Petesophizing...

Cloe's 19 now and needs drugs to battle kidney bacteria. She has skin reactions to the most common antibiotics for cats so she's getting Cipro, the antibiotic famously approved by the FDA "for the inhaled form of anthrax after an individual has been exposed."

In the event of an Anthrax attack, Cloe will live! And feed off my dead carcass until help arrives.

Cipro's made by Schering-Plough of Kenilworth, NJ. Though Cipro was developed for humans, Schering-Plough has a whole division focused on animals. They recently won FDA approval to medicate fish with a drug called Aquaflor, which could be a big deal for Schering-Plough stockholders as well as fish since drugs for aquaculture are rare.

“The problem is there aren’t many catfish veterinarians, per se,” says Dr. Dick Endris, Aquaculture Research Program Manager for Schering-Plough Animal Health Corporation, on their website.

Schering-Plough can't be all bad when they have a companion animal program and at least one doctor in their aquaculture division with a sense of humor. (It's the "per se" that makes the above line funny, isn't it?) Their whole corporate family of websites seems lighthearted when you find out they make both Levitra and Bain de Soleil.

They've resorted to the “headline” format, though, wherein "National Survey Reveals That Losing A Pet Can Be More Traumatic Than Losing A Job" turns out to be a promotional piece for the HomeAgain Pet Recovery Service using implanted microchips.

The big surprise: On the product page for dogs is a category entitled “Euthanasia”. With Beuthanasia®-D Special, “Cardiac arrest begins in less than half the time required by pentobarbital alone.” It’s a Class III drug and so “eliminates extra paperwork required with Class II drugs.” A special purple dye “Visually identifies Beuthanasia®-D Special, eliminating mistakes.”

I keep a close watch on Cloe, since she’s blind, or nearly so, and has lost half her body mass in the last couple of years. She’s pet and companion to me, but also 18 years of continuity: She’s a New Yorker. I adopted her from the Bide-A-Wee Home Association in 1988 and her first vet at the Bide-A-Wee clinic was Stephen Kritsick, who became a TV star on Good Morning America. He authored the books Tender Loving Cat Care and Creature Comforts: The Adventures Of A City Vet.

Sadly, neither Schering-Plough, nor any other drug company, could come through for Dr. Kritsick in time to save his own life. In 1994, just as he was becoming an American James Herriot, he died of AIDS at the age of 42.

I remember talking to Kritsick, calling him with petty concerns about Cloe. I’d never had a cat before. She was sleeping so much.

“Is she eating, drinking, going to the bathroom and grooming herself?”, Kritsick would ask me. "Yes", I'd say. “Then she’s OK,” he'd say.

Eighteen years later I can still answer Dr. Kritsick in the affirmative. Most important: I don’t see any signs of physical pain from her. So I hope for some continuing window of enjoying her, and her enjoying me.

Now she’s prepared for Anthrax-wielding terrorists.