Veterinarian – Page 4 – Pain In The Bud

Did A Japanese Scientist Really Double Feline Lifespans?

A new story claims a Japanese immunologist has “created a miracle” with his treatment for cats.

The cat world is abuzz with a new report that hails the efforts of a Japanese scientist, claiming he’s “created a miracle” that can extend cat lifespans to 30 years.

The story on Bored Panda claims the drug has “astounding potential,” boasting “a level of efficacy that has exceeded all expectations and has the potential to revolutionize feline healthcare.” According to Bored Panda, we’re headed toward a gleaming future and “soon we will be able to grow old with our beloved pets and be grey together.”

“Cat Lovers Rejoice As New Medicine Will Extend Cat Lifespan To 30 Years,” the headline declares.

Okay, let’s dial it back a bit and break down what’s true and what’s not.

First and most obvious, the story oversells the treatment and if you’re counting on your cat living to 30, you’ll need to readjust your expectations.

That’s unfortunate because there’s a good story at the heart of this, and there may be real benefits to cats eventually.

Toru Miyazaki is an immunologist who discovered a protein that helps the kidneys flush out toxins. Eight years ago, he realized the protein — apoptosis inhibitor of macrophage, or AIM — doesn’t always work properly in felines, which is why so many cats are susceptible to kidney failure, especially when they reach age 10 or so.

The AIM protein, Miyazaki explained, launches from immunoglobin antibodies “like a jet fighter from an aircraft carrier,” removing waste and debris from the kidneys.

But in cats, sometimes the AIM protein — the fighter jet — is “too tightly bound” to the antibodies, meaning it doesn’t “launch” in the first place and can’t do its job of flushing out toxins.

Miyazaki was continuing his research into feline kidney failure while he was a professor at the University of Tokyo, but funding dried up in 2020 as the lion’s share of research money in immunology was directed toward addressing SARS-CoV-2 and the disease it causes, COVID-19.

When a Japanese newspaper published a story about Miyazaki having to abandon his research, donations came pouring in. Cat lovers across Japan donated an astounding $2.3 million, prompting Miyazaki to leave his post at the University of Tokyo and found a non-profit dedicated to tackling kidney disease in cats.

As of September 2023, Miyazaki’s organization is running clinical trials on his AIM therapy, and it has partnered with a Japanese pet food company on new food that is supposed to reduce the possibility of kidney disease.

There’s not enough data yet to make any definitive statement, and even if the data existed, the AIM therapy is not a cure: Miyazaki says if all goes well, kittens who are given AIM therapy injections from an early age, and eat a diet with the AIM-enhancing formula, could have their risk of developing kidney problems reduced and potentially live longer lives.

That’s a far cry from Bored Panda’s image of cat lovers dancing in the streets, joyous with news of a miracle pill that will allow Socks and Oreo to run around like kittens for three decades.

While it’s natural to be excited about the potential of AIM therapy, calling it a “miracle” that will “revolutionize feline healthcare” and allow us to grow old with our cats can give people false hope.

Even if the trials go perfectly and AIM therapy breezes through the approval process, the soonest the injection therapy could be available in Japan is 2025. The US, UK and Europe have their own regulatory agencies and clinical data requirements. That means it might help kittens born years from now, but it won’t double the lifespans of the cats we love now.

It’s also worth mentioning that not everyone is thrilled to hear Miyazaki has partnered with a pet food company that sells ultra-processed kibble. Over at bark&whiskers, Karen Shaw Becker — a veterinarian who specializes in preventative care — points out that ultra-processed dry food is thought to be a major contributor to the feline kidney problems, with the ingredients, rendering methods and lack of moisture (water) all posing health hazards to cats. Cats have low thirst drives and get most of their hydration from meat.

While Becker writes she’s watching the trials closely, like other veterinarians, she recommends cat lovers continue to feed their furry friends wet and/or fresh food with high quality ingredients, no fillers and lots of protein.

‘Study’ Claiming Vegan Cats Are Healthier Is A Mockery Of Science

A new paper claims cats are healthier when fed human diets, but the “study” is activism masquerading as science.

We have a science problem in this country.

