for SCIENCE!

[jkling]

Yesterday, mareklamo and I brought lilaboux and ahltis to the vet for a checkup. The vet commented on how healthy lilaboux is for an 18-year old cat, and then asked if we would be willing to enroll her in a clinical trial for a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (Robenacoxib), sponsored by Novartis Animal Health. They took some blood samples and X-rays to determine if

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[ellameena]

I'm not sure if you've heard this story, but our dog was killed in December 2006 by metacam, an NSAID for pets. NSAIDs in pets have had a very troubled history, and so far each one has been associated with toxicity. Metacam was supposed to be the new, "safe" drug, but, as I said, it killed my dog. The company even sent us a check to pay for some of the diagnostics that we went through. One problem with them is that the complications they cause are difficult to perceive from the outside. Our dog began acting painful. We assumed it was her arthritis, and continued medicating. It was actually her STOMACH, which resulted in a huge ulcer and sudden loss of half of her blood volume. There were other symptoms that could have warned us a bit earlier, and I kick myself over it all the time. Another thing I worry about, and this is more speculative, is that the molecular mechanism of NSAIDs may be inherently more toxic to dogs and cats. We know that inhibiting COX1 causes problems in humans, and we've also seen major problems with COX2

[jkling]

Thank you for telling me about this. I'm really sorry to hear about your dog. If it makes you feel any better, I think it's very common to miss symptoms in an ailing pet since they can't tell us what's wrong.

I'll look into this more before agreeing to the trial. The vet said it was a phase III trial, which implies that safety trials have been done -- I'm going to call the vet and confirm that, as well as request the incidence of side effects in the earlier studies.