Request for assistance (Wisconsin residents)

[Greg Morin <greg at seachem_com>]

If you are (a) a resident of the state of Wisconsin (b) use our 
Flourish Iron and (c) are satisfied with the result of its usage, 
then please contact me off list if you are interested in helping us 
to ensure that you can continue to purchase this product in the state 
of Wisconsin.

Flourish, Flourish Iron and Flourish Tabs are available at Petsmart 
in all 50 states. Because these products are considered fertilizers 
by state agricultural departments they must be "registered" in nearly 
every state (and of course we get to pay each state per product for 
the "privilege" of selling it in their state every year). We have 
completed this process for every state requiring registration, 
however the state of Wisconsin has an efficacy substantiation 
requirement that no other states have. If you have a product that is 
not substantially identical to a product already known to them then 
they  require that a company must submit independent, peer reviewed, 
publishable research that said product provides a benefit. That 
sounds like a great thing, the only problem is that the manufacturer 
is not allowed to do the research themselves, only a third part can, 
and Wisconsin  can't recommend any one to do it and we can't find 
anyone to do it and even if we did the amount it would cost would 
take more than 50 years for us to recoup the investment (based on 
sales only to Wisconsin). It simply makes no economic sense for us to 
do this for a product we (Seachem) already know works.

Anyway, the general issue is this: the Wisconsin department of 
Agriculture does not believe that an iron supplement product (not 
just ours, any type of iron supplementation) is beneficial in any way 
to a planted aquarium in the state of Wisconsin. The opinion of one 
individual there is that basically local tap water has plenty and 
you'd get enough from the gravel and fish food. That is certainly 
going to be true in _some_ cases but as I'm sure most on this list 
can attest to, iron supplementation does provide a benefit in certain 
situations, whether it be ours or someone else's product. But 
apparently because some do not need it, that is sufficient cause to 
exclude a product pending an overwhelming preponderance of scientific 
data when simple logic would tell you that if iron becomes deficient, 
then adding it will make it not be deficient and will thus be of 
benefit.

So even though this would not constitute scientific research, I 
thought it might possibly be persuasive if residents of the state of 
Wisconsin were to write a letter (US Mail) expressing how in their 
experience Flourish Iron has provided a noticeable benefit (others 
may write as well if you feel so inclined, I'm sure it would not 
hurt). We would then collect all such letters and forward them on to 
the Wisconsin Department of Ag. and see if it helps at all. If it is 
not persuasive then we will have no choice but to withdraw that 
product from the Wisconsin market. All similar products from other 
manufactures will likely disappear in the near future as the person I 
spoke with  said they are getting ready to do "go out in the field" 
and pull unregistered products off the shelf. So this is not just a 
"Seachem" issue but an industry wide one. I know the intent of their 
law was good but it has had the unfortunate unintended consequence of 
limiting competition and reducing consumer choice: i.e. only huge 
corporations can afford to get into the Wisconsin market as only they 
can afford to provide the very expensive efficacy data.

Letters can be sent to:

Seachem Laboratories, Inc.
attn: Greg Morin
15151-A Prater Drive
Covington, GA 30014
--

Gregory Morin, Ph.D.  ~~~~~~~President/CEO~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Seachem Laboratories, Inc.      www.seachem.com     888-SEACHEM
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~