Tens of millions of adults are scientifically illiterate and cannot articulate a simple definition of the scientific method.

That includes the usual suspects, the people who don’t understand the difference between anecdotes and hard data and say things like “Evolution’s just a theory” or “I don’t believe in science” as if it’s an ideology or religion. It also includes people who like to declare they’re “into science” as if it’s a band or a genre of cinema, and often post articles from sites like “I F—-ing Love Science,” which routinely mistakes natural phenomena like stars, interstellar space and the animal life for “science.”

To quote Sam Kriss’ wonderful essay on the subject: “‘Science’ comes to metonymically refer to the natural world, the object of science; it’s like describing a crime as ‘the police,’ or the ocean as ‘drinking.'”

Science is a formalized method for studying the natural world. That’s it. No more, no less. It isn’t natural phenomena itself, it isn’t something that requires faith. It’s meant to be challenged, with each piece of knowledge hard-won as the scientific community collectively chips away at the vast edifice of things we don’t understand.

The lack of scientific literacy is an indictment of the American education system, but the science and journalism communities are also big contributors. A flawed academic publishing system encourages researchers to make grandiose claims in abstracts and press releases to increase the chances their work will get positive coverage in the press. Few journalists are more scientifically literate than the general population, so they report dubious claims credulously and present individual studies as the final word on subjects instead of tentative first steps in contributing to the corpus of human knowledge.

We see this all the time with reporting on the environmental impact of felines, but it’s certainly not limited to that subject. How many times have you seen your local news anchors or newspapers tout studies saying coffee is healthy, only to report the next week that a new study says coffee isn’t healthy after all?

“Those scientists can’t make up their minds,” they’ll say with a forced chuckle before handing the broadcast over to the weatherman, oblivious to their own failure to provide context.

The effort to rebrand cats as vegans

A new “study,” given prominent play today by major news outlets like Newsweek and aggregators like Drudge, is a classic example of misleading claims given the veneer of scientific authority. The paper claims vegan cats are “healthier” than their meat-eating counterparts. The study — which is actually a survey — says no such thing, and its authors are surely aware that the way it’s been packaged for media consumption will cause confusion, but they’ve gone ahead with it anyway.

The research involved asking 1,369 cat owners to fill out surveys about their cats, the cats’ diets, and their veterinary health histories.

Of those surveyed, there were 123 reported “vegan cats” in their households (about nine percent of the total), and while the abstract and media pitches claim the surveys show vegan cats are healthier, the differences are statistically insignificant. The sample size is too small to draw any conclusions from, and the fact that the details are self-reported means the “data” is worthless: People who put their cats on vegan diets despite knowing felines are obligate carnivores have a vested interest in defending their decision. They’re not impartial, and their survey answers aren’t either. (The paper acknowledges that 91 percent of the respondents are female, and 65 percent are vegans, vegetarians or pescatarians themselves. Those are admirable choices for a human diet, but not for a cat.)

Relying on self-reported “data” also means the research team doesn’t actually know the true veterinary histories of the cats in question, nor does it know anything about the nutrient content of the vegan “cat food” given to the 123 cats who have been deprived of meat. It also cannot account for possibilities like the so-called vegan cats slipping out at night to hunt rodents.

a close up shot of a cat eating — Credit: Engin Akyurt/Pexels

That’s especially important because of “vegan cat food’s” dubious history. Evolution, the brand that popularized the concept, is owned and operated by a man named Eric Weisman, who has been prosecuted and repeatedly sanctioned for misrepresenting himself as a physician, veterinarian and scientist — and continues to misrepresent himself.

Weisman, a chiropractor by trade, racked up a long list of violations in his chosen field before his chiropractor license was pulled, then was charged and convicted criminally for, among other things, practicing veterinary medicine and regular medicine without a license. Weisman’s list of offenses include “treating” cancer patients, “treating” and misdiagnosing animals, and posing as a physician for years, including in advertisements and literature related to his pet food and fake veterinary practices.

Weisman is still calling himself a physician in violation of his plea agreement, and he’s still selling “vegan cat food.” Would anyone in their right mind weigh the claims of that man against the tens of thousands of veterinarians and pet nutritionists who are horrified at the idea of restricting cats to vegan diets?

