Why Is Cancer Killing Our Pets?
Courtesy of 'New Living' Newspaper
March 2001
VACCINES
Over the past decade or so, many veterinarians have become increasingly convinced that a number of vaccines are doing more harm than good for our animal companions. Some remain necessary, even mandated by law, such as rabies. But not all the annual boosters that have been traditionally given now appear to be necessary and they may be leading to several diseases. Among the conditions associated with vaccines are skin allergies, bladder infections and cancer. The U. S. veterinary community is currently reviewing most vaccines protocols.
When it is time to revaccinate your animal, your veterinarian should consider the pet's age, his/her lifestyle (indoor or outdoor), his/her general state of health, the prevalence of the disease in question in the geographic area where you live, whether your animal is pregnant, whether or not you board her/him and other factors. Each case is individual and should be considered as such.
One of the more no-holds-barred statements about vaccines is Dr. Richard Pitcairn's warning: "Giving a vaccine to an animal with cancer is like pouring gasoline on a fire." He also advises not vaccinating pets who have breast tumors or any other growths or tumors. His overall recommendations regarding vaccines are these: Try to get your veterinarian to give single or simple vaccines rather than complex vaccines. Young animals can tolerate a reduced vaccination schedule, but vaccinating is not advised before sixteen weeks of age. Annual boosters should be avoided even though they have been popular. Pitcairn goes so far as to say avoid "any further vaccinations after the initial series as they are not necessary." He adds that the latest official medical opinion is that annual boosters are neither required nor effective, although not all veterinarians will agree with or even know this fact.
More information on vaccines:
Health Hazzards of Routine Vaccines
Vaccines - Are They Safe for Your Dog?
THE PET FOOD INDUSTRY
Perhaps the most shocking and informative book about the pet food industry is Ann Martin's "Food Pet's Die For", published in 1997. As Dr. Michael W. Fox, vice president of the Humane Society of the United States, says, "Ann Martin is to the pet food industry what Rachel Caron was to the petrochemical-pesticide industry." Martin spent seven years investigating the commercial pet food industry and what she uncovered isn't pretty. There are several reasons you really do not want to feed your dog or cat commercial foods. Perhaps the most compelling moral reason is that there are rendered, euthanized pets in much of this food. These pets have been mixed with other materials, including some condemned for human consumption: "rotten meat from supermarket shelves, restaurant grease..'4-D' (dead, diseased, dying and disabled) animals and roadkill."
The Minister of Agriculture of Quebec told Martin that dead animals are often cooked with viscera, bones, fat and fur. In both the United States and Quebec, this rendering of pets is not illegal. Martin points to an article originally published in the San Francisco Chronicle in which an employee and ex-employee of a rendering plant admitted that their company rendered approximately 250,000 to 500,000 pounds of animals, scraps and more, including "somewhere between 10,000 and 30,000 pounds of dogs and cats a day."
That's enough to make most of us sick, isn't it? Martin, a Canadian writer who lives with several animal companions, went a bit further in her investigations and discovered that some pets are euthanized with sodium pentobarbital and then rendered. This poison does not break down and goes into commercial pet food and feed for cows, pigs and horses. For the detailed report by the FDA's Center for Veterinary Medicine on popular commercial pet foods containing pentobarbital, click here. When you read the report, please know that AD (animal digest) is animal waste (to be polite)!
Two thirds of the pet food manufactured in the United States contains added preservatives, according to the Animal Protection Institute. There are also coloring agents, emulsifiers, lubricants, flavoring agents, pH control agents, synergists and solvents. "Of the more than 8,600 recognized food additives today, no toxicity information is available for 46% of them," the institute says.
EQ (ethoxyquin) is the most common antioxidant preservative in pet foods. It has been found in some dogs' livers and tissues months after the animal stopped ingesting it. Ethoxyquin is manufactured by Monsanto Chemical, the largest manufacturer of bioengineered foods. EQ is listed as a hazardous chemical by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and is considered a pesticide by the USDA. It is used in most US dog food, but is banned in Europe. The FDA's Center for Veterinary Medicine requested that pet food manufacturers voluntarily reduce the maximum level for ethoxyquin by half to 75 parts per million.
The Whole Dog Store is pleased to announce that none of the products offered contain any of the above ingredients.
Bone Cancer In Pets
Cats and Dogs differ in the way bone cancer matures and how treatment should be administered. Because of the rapid nature of osteosarcoma, treatment should be sought as soon as possible. The only trouble is that the most common sign, lameness and pain usually happens when it is already taken firm hold. It is also mistaken by owners at first as arthritis, stiffness or pulled muscle in which veterinarian care is usually not immediately sought.
Osteosarcoma is the most common long bone tumor in dogs and cats. This is a very aggressive tumor causing lysis (disintegration of bone) or bone production or both. There is some degree of soft tissue involvement and metastasis (transfer of the disease to another part of the body) is common in the early part of the disease.
Canine Osteosarcoma Treatment
There are several available options for the treatment of osteosarcoma. Chemotherapy in combination with surgery are considered to be the primary therapy in dogs without any detectable metastasis. Amputation or limb sparing will resolve the primary tumor and resolve the pain and lameness associated with osteosarcoma. However, on cases where surgery alone is performed, 90% of affected dogs will die of metastasis within one year.
The goal of surgery is to remove the tumor along with a clean healthy cell margin. This is usually accomplished by amputation. Limb sparing could also be done with insertion of an allograft after removal of the affected segment of bone. An allograft is a graft of tissue taken from a donor of the same species sufficiently unlike genetically to interact antigenically.
Also, chemotherapy significantly prolongs the survival of dogs with osteosarcoma when used in conjunction with surgery. Medicinally, Cisplatin alone or in combination with doxorubicin markedly improves survival time to a median of 8-10 months with the percentage of dogs alive after 11 months at 50%. Carboplatin another drug with less renal toxicity has the same survival time as Cisplatin.
Furthermore, radiation therapy is also used in the treatment of osteosarcoma. This is very important for limb saving procedures, since it aids in local control after marginal resection (removal). It usually provides pain relief after the 3rd or 4th session. This option is attractive for those who do not want to pursue amputation procedures.
Most animals adapt mentally well to amputation. Probably because survival is a basic instinct and they do not have any social pressures associated with it. Physically, animals that are young and not overweight adjust the best. As a veterinarian, I find that the immediate key to a successful amputation is the aftercare and the ability to keep the pet from licking or biting at the wound. Animals that are not compulsive in this manner require less care and heal more quickly with less chance of additional infection.
Feline Osteosarcoma
Unlike its canine counterpart it has a much lower rate of metastasis and longer term survival can be expected with complete excision. Median survival for cats with osteosarcoma is approximately 2 years with many cats outreaching that. Due to the slow metastatic rate, radiation therapy can play an important role in osteosarcoma that cannot be totally excised. Though, chemotherapy is not routinely warranted due to the slow metastatic nature of feline osteosarcoma, it should be considered in a case to case basis.
This article is still in the stages of completion, please check back for more on Cancer in our pets and alternative treatments.
