It's a sad reality that the tear stain market is awash with people try to part you from your hard earned money 
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Truth or Lies
- Details Monday, 18 July 2011 16:45 Super User Hits: 152
In most walks of life, there are upright and honest people and then there is a minority that are motivated by profit. The dog and cat tear stain market is no exception to that rule.
Until the end of the 20th centuary the most common ways of dealing with tear stains were to remove them with peroxide based creams or to mask them with chalk based powders. A select number of people were aware that antibiotics were an extremely effective way of actually preventing tear staining in the first place.
The advent of the digital age and the internet spread the awareness of these "cures" without a corresponding understanding of the mechanics. Although owners now knew that antibiotics would help, they were present with the problem of not being able to get their hands on the correct antibiotics. The authorities were increasing concerned about misuse of antibiotics (and the risks of bacteria becoming resistant to antibiotics). So whilst the demand for antibiotics was increasing, legislation was curbing the supply.
A number of firms saw an opportunity to supply those antibiotics. By mixing antibiotics with other ingredients they hoped to be able to take advantage of the ambiguity surrounding the legislative differences between pet supplements and medicines. They went on to reverse engineer a "scientific" explanation of how thier product worked. They claimed that their products worked by tying up porphryns rather than changing the psysiology of the dog (as per the definition of a medicine).
In reality, porhyryns aside, the products worked because the antibiotics killed the indigenous bacteria that lives on the skin.
They argued that the legal definition of a medicine was something that altered the physiology of the host.
