“Muscles at Work and Play - Inquirer.net” plus 3 more

Muscles at Work and Play - Inquirer.net
Pet health care: It’s often about money - Everett Herald
Secondhand smoke could affect pets - Star-Press
Microchip clinic set to prevent loss of pets - Bend Bulletin

Posted: 15 Jun 2010 02:34 AM PDT

Potential cancer drug derived from Australian rainforest

Posted June 14, 2010 17:14:00

Agence France-Presse

SYDNEY - A potential cancer drug developed from an Australian rainforest plant is set to progress to human trials after fighting off inoperable tumors in pets, the company behind it said Monday.

Queensland firm QBiotics Limited said its EBC-46, derived from the seeds of a tropical rainforest shrub, was ready to be tested on humans after successfully treating solid tumors in more than 100 dogs, cats and horses.

"We've treated over 150 animals ... with a variety of tumors and we're prepared to move into human studies," chief executive Dr Victoria Gordon told Agence France-Presse.

Gordon said the results so far indicated the drug could work to counter a range of malignant growths, such as skin cancers, head and neck cancer, breast cancer and prostate cancer.

She said the drug works like a detonator inside tumors, prompting inactive beneficial white cells to begin to fight and destroy the cancer.

The company has spent six years developing the drug since the previously unknown molecule in the native Australian plant blushwood was discovered and hopes to raise enough funds to begin human trials in 2011.

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Pet health care: It’s often about money - Everett Herald

Posted: 15 Jun 2010 06:31 AM PDT

LOS ANGELES — When a vet told Nancy Gates that her dog Arabella had heart problems, needed surgery and it would cost $500, she had no choice but to put her pet down.

"It was pretty straightforward because I had four young children to feed. The vet said surgery was my only option. I did not want my dog to suffer," she said.

Gates made that decision 11 years ago but said nothing has changed. She still couldn't afford high-priced health care for her current pets, an 11-year-old cat, Cocoa, and an 9-year-old golden retriever Sadie. And Gates isn't alone.

Money is a consideration for the majority of people when dealing with the cost of health care for animals, according to an Associated Press-Petside.com poll conducted by GfK Roper Public Affairs & Media.

While most pet owners, 62 percent, would likely get vet care if the bill was $500, the percentage drops below half when the cost hits $1,000. The number drops to 35 percent if the cost is $2,000 and to 22 percent if it reaches $5,000.

Only at the $500 level are dog owners (74 percent) more likely than cat owners (46 percent) to say they would likely seek treatment. In the higher price ranges, the two are about equally likely to seek vet care.

"Grief gets complicated when we can't do everything we would have liked to do for our animal," said veterinarian Jane Shaw, director of the Argus Institute in the College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colo.

That's especially true in hard economic times, when spending money you don't have on an animal can have a lasting impact on children, the mortgage, grocery bills, heating bills.

"Euthanasia is always sad but when finances have to be considered, when you feel there is a possibility you didn't or couldn't do the right thing, you feel guilty," Shaw said. "We are at a point where we are talking about basic life needs or survival needs."

Terry Cornwell, 55, of Newport, Ore., has had to put down a couple of pets, but none was harder than a dog that was diagnosed with cancer. "My income decides a lot of my expenses," she said.

About one in four people, or 27 percent, said pet insurance is a good way to save money on vet bills, though that's five times the number who actually carry insurance on their pets.

Ninety-five percent of those polled said they didn't have insurance.

When quality of life has diminished and there is severe pain and suffering, the time has come to start making decisions, Shaw said.

In the final hours, it helps some people to share one last special time with an animal — a trip through a fast food drive-thru for a hamburger, a bath, a dish of homemade ice cream — something familiar to the pet, she said.

Some will take a hair clipping or clay pawprint to help build a bridge and foster the grief process. Others will arrange for euthanasia to happen at home so the pet can be surrounded by every member of the family, including other animals, Shaw said.

But nothing will completely ease the ache, she said, because guilt is part of the cost of caring deeply.

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Secondhand smoke could affect pets - Star-Press

Posted: 15 Jun 2010 06:02 AM PDT

Amid growing evidence that secondhand smoke is causing cancers and possibly a range of other health problems in pets, many groups are intensifying efforts to encourage people to stop smoking -- if not for their own sake, then for their animals'.

Veterinarians are redoubling efforts to warn smokers of the dangers to their pets, and smoking-cessation programs, including Utah Tobacco Prevention and Control, Breathe New Hampshire and smokefreesociety.org, have posted fact sheets or printable fliers on their websites. Some groups are sharing information where animal aficionados gather, including at last month's Dachshund Dash in Oklahoma City, where the Oklahoma County Tobacco Use Prevention Coalition warned of secondhand smoke's dangers to dogs.

And the ASPCA last month linked up with American Legacy Foundation, a stop-smoking group, to spread the word to the pet lovers of the world.

Studies have shown that toxins in secondhand smoke can cause lung and nasal cancer in dogs and malignant lymphoma in cats.

"The evidence is striking," says Steven Hansen of the ASPCA's Animal Poison Control Center.

"Most veterinarians believe pretty strongly secondhand smoke presents a strong danger to dogs and cats with pre-existing respiratory problems," he says. "And extrapolating, why would you expose a healthy animal?"

Although studies showing strong links between smoking and pets are limited to a few cancers, veterinary oncologist Aarti Sabhlok, who treats 40 or more cancer patients a week at San Francisco Veterinary Specialists, believes an "animal in an environment with constant exposure to a toxin, and that would include cigarette smoke, could be at greater risk of developing tumors."

It might seem odd to believe that people who continue to smoke despite the risks to themselves
and others might pay heed when pets' health is jeopardized, "but we know people sometimes pay more attention to their pets' well-being," Hansen says.

Indeed, a Web-based survey of 3,293 adult pet owners published last year found that 48 percent were smokers or living with smokers, and 37 percent said clear evidence that smoking is harmful to their pets would motivate them to quit or ask the people they live with to quit; 14 percent said such evidence could prompt them to do all their smoking outside.

"We want people to have the facts," Hansen says. And "if a person needs one more reason to stop smoking, maybe this is it."

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Microchip clinic set to prevent loss of pets - Bend Bulletin

Posted: 15 Jun 2010 04:00 AM PDT

Published: June 15. 2010 4:00AM PST

A microchip clinic will be held June 26 from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Westside Bend Pet Express to help lower the rate of missing pets this Fourth of July, according to a news release.

The event, which will be held by Bend Spay and Neuter Project, will provide microchips for cats and dogs for a fee of $35 to pet owners.

Typically, there is an increase in reported missing pets during Independence Day.

The microchip event is being held to help prevent the loss of pets during the upcoming holiday weekend.

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Pets Zone

Tuesday, June 15, 2010