(In case you’re tempted to think chiropractors are legitimate to begin with, you should know that chiropractor was founded by a lifelong quack who claimed its methods were taught to him by the ghost of a physician, which allegedly appeared to him during a seance. Chiropractor’s founder dodged accountability for years by claiming his practice was a “religion.” The fact that it’s now a $15 billion industry despite its origins, and decades of research that has found no benefit to the practice, illustrates how eager people are to believe just about anything.)

The consequences of bad science

Not only will the “study” and press coverage of it mislead people into believing its claims, it’s another black mark on the scientific community. Trust is hard-won, easily lost, and for better or worse the misdeeds of a few scientists reflects on the entire field.

Others will simply believe it, especially when major news outlets like Newsweek report the results without question, without acknowledging that it’s a lazy effort masquerading as science by a research team that already knew what result it wanted before handing out the surveys. (The “study” was funded by ProVeg, an NGO that promotes plant-based consumption and is involved in the development of plant-based foods.)

Lastly and most tragically, cats will suffer for it. Cats who are denied meat suffer slow and agonizing deaths, with health problems accumulating due to the lack of certain proteins until they go blind, become chronically malnourished and eventually suffer organ failure.

And for what?

Because some people believe human morals apply to cats?

Because, despite all common sense, they think they can change a species that has been dependent on meat for so long in their evolutionary history that their bodies literally cannot synthesize certain proteins and cannot extract nutrients from most plant material?

How would we like it if we were dependent on giants to feed us, and those giants decided we could and should live on a diet of marshmallows? We’d suffer horribly and we’d die, but at least we’d know why.

Cats don’t have that luxury. They depend on us to do right by them, and when we adopt them it’s our basic responsibility to keep them healthy and well-fed. Let’s not fail our little friends by pretending human ethics is applicable to a species that can’t understand it, or consent to participating in it.

Two Families Battle Over A Cat, Prompting The Question: What Defines Pet ‘Ownership’?

Bob/Maui the cat was adopted by one family in 2013, went missing a few months later and was rescued by another family, who have had him for 10 years.

Bob the cat was adopted by Carol Holmes of Wichita, Kansas, in 2013.

Holmes says Bob disappeared a few months later and that was the last she saw of him.

Alex Streight, who also lived in Wichita at the time, found Bob in a bad way, malnourished and in “bad condition.”

“He was in horrible shape,” Streight told WRAL, a North Carolina TV news station. “I fed him, kept looking for [the] owner. I posted in the Wichita groups, but I never found anyone.”

Streight, who was 27 years old and pregnant at the time, said the veterinarian gave her no indication the cat belonged to anyone, and her efforts to find a potential owner were unsuccessful, so she paid for his veterinary fees, adopted him and named him Maui.

When Streight moved to North Carolina in 2015, she took Maui with her and he’s been living happily with her family ever since. In late August Maui slipped out of Streight’s North Carolina home. A neighbor picked him up and brought him to the vet, and the veterinarian realized there was a microchip. A scan showed Holmes as the cat’s owner.

a tuxedo cat on a hanging wooden bridge — Credit: Arina Krasnikova/Pexels

Now Bob/Maui is in the custody of Wake County (NC) Animal Control, whose staff don’t sound keen on returning the cat to Streight. They’ve called Wilson, who said she’d like to be reunited with Bob/Maui, and when Streight went to animal control to get her cat — returning with the veterinary records when they wouldn’t release him to her the first time — the staff called police.

“The cat is in protective custody where an investigation will begin,” Jennifer Federico, a veterinarian with the county animal control, told the station. “The cat is safe and isolated.”

Federico seems intent on making the situation more complicated than it needs to be, telling WRAL that “Microchipping proves ownership, so we have to take that into consideration, and launch a full investigation.”

Streight doesn’t see it that way. She wasn’t registered as the owner on the chip, but she’s got 10 years’ worth of veterinary records, a photograph of Maui laying on her couch the day he slipped out of her house, and photos and videos showing the tuxedo cat with her kids and other pets over the past decade.

