Category: Medicine

The search goes on for a single-dose non-surgical way to sterilize dogs & cats

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2010:

 

DALLAS–More than 50 contenders for the
$25 million Michelson Prize for the invention of
a successful non-surgical method of sterilizing
dogs and cats registered for an intensive
briefing about how to win the money at the April
8-10, 2010 Alliance for Contra-ception of Dogs &
Cats conference in Dallas.
The first step, for most, will be
winning some of the $50 million research and
development funding offered by Found Animals
Foundation founder Gary K. Michelson, M.D., to
help the contenders approach the jackpot.
To do that, the contenders must present
ideas that clear rigorous screening for
feasibility, practicality, and safety by the
Found Animals Foundation scientific advisors.
As holder of more than 900 patents issued
or pending worldwide for medical instruments,
procedures, and other medical devices, mostly
used to treat back pain, Michelson has a clear
idea what he wants to see: a single-dose
treatment that will quickly, inexpensively
sterilize dogs and cats for life, and can win
regulatory approval for widespread use.

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Retired cavalry general rides to the rescue of Animal Birth Control programs

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2010:
CHENNAI, AHMEDABAD– Responding to alleged corruption that
has in recent years crippled the Indian national Animal Birth Control
program, Animal Welfare Board of India chair Rammehar Kharb warned
the cities of Ahmedabad and Ludhiana against employing unauthorized
ABC providers.
“You are requested to cancel your ABC contract awarded to
Animal Shelter & Hospital at Ahmedabad Foundation, which is not
recognized or registered with AWBI,” Kharb wrote to the Ahmedabad
Municipal Corporation, “failing which AWBI will be constrained to
initiate action in the matter.”

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New doping rules

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2010:
COPENHAGEN–New International Equestrian Federation
anti-doping rules took effect on January 1, 2010.
Federation president Princess Haya of Jordan commissioned a
review of the doping rules after six horses tested positive for
banned drugs at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, four years after three
gold medalists were stripped of their awards for illegal doping at
the 2004 Athens Olympics.
The first major test of the new rules is expected to come at
the 2010 World Equestrian Games in Lexington, Kentucky.

Pregnant mares’ urine biz wins case after big losses

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2010:

NEW YORK, N.Y.– New York State Supreme Court Justice Martin
Shulman on December 16, 2009 threw out 23 lawsuits brought by breast
cancer victims against the makers of hormone supplements synthesized
from pregnant mare’s urine.
“While plaintiffs’ proffered evidence is extensive, a review
of the material and the record as a whole contain no evidence of
fraud, misrepresentation or deception,” Shulman wrote in dismissing
the cases before any of them went to trial.
The verdict appeared to blunt the economic impact of recent
jury awards totaling more than $165 million against the PMU
industry–and appeared to vindicate the Pfizer Inc. strategy of
consolidating and defending the industry, even as new scientific
findings strengthened the association of PMU-based hormone
supplements with an elevated risk of breast cancer.

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“Swine flu” infects cats, ferrets, & dogs

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November/December 2009:

 

A cat in Des Moines, Iowa, a cat in Lebanon, Oregon, nine
ferrets in Rice Hill, Oregon, four ferrets in Nebraska, and two
dogs in Beijing in November 2009 became the first household pets
known to have contracted the pandemic H1N1-2009 “swine flu” virus,
which is believed to have evolved in humans from swine flu strains.
Humans have passed the H1N1-2009 strain back to pigs on at least 12
different occasions in as many nations.
Each infected pet lived with humans who displayed H1N1-2009
symptoms earlier. The humans all recovered, as did the 13-year-old
Iowa cat and both Beijing dogs. The 10-year-old Oregon cat, one of
the Oregon ferrets, and one of the Nebraska ferrets died.

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Struggle for humane euthanasia continues in U.S., Philippines

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November/December 2009:

 

An employee of the Lincoln County Animal Shelter in
Lincolnton, North Carolina escaped serious injury on October 20,
2009 when a newly installed gas chamber exploded. The man had just
killed several dogs. “Carbon monoxide was clearing out of the
machine when a fireball, propelled by pressure, blew open the door
of the gas chamber, burning the man and slamming the chamber door
into him,” reported Diane Turbyfill of the Gaston Gazette.
North Carolina Coalition for Humane Euthanasia secretary
Michele King, of Garner, North Carolina, forwarded to ANIMAL
PEOPLE a purchase order which she said “shows that the gas chamber
was formerly used in Reidsville, at Rockingham County Animal
Control,” where King said it “leaked repeatedly and was finally
removed. The same gas chamber company, Cutting Edge Fabrication in
Gastonia, sold another used gas chamber to Iredell County last
year,” King added. “That chamber also later exploded,” on July 22,
2008, with 10 dogs inside at the time.

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Not vaccinating beyond rabies hot zone leads to more human rabies deaths on Bali

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2009:

 

TABANAN, Bali–The rabies situation on
Bali “remains dire,” assessed International
Society for Infectious Diseases ProMed forum
moderator Craig Pringle on September 15, 2009.
“Little progress appears to have been
achieved in containing the outbreak,” agreed
fellow ProMed moderator Tam Garland on September
18.
The most recent human victim, Ni Ketut
Sari, 47, died on September 14. “She got bit
by her own dog,” who “was suddenly destroying
her kitchen” on July 20, reported the Bali Post.
“She was rushed to the health clinic in Kediri
and got a tetanus shot,” but was not given
post-exposure rabies vaccination–apparently
because her home in Tabanan was outside the
radius of officially acknowledged rabies cases.
“According to her husband Ketut Sunarta,”
the Bali Post said, “a few weeks after being
bitten she was scared of water and wind, but was
always thirsty and shivered.”

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BOOKS: All My Patients Have Tales

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2009:

All My Patients Have Tales:
Favorite Stories from a Vet’s Practice
by Jeff Wells, DVM
St. Martin’s Press (c/o MacMillan (175 Fifth Avenue,
New York, NY 10010), 2009.
240 pages, illustrated. $24.95 hardcover.

“A sharp pain shot up my arm,” Dr. Wells says as he describes
a frantic feline named Henry, one of his first patients. “The
familiar sensation of warm blood washed over my palm.” The unhappy
cat sank his teeth into the vet’s index finger during the examination.
So began Jeff Wells’ intriguing career as a country
veterinarian. A graduate of the Iowa State University College of
Veterinary Medicine, Wells worked first at a private clinic in South
Dakota, and later in Colorado, assisted by a short young woman
named Jenny who appropriately wore overalls and boots to work.

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De-worming makes a real-life “slum dog millionaire”

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2009:

De-worming makes a real-life “slum dog millionaire”
Commentary by Merritt Clifton

“I walk through Kalhaar daily with my own
two former roadway dogs, so I know all the
street dogs here,” e-mailed Lisa Warden on
August 1, 2009 from the suburbs of Ahmedabad,
India.
“The dog pictured here just turned up
three days ago. I guess it’s safe to say that
he’s one of those who isn’t going to make it,
don’t you think?”
Perceiving emaciated street dogs, cats,
cattle, horses, and donkeys as starving and
irrecoverably suffering is the usual response of
Americans and Europeans to those whose bones
protrude as much as this dog’s did–but I
recognized a different issue.

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