Drug to Extend Dogs’ Lives May Be Approved by FDA

The drug aims to extend the lifespan of senior dogs and maintain their quality of life as they age, building on the company’s previous RXE acceptance for a longevity drug specifically targeting the short lifespan of large breed dogs.

I don’t get how this works.  I assume that dogs and people have similar physiologies, and two years living with Sparky hasn’t changed my mind.  I have a developed prefrontal cortex and Sparky can poop whenever he wants, otherwise, our bodies work pretty much the same way.

This comes to mind with all of the foods that are dangerous to dogs.  Here is a list of foods that dogs can’t eat.   Here are a few:  tomatoes, mushrooms, onions and garlic.  Which is to say that a dog can’t eat pizza.   I’ve never fed pizza to Sparky because I eat all of it, but I don’t doubt that he’d love it.  I’ve seen him gnawing on a raccoon tail he found in the woods, but ice cream is bad for him?

I suspect that all the foods that humans are supposed to only eat in moderation, are just banned for dogs because, why not?

Controlling a dog’s food is easy and most people are lazy.  Feed him dog food, not people food, and it will be fine.  Keeping dogs from eating people food isn’t a problem.

Keeping people from taking dog medicine is a bigger deal.  There are numerous medications that protect dogs and cats from fleas and ticks for weeks or months with little effort.  Sparky gets one Credelio pill per month.  Any tick that bites him, dies before he can be infected with Lyme disease or any other pathogen.  In the spring, the ticks come out.  Last year, I’d find a tick every day or two.  This year, I’ve found a couple of dead ticks on him.

The ticks are not always on Sparky.  Last year, I’d find them on me as well.  Why can’t I take Credelio?

It’s too early in the year for me to have spent much time in the bush, so there have been no ticks on me so far.  I do not intend to experiment by taking Credelio, but why not?

This NYT article, Lyme Disease Is Spreading. Why Don’t We Have Drugs to Stop It?, explains it.

Safety concerns and doubts about public acceptance have hindered the development of these types of drugs for people. But with rates of Lyme and other tick-borne illnesses increasing in recent years, researchers are exploring new (and old) options, and a few are now being tested in human clinical trials.

Honestly, this seems pretty damn obvious.  Medical and pharmaceutical research grants go to all sorts of dodgy or marginal research.  Covid is likely to have come from gain-of-function research that seems useless, and maybe evil.  Ticks are bad news and Lyme disease is spreading.  It’s possible that the elite researchers and government agencies, don’t care much about farmers, hunters or other people who spend time in brush and forests.

While both the oral and topical medications are toxic to ticks, they’ve largely been proven safe for dogs at the doses used. However, Dr. Hu said that to his knowledge, few thought of investigating whether humans could also use them as prophylactics against tick-borne infections until recently.

It’s infuriating.

According to the company, early clinical trials of lotilaner — provided to people as a pill, not a beef-flavored chew — showed that it was about 90 percent effective at killing ticks that bit the participants both on the day they took the medication and 30 days later. No major safety concerns have surfaced during the tests, Dr. Azamian said.

Lotilaner is the generic name for Credelio.  Apparently the only issue is that it’s not clear how people would feel about taking animal medicine.  God, that’s stupid.  Do the research, and people will take it if it’s the only option.  I would.

The first article I cited talked about a life extending medication for dogs.  If it proves to be effective, there is no way that people won’t give that a try, whether or not the FDA approves it.

After reading that second article, Credelio is kind of tempting.  Would Sparky’s vet wonder why I am ordering so many doses?