 hours for newborns; to 65 mg every 24 hours for youngsters ages 3 to 12.)

However, determining medication levels for pets based on human dosages can be tricky business, Gwaltney-Brant cautioned.

“We know that many times, the doses that work in humans aren’t the same as doses in dogs and cats,” she said. “There may be a difference in how they absorb it (and) how they eliminate it.”

Although potassium iodide is a form of the naturally occurring element iodine, the substance is not benign. In animals, Plumb’s Handbook lists the following adverse effects: excessive tearing, vomiting, anorexia, nasal discharge, muscle twitching, cardiomyopathy, scaly haircoats and dandruff, hyperthermia, decreased milk production and weight gain, coughing, inappetence and diarrhea. It notes that cats are more prone to developing toxicity.

Citing the potential side effects of taking potassium iodide, the University of California, Davis, which has a School of Veterinary Medicine, posted an advisory Thursday discouraging pet owners from giving their animals the tablets.

Other points to keep in mind:

• Potassium iodide does not protect against other types of cancers and health problems caused by radiation exposure, such as bone cancer, leukemia and cataracts.

• It is infants, children and immature animals who appear most vulnerable to thyroid cancer from radiation exposure because the cells in their bodies are dividing rapidly. Therefore, potassium iodide is most useful in protecting the thyroids of juveniles. “If you’re giving it to adults, you’re giving it as a placebo effect to calm them down,” Gwaltney-Brant said.

At Veterinary Specialty Center of Indiana, veterinary oncologist Dr. Michael Lucroy was prompted by news of the radiation scare to review what happened at Chernobyl, a nuclear power plant in Ukraine that partially melted down in 1986, spewing radiation through the countryside. The accident Chernobyl is, to date, still considered the worst commercial nuclear disaster in the world.

From reading a summary by the World Health Organization of Chernobyl's health effects, Lucroy determined that the only increase in cancers in the region clearly attributable to the power-plant contamination was thyroid cancer in people who were adolescents at the time of exposure.

“There wasn’t anything really I could find out about animal cancers in the area of Chernobyl,” Lucroy said.

He noted that giving pets iodine supplements in the absence of a clear need would put them at risk of overdose. “If you’re giving commercial pet food, plenty of iodine is in those diets, anyway,” Lucroy said.

The Associated Press reported Friday that radioactive fallout from Japan has been detected in California but so far, the levels are far below what is considered hazardous to human health.

My husband falls into the mildly paranoid department and googled his brains out last week only to find that one of the largest nuclear energy facilities in the US is located in the not so distant Phoenix area.

I am staying blissfully positive "knowing" that my two legged as well as my four legged companions are safe in our utopic Flagstaff.

What I always wanted to know but was afraid to ask

MEAT BY-PRODUCTS (page 369, AAFCO 2011): "meat by-products is the non-rendered, clean parts, other than meat (which is basically muscle), derived from slaughtered mammals. it includes, but is not limited to lungs, spleen, kidneys, brain, livers, blood, bone, partially defatted low temperature fatty tissue, and stomachs and intestines freed of their contents. it does not include hair, horns, teeth, and hoofs. It shall be suitable for use in animal food. If it bears a name descriptive of its kind, it must correspond therein."

POULTRY BY-PRODUCTS (page 370 AAFCO 2011): "poultry by-products must consist of non-rendered clean parts of carcasses of slaughtered poultry such as heads, feet, viscera, free from fecal content and foreign matter except in suc trace amounts as might occur unavoidably in good factory practice. if the product bears a name descriptive of its kind, the name must correspond therein" - don't you love governmental documents?!?

ANIMAL BY-PRODUCT MEAL (page 371, AAFCO 2011): "animal by-product meal is the rendered product from animal tissues, exclusive an any added hair, hoof, horn, hid trimmings, manure, stomach and rumen contents, except in such amounts as may occur unavoidably in good processing practices. It shall not contain added extraneous materials not provided for by this definition. This ingredient definition is intended to cover those individual rendered animal tissue products that cannot meet the criteria as set forth elsewhere in this section. This ingredient is not intended to be used to label a mixture of animal tissue products"

POULTRY BY-PRODUCT MEAL (page 369, AAFCO 2011): "poultry by-product meal consists of the ground, rendered, clean parts of the carcass of slaughtered poultry, such as necks, feet, undeveloped eggs, and intestines, exclusive of feathers, except in such amounts as might occur unavoidably in good processing practices. The label shall include guarantees for minimum crude protein, minimum crude fat, maximum crude fiber, minimum phosphorous, and minimum and maximum calcium. The calcium level shall not exceed the actual level of phosphorus by more than 2.2 times. If the product bears a name descriptive ot its kind, the name must correspond thereto."