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Comment by jackblemming | Hacker News Reader

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Two scenarios for testing experimental cancer therapies for dogs. Either you use the experimental therapy to treat cancers when they naturally occur in dogs, or you somehow give cancer to otherwise healthy dogs and then use the therapies to treat the cancer.

Well, medical decisions are rarely that clear cut... the source of the bleeding spleen was unknown. All we knew is that he was bleeding out from his spleen and based on the volume of fluid in his abdomen, he wouldn't survive until tomorrow. It was "probably" a tumor, but the ultrasound was not clear and if it was a tumor, there was a 60% chance it was cancer. And we had 30 minutes to decide whether or not to take the surgical slot as they couldn't hold it beyond then... if we didn't opt for surgery we'd need to euthanize the dog.

So the choice was "immediate death or surgery plus a 40% chance of returning to normal".

After the biopsy came back and it was Hemangiosarcoma, then we opted for the experimental treatment coupled with low-dose chemo, which had a low chance of side effects that affect quality of life. The experimental vaccine was both to hedge our bets (it wouldn't hurt, and it could help, especially if he developed side effects to the chemo and we had to stop the treatment), and to give the company a little more data on the effectiveness of their treatment (even if we had to pay for it).

And indeed, he's had a good quality of life - he was fully recovered from the splenectomy in a week (though we had to keep him movement restricted for another week until the stitches came out), and so far he's 100% back to normal, showing no side effects from the chemo and his activity levels are still back to normal.

> we had 30 minutes to decide

The older I've gotten the more I've been in these kinds of situations.

As a kid you are shielded from stuff, and it catches people so... unprepared.

>As a kid you are shielded from stuff, and it catches people so... unprepared.

Yeah, I still remember my dad going in to the hospital one weekend for what he thought was heartburn, but mom made him go anyway... he didn't come home for 2 weeks after being admitted and receiving triple bypass cardiac surgery.

In the dog's case, we thought he ate something bad, he was a little lethargic but otherwise seemed ok, no fever or anything... we almost decided to wait a couple days to see if he got over it before taking him to the vet. Even the vet seemed shocked when she came back in the room to tell us the diagnosis from the ultrasound. We never expected to be deciding whether he'd live or die that day.

Im not familiar with how animal medicene work. When you say it was an experimental treatment, does that mean your pet participated in a registered study by the manufacturer? If so, did the manufacturer pick up the cost? Alternatively, do you mean that the treatment was experimental because it was off label use, and outside of a study?

I encourage you to visit their website to learn more as I'm just interpreting what our oncologist told us about the Torigen vaccine.

It's not part of a funded study so you have to purchase the vaccine and agree to let your vet provide followup information back to the company.

Our dog's oncologist recommended it and said they've seen promising results in other patients, but wouldn't go so far as to say that it would prolong his life. The only published data I've seen from the company is a safety study.

We got the vaccine mostly as a hedge in case the chemo didn't work or he had side effects and we had to discontinue it, but also to provide data back to the company on their vaccine in the hopes that it will help other animals or for future human applications. So yeah, I'm basically paying them for their research with the only thing I'm getting in return is possibly a longer lifespan for my dog (but there's very little data to prove that it works)

It isnt the choice that I would make, but what other people do with their money is their own business, and the science may prove useful.

However, those that call for state funded animal insurance, or mandates truly strike me as unhinged.

>However, those that call for state funded animal insurance, or mandates truly strike me as unhinged.

I've never heard of such a thing, and a quick Google search didn't find anything -- is this a real movement, or something you heard from someone you know?

The closest I could find was a movement to support the right to have pets in apartments and/or public housing.

It is a "real thing" in that I see people advocate for it fairly often on social media, and more rarely HN.

It isn't a real thing in that I haven't heard of any actual politicians advocating for it in the US. However, I just learned that mandatory pet

This [1] and this [2[, were top non-sponsored results when I google searched "manditory pet insurance".

I also noticed that Spain has introduced mandatory registration, liability insurance, and training classes for all dog owners in the country.

https://dogstodaymagazine.co.uk/2023/02/15/great-debate-shou...

https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/iohxzf/cmv_pe...

Liability insurance is not medical insurance.

indeed, as I am aware. thats why I used the word liability instead just saying insurance.

Judging by the history of the /r/changemyview poster, they were probably high when they wrote that. I'd hate to see the concept rejected outright based on that user's representation of it and the similarly uneducated discussion that followed.

I volunteer with a cat rescue and was recently involved in a situation where a little girl had to give up her cats because her single father couldn't afford their vet bills, leading to one devastated child and two more homeless cats. It was one of the most heartbreaking experiences of my life. I can see how mandating pet health insurance might bring down the cost of it to the point that less privileged people would be able to have and keep their pets. Never heard of the idea before but it sounds great to me.

I don't know exactly what to say because I think I have polar opposite views of you. I think mandated pet insurance is more likely to increase the cost of owning a pet for everyone, and more likely to see that father in trouble with the law for violating it.

That's without going into any of the economic and personal rights problems with making unaffiliated people pay for the care of other people's pets.

Yikes! Who knew this was a thing...

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