“It’s just absurd to me that anyone would think to take someone’s pet away from the family that he’s been with for ten years,” Streight said.

We have to agree with Streight here, and it’s disturbing that animal control has not only made itself the arbiter of the cat’s fate, but has apparently decided that nominal ownership based on a microchipping from 2013 trumps the fact that Maui has been happily a part of Streight’s family for at least 95 percent of his life.

We feel for Wilson, but Streight did everything right: She looked for the cat’s family, posted about him online, cleaned him up and got him veterinary care, then adopted him when all indications were he didn’t have a home. With a decade’s worth of vet bills, photos and videos backing her up, it’s clear Maui is happy in her home, has been well cared-for, and if he could speak there’s little doubt about where he’d prefer to go.

She’s clearly bonded to the cat, and he to her: Only someone who really loves their furry friend regularly takes photos of their cat, even after 10 years. I can attest to that fact: Probably 60 or 70 percent of the photos on my phone are of Buddy, and I’d be devastated if we were separated.

What do you think? Should Bob/Maui be returned to Wilson or Streight?

tuxedo cat sitting on ground — Credit: Dima Solomin/Pexels

A Woman Wanted This Gorgeous Kitty Euthanized For Litter Box Issues

A veterinarian realized kitty was healthy and put her in the care of a local no-kill shelter, where she remains while hoping for a forever home.

Lulu is 13 years old and began eliminating outside her litter box last year after a long life of doing her business properly.

Instead of realizing that a change in behavior was almost certainly precipitated by health issues — and attempting to get those issues sorted out — Lulu’s “owner” brought her to a veterinarian to be euthanized.

The vet realized Lulu was healthy and her issues were easily remedied, wisely persuaded the woman to sign over ownership of Lulu and brought the Himalayan to the local SPCA. She’s been there since December.

Lulu had urinary crystals which were remedied after a change in diet, and she hasn’t had an “accident” in months.

Staff at the SPCA want people to know that they don’t have to surrender a cat for litter box issues or other behavioral changes even if they think they can’t afford veterinary treatment.

“If your pet is not behaving or their behavior has changed, the first step is to get them to a vet to see if something is medically wrong. Even if it is not a medical condition, there are numerous resources — many available at Dutchess County SPCA — to help resolve the issue and avoid both euthanasia and surrender to a shelter,” Lyne Meloccaro of the Dutchess County SPCA told People. “Medical assistance, expert guidance, and management plans, and training referrals are all available for you.”

Dutchess County, which is about 75 miles north of New York City, happens to be the former college stomping grounds of Big Buddy. I graduated from Marist College and lived in the area for some years after. The SPCA there does good work, and its law enforcement division has handled some high profile animal-related crimes over the years.

It’s sad that Lulu lost her home after 13 years, but maybe it’s for the best if she ends up with a devoted servant who will really love her. Her caretakers at the SPCA say she’s stubborn, demands affection on her own terms and wants an “emotional support human.”

Lulu is still available for adoption. The SPCA says she’ll do best as an only cat in a quiet household, and we have no doubt she’ll bring joy to the lucky person who brings her home.

‘Every Time We Needed To Refill, They Charged Us More’: FDA Says 2 US Women Made Millions Off Desperate People Whose Cats Had FIPV

The importers are accused of jacking up prices almost 16 fold on FIPV drugs they illegally imported from China, the FDA says.

FIPV is pretty much a guaranteed death sentence for cats, and the only way to cure it is with an experimental drug that doesn’t have FDA approval.

Oregon’s Nancy Ross and Nicole Randall of Texas knew that, and as importers selling the cure via the popular Facebook group FIP Warriors, the FDA says they banked on the desperation of people who would do almost anything to save their cats — including forking over vast sums of money.

Ross and Randall are now accused by the FDA of smuggling GS-441524 from China, where it’s manufactured illegally, and hiking the price by almost 16 times what they paid for it as they served as the middle women between desperate cat owners and the suppliers in Hong Kong.

Feline infectious peritonitis kills some 95 percent of cats it infects, and veterinarians often tell their clients with FIPV cats that while they can’t prescribe GS-441524, they will help administer it, track their cats’ progress through bloodwork and hopefully save feline lives — if the clients obtain the drug themselves.

FIP Warriors — now in its fifth incarnation as FIP Warriors 5.0 on Facebook — is where people with FIPV cats go to find suppliers. The group has more than 43,000 members, and the FDA says Randall made millions off of them, charging as much as $385 for vials of GS-441524 she obtained for between $25 and $45 from manufacturers in Hong Kong and mainland China.

Randall sold $9.6 million worth of GS-441524 to clients in the US, according to the FDA. Per The Oregonian:

“A spreadsheet found in Randall’s Google email showed customer orders of at least 58,460 vials and 236,836 pills of GS-441524 from July 2020 through June 6, 2022, the affidavit said.”

PITB spoke to several people who paid thousands of dollars for GS-441524 after their cats were diagnosed with FIPV. All of them said they were surprised by the news of the FDA’s investigation, and said they were given various reasons for why the drug was so expensive to acquire.

One customer from Texas, whose cat Seth began his regimen in July of 2020, told PITB she doesn’t regret spending the money to cure Seth, but she “can see how the people saw our desperate situation and took advantage of us.” She was told prices were at a premium because of scarcity.

“It was a very stressful time for us, and every time we needed to refill, they charged us more,” she said. “They knew we couldn’t say no.”

Another woman, whose kitten was diagnosed with FIPV in 2021, “was told that the prices were set because they ensure the medication was purchased from a trusted source.”

As a college student at the time, she used her savings and crowdfunded the other half, paying more than $5,000 for her kitten’s treatment. She said she doesn’t think the administrators of the group were ripping her off, since they had FIP cats of their own, and likely didn’t know the importers were making huge profits. She trusted the seller — who was not Ross or Randall — because the group vouched for that person, assuring her they supplied real pills.

“Of course, I don’t think this is a valid justification for hiking up prices up to 16x the amount,” she told PITB, “but I’m sincerely hoping the individual [accused by the FDA] had a valid reason for setting the prices that she did.”

Others paid even more exorbitant prices: a British woman we interviewed for a story about FIPV in 2022 said she paid about £7,000, or $9,400 at the time.

FDA investigators said they intercepted shipments from China and Hong Kong disguised as COVID masks, cat shampoo and chewable medicine for pets, and the Oregonian report says the shipments were listed as “essential oils” and “beauty products” in import documents.

Randall and Ross have not been charged criminally, but they are now targets of a civil asset forfeiture case:

“The government seized five of Randall’s bank and brokerage accounts and her 2022 Tesla Model Y car last year based on a warrant signed by a federal magistrate judge in Oregon.

The warrant identified the bank accounts and car as proceeds from the “crime of smuggling” and subject to forfeiture, according to the affidavit. It also alleged Randall, now 35, used the proceeds to buy several properties, including a ranch in Leander, Texas, in July 2021.”

While the FDA’s affidavit went into detail regarding Randall’s earnings, it describes shipments sent to Ross but does not specify how much she may have made in profit. An attorney for Randall told The Oregonian that the Texas woman will fight the civil asset forfeiture.

The illegal market for GS-441524 exists because the drug’s creator, Gilead Sciences of California, declined to submit it to the FDA for approval. That’s because it’s chemically similar to another drug the company makes, remdesivir, which was floated as a possible treatment for COVID-19. The company was worried any snags in a potential approval process for GS-441524 would also ensnare remdesivir, according to reports, putting the latter drug in limbo during the pandemic.

Now that the pandemic has retreated to much lower levels of infection and death, it’s not clear if Gilead Sciences will reconsider its FIPV medication, but there may be hope in the form of alternate treatments. A report from the American Animal Hospital Association (AAHA) says scientists at the University of California-Davis and UC San Diego are working on several promising therapies, including a potential treatment using CRISPR gene-editing technology.

But until another cure or treatment passes trials and earns FDA approval — a process that could take years — people with FIPV-diagnosed cats remain at the mercy of strangers on the internet, spending thousands of dollars per regimen and hoping the drugs they buy are the real deal.