DEAR DR. FOX: I saw your recent column in which a reader wrote to you about the legislation to overturn the cat declawing ban in St. Louis and St. Louis County. I wanted to let you know that, although this legislation passed the House, we successfully defeated it in a Senate committee.

The Missouri Veterinary Medical Association has attempted to pass this legislation for the past few years. The MVMA is gravely concerned that it may set a precedent for other local ordinances regulating veterinary practices, such as “ventilation shutdown.” Believe it or not, veterinarians have no oversight at the state level in Missouri. They therefore resented it greatly when the local government became involved in regulating veterinary practices, such as the ban on cat declawing.

When I became involved in animal welfare almost 50 years ago, I never thought that our most vigorous opposition would be from veterinary associations. This year, the MVMA also supported legislation that would have resulted in abused animals remaining with their abusers until a criminal trial. Fortunately, that legislation also died in the Missouri Senate.

I am glad you are still fighting the good fight. Please keep up your good work; it is greatly appreciated! -- Bob Baker, Executive Director of the Missouri Alliance for Animal Legislation, St. Louis

DEAR B.B.: I very much appreciate this update on the cat declawing situation in Missouri. I am working with others here in Minnesota to secure a statewide ban on this practice. It is regrettable that the MVMA is neither informed nor ideologically aligned with the veterinary oath of putting animals’ welfare first and foremost. My new book, “One Health: Veterinary, Ethical and Environmental Perspectives,” addresses many of the moral challenges the veterinary profession faces.

You referenced “ventilation shutdown” -- readers should know that this refers to the common practice of killing poultry by switching off the ventilation in factory sheds, where the animals then die from suffocation and overheating. This is often done to prevent the spread of highly infectious diseases like H5N1 avian influenza, but is still unacceptably inhumane.

DEAR DR. FOX: Thank you for publishing my letter about anti-flea and tick products that can harm pets and children. You mentioned that organophosphate insecticides can harm children and should be banned, but you did not say which companies sell such products. Can you give more details? -- B.G., Minneapolis

DEAR B.G.: Your important letter contained valuable information for pet owners. Here are some more details about the companies that are marketing flea collars containing toxic insecticides.

Several U.S. companies manufacture flea and tick collars that contain organophosphates, primarily tetrachlorvinphos (TCVP). These include Pet Armor Flea and Tick Collar, Seresto Flea and Tick Collar, Bio Spot Flea and Tick Collar, Zodiac Flea and Tick Collar, Adams Plus, Hartz Mountain UltraGuard, Elanco and Farnam. These TCVP collars distribute the pesticide gradually over the animal’s body, most of it in the form of dust.

In a 2023 post, BeyondPesticides.org reported: "In unsurprising news, the Environmental Protection Agency has reversed itself and decided not to ban a dangerous pesticide: tetrachlorovinphos (TCVP), used in pet flea collars and other flea products. This is despite its own earlier decision to ban TCVP in pet collars, and (also despite) scathing criticism of (the agency's) methods and conclusions by the courts."

What more can I say? One veterinarian told me of his involvement in researching organophosphates years ago, including laboratory testing on a young chimpanzee. He would bring the animal home on weekends for a break from the lab, often giving her bananas to eat. But the organophosphates from the testing made the ape aggressive, and she had to be euthanized. Several readers, including a police officer with a working dog, have told me that while taking these insecticidal products, their dogs suddenly became aggressive.

Organophosphates are neurotoxins, probably carcinogenic and endocrine-disrupting. Using them on our animal companions and exposing our family members -- children, the elderly and the immunocompromised -- to these chemicals is insane.

As taxpayers, we fund the EPA, but it is currently in disarray under the Trump administration. So we cannot rely on the EPA or the Department of Health and Human Services for consumer protections or public health. I do the best I can in this column to inform, rather than politicize and generate conspiracy theories. I base my opinions on sound science, ethics and common sense.

(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: You have written about the "empathy deficit disorder" in your columns, and I wanted to alert you to this: Michael Ventura, the author of "Applied Empathy: The New Language of Leadership," wrote a New York Times article on May 4 called "The Dark Side of Empathy."

Here are some excerpts from his article:

“In an interview this year with Joe Rogan, Elon Musk quipped that 'the fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy.' He seemed to blame it, in part, for the decline of America’s cultural vitality. ...

“In psychological terms, empathy is not a singular skill -- it comes in different forms. As researchers have shown, affective empathy (the ability to feel what others feel) is distinct from cognitive empathy (the ability to understand what others feel). Many people have both. Others, like narcissists and sociopaths, often possess only the cognitive sort, if they have empathy at all. And this is where things can get dangerous. ...

“Empathy that connects, that builds, that heals requires a code of ethics. It requires restraint. It requires trust. It asks the empathizer not just to understand others but also to honor what that understanding unlocks. When empathy becomes unmoored from ethics, it becomes coercion with a smile.” -- P.S., San Francisco

DEAR P.S.: I appreciate you (and several other readers) alerting me to this article. Ventura’s analysis is highly relevant socially and politically, but I have a fundamental disagreement with his thesis. I do not believe there is a “dark side” to empathy because where there is empathic sensitivity, ethical sensibility arises spontaneously, as per the golden rule. My book “Bringing Life to Ethics: Global Bioethics for a Humane Society” details this connection.

Empathy involves feeling the pain or emotional state of others, while sympathy simply acknowledges others’ pain or emotional state. It is from the latter that sympathetic manipulation and coercion arise, which Ventura mistakenly regards as the “dark side” of empathy -- rather than the empathy deficit disorder evident in pathological narcissists and sociopaths.

CATTLE IMPORTS HALTED AT SOUTHERN BORDER

The USDA has suspended imports of live cattle, horses and bison at the southern border due to the spread of New World Screwworm, which has been detected as far north as Oaxaca and Veracruz, Mexico. When the parasitic fly larvae burrow into animals’ flesh, "they often cause deadly damage" to livestock, wild animals and pets. Rarely, they also affect birds and humans. (Full story: KSHB-TV, May 12)

All imports, traffic and trade of live animals, wild and domesticated -- except for conservation purposes with effective quarantine precautions -- should be prohibited in the interest of public health.

USDA VETERINARY SERVICES STAFF SLASHED

The Veterinary Services unit in the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service has lost more than 20% of its employees, including 13 of 23 area veterinarians. The staff reductions coincide with ongoing challenges such as the outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza and the threat from New World Screwworm, potentially slowing response times and affecting disease control efforts.

“We won’t know the full impacts of these changes immediately,” said New Mexico State Veterinarian Samantha Holeck. “The important thing is that we work together as a team through all of these challenges.” (Full story: Reuters.com, May 12)

(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: The dismantling of United States scientific research institutions continues. From Nature.com, posted May 8:

“U.S. president Donald Trump’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2026 calls for unprecedented cuts to scientific agencies and targets work in areas including climate change, clean energy and the social, behavioral and economic sciences. The proposal suggests cutting roughly half the budgets of the U.S. National Science Foundation, the U.S. National Institutes of Health, and the Environmental Protection Agency, