The Animal Doctor

DEAR READERS: Reporter Greg Stanley's article in the Sept. 11 Star Tribune, "Majority of deer exposed to toxin," cites some of the continuing research by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources and the University of Minnesota on the topic of neonicotinoid contamination in deer and in the environment, including lakes, primarily from treated seeds.

This is all very well, but is more research really needed? A complete national ban should be applied to the use of this class of insecticides on commodity crops such as wheat, corn, soy and cotton, along with all ornamental plants, lawn and turf treatments and pet flea-and-tick collars.

The Environmental Protection Agency released final biological evaluations on June 21, confirming that three widely used neonicotinoid insecticides -- imidacloprid, thiamethoxam and clothianidin -- likely harm roughly three-fourths of all endangered plants and animals, including all species of amphibians protected under the Endangered Species Act. Species found to be harmed by all three of the neonicotinoids include northern long-eared bats, rusty patched bumblebees, chinook salmon, whooping cranes and orcas.

Imidacloprid is also one of the active ingredients in Seresto flea collars, which have been linked to the deaths of more than 2,500 family pets. A scathing report by the House Committee on Oversight and Reform's Subcommittee on Economic and Consumer Policy chastises the EPA for ignoring evidence of the collar's harm and called on the agency to ban the collars.

According to one scientific review on the toxicity of neonicotinoids, "Available toxicological data from animal studies indicate possible genotoxicity, cytotoxicity, impaired immune function and reduced growth and reproductive success at low concentrations, while limited data from ecological or cross-sectional epidemiological studies have identified acute and chronic health effects ranging from acute respiratory, cardiovascular and neurological symptoms to oxidative genetic damage and birth defects. Due to the heavy use of neonicotinoids and potential for cumulative chronic exposure, these insecticides represent novel risks and necessitate further study to fully understood their risks to humans." (Full study: "A critical review on the potential impacts of neonicotinoid insecticide use: current knowledge of environmental fate, toxicity, and implications for human health" by Darrin A. Thompson et al, in Environmental Science: Processes & Impacts)

In 2013, the European Commission (the EU's executive branch) banned the use of these three neonicotinoids on flowering crops attractive to pollinators, as well as on cereal crops. In May 2018, it went further and banned all outdoor uses of the trio. And in February 2020, it decided not to renew the approval of a neonicotinoid called thiacloprid, resulting in its de facto ban.

Climate change and human encroachment are accelerating the loss of biodiversity, which should not be compounded by the use of neonicotinoids and other pesticides on crops raised primarily to feed livestock and poultry. As I emphasized in my 1986 book "Agricide," when commodity crop producers get on the pesticide treadmill, evermore toxic chemicals are called for as "weeds" and insect "pests" develop resistance.

Clearly, the powerful agribusiness industry, both abroad and in the U.S., is enabling the continued, widespread use of this class of harmful insecticides, which is now confirmed to play a major role in the demise of bees, other beneficial insects, and insectivores such as amphibians, reptiles, birds and bats. This needs to be confronted by our congressional representatives -- independent of their corporate sponsors.

All involved in public and environmental health, as well as food safety and security, should move to prohibit neonicotinoids without any exceptions. Their use amounts to ecocide: a crime against nature, just as genocide is a crime against humanity.

(Send all mail to animaldocfox@gmail.com or to Dr. Michael Fox in care of Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106. The volume of mail received prohibits personal replies, but questions and comments of general interest will be discussed in future columns.

Visit Dr. Fox’s website at DrFoxOneHealth.com.)

DEAR READERS: Through various religious, spiritual rituals, and our communion in nature, we of the Earth community may gain the understanding needed to heal ourselves and the planet. Chief Black Elk of the Oglala Lakota people put it this way: "Nothing can live well except in a manner that is suited to the way the sacred Power of the World lives and moves."

Black Elk witnessed and suffered the genocide of his people, just as many people today are suffering as they witness the ecocide and extinction of many species due to human incursion and mass extermination. As he foresaw, we must either evolve or perish as a species.

As the late Dr. Albert Schweitzer advised, "Until he extends the circle of his compassion to all living things, man will not himself find peace." Reverential respect for all life is the foundation of One Health in recognition of the interdependence of human and nonhuman, animal, plant and microorganism life; of a global democracy; of justice and rule of law; and of a viable and sustainable economy. The Gaia Hypothesis, proposed by the late British scientist James Lovelock in 1972, is based on the fact that living organisms on the planet interact with their surrounding inorganic environment to form a synergetic and self-regulating system that created, and now maintains, the climate and biochemical conditions that make life on Earth possible. Respect for all life is therefore enlightened self-interest.

PROGRESS IN PET FOOD NUTRITION: ECO-FRIENDLY SUSTAINABLE AND HEALTHFUL FOOD RESOURCES

For an excellent video presentation on pet foods and proper nutrition, see the presentation by Dr. Bob Goldstein at vimeo.com/744411904/9518763fa1.

Readers can also sign up at holisticactions.com to join the Holistic Actions community.

DEAR DR. FOX: Please resolve an issue about cleaning out our dog's food and water bowls. I say we should do this every day. My husband says, just add fresh water as needed, and the dog licks the food bowl clean, so there's no need to clean it. What is your opinion? -- G.F., Trenton, New Jersey

DEAR G.F.: Clean them both daily. The water bowl will develop a biofilm of bacteria overnight, which needs to be cleaned out. Use filtered rather than tap water, which is not safe in many municipalities. I use a ZeroWater filter for our family.

Food bowls should be cleaned daily because pet foods can contain potentially harmful bacteria which could proliferate and could make your pet and other family members sick.

(Send all mail to animaldocfox@gmail.com or to Dr. Michael Fox in care of Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106. The volume of mail received prohibits personal replies, but questions and comments of general interest will be discussed in future columns.

Visit Dr. Fox’s website at DrFoxOneHealth.com.)

DEAR DR. FOX: I was completely exasperated to see how defensively the authors of the "carbs are fine for cats" article attempted to refute you. Carbs are not "fine" for cats. What they are is "cheap," "plentiful" and "very profitable."

The pet food industry, because of its extreme profitability, has a huge incentive to justify the use of such ingredients, as well as the financial means to do so, through a frightening number of channels.

The pet food industry has a ridiculous and highly unethical amount of influence on veterinarians. It exists largely to commoditize foodstuffs not qualified for human consumption, as well as the trash from human food production. These companies can afford some of the most effective (and most misleading) marketing in the world. They can also afford to "support nutritional research" -- meaning they can control the questions that are asked, then gatekeep the publication of any results.

A number of veterinary researchers who were developing data that would support the concept of a prey-model diet have, in the past few years, begun to receive funding from pet food companies. Some subsequently stopped work on prey-model diets, and even began to promote a nutritional approach exactly opposite to the one they had been developing.

Most, if not all, nutrition courses in vet schools are underwritten by the pet food industry, with the clear and sole goal of enforcing the perceived "necessity" for so-called "prescription diets." How is this acceptable?

The pet food industry currently owns a substantial portion of the veterinary industry worldwide. One need only follow the money to understand why. Veterinary hospitals are not profitable; prescription diets are. If a pet food company manufactures a specific brand of prescription diet AND owns a veterinary hospital corporation, they can control which prescription diets are sold or recommended.

I wish it would have been possible for you to write more about the important relationship of the gastrointestinal microbiome and the near-pandemic of inflammatory bowel disease in domestic cats. Microbiome research is turning human medical paradigms upside-down. It seems clear that there is an "evolutionarily normal" biome for every species, and that if a member of a species eats an "evolutionarily normal" diet for that species, he or she is more likely to have a normal biome. A diet unnatural to the species would induce dysbiosis. Simplistically, dysbiosis induces IBD, which leads to leaky gut syndrome, which in turn leads to systemic inflammation. The result is not just gut disease; it's a host of systemic disorders. There is no reason to think this would be any different in nonhuman species.

Most commercial cat foods are made mostly or entirely out of plants. Plants are not an evolutionarily normal diet for a cat. The domino effect seems obvious.

Since my hospital opened five years ago and began teaching people to feed their cats prey-model diets, our experience has been amazing. We do not have a single diabetic patient in the practice. Very few overweight cats. Minimal gut disease. I've learned what normal fur quality and normal healthy footpads look like, and that dandruff is not normal.

Vets seem to remain blind to the ethical failings of the pet food industry for the simple reason that nearly all hospitals sell food. This creates a significant income stream, which is a direct conflict of interest. A much larger and much more insidious conflict is created when the very foods sold by vets create disease states that bring the pets back into the hospital for more diagnoses and treatments. Since opening, our hospital has not sold any food -- not even the very few brands we believe to be good -- in order to avoid this conflict.

I can attest to the difficulty of even considering that our care recommendations may have caused harm. No one becomes a vet with the goal of hurting animals. We all do the best we can with the information we are given; it is not our fault that we are force-fed propaganda. It does, however, become our responsibility to recognize when such conflicts of interest create dynamics that result in harm to our patients. Even if we think that only "might" be the case, we are, as doctors, ethically obliged to investigate the possibility with an open mind, regardless of whatever we may feel. -- Fern B. Slack, DVM; Medical Director at Uniquely Cats Veterinary Center; Boulder, Colorado

DEAR DR. SLACK: What a pleasant surprise to hear from at least one veterinarian about the attempt to dismiss and discredit my documented concerns over high-carbohydrate and plant-protein diets for cats. I voiced these concerns in a letter published in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association (June 2022), in which I criticized a lead article that attempted to justify high-carbohydrate diets for cats. It is notable that the response from the writers included one author with a close relationship with Hill's Pet Nutrition.

As I detail in my book "Not Fit for a Dog: The Truth About Manufactured Cat and Dog Food," which I co-authored with two other veterinarians -- one a professor of veterinary nutrition and the other a former chief veterinarian with Hill's Pet Nutrition -- profits are made by selling costly prescription diets, and other veterinary diagnostic treatments, to correct health issues that result from feeding conventional cat and dog kibble.

Many cats are subjected to intestinal biopsies, at significant financial and emotional costs to the owners and physical stress to the cats, to determine if the animal has inflammatory bowel disease or invasive lymphatic cancer. The less traumatic and less costly approach would be to put such cats on a biologically appropriate carnivore diet, which would restore the gut microbiome and reduce the inflammatory conditions.

The website feline-nutrition.org provides an excellent educational service for cat owners, which I wish more veterinarians would read. For extensive details and documentation of the multiple health issues that could be prevented with proper nutrition, go to my website: drfoxonehealth.com/post/pet-food-and-feeding-issues.

(Send all mail to animaldocfox@gmail.com or to Dr. Michael Fox in care of Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106. The volume of mail received prohibits personal replies, but questions and comments of general interest will be discussed in future columns.

Visit Dr. Fox’s website at DrFoxOneHealth.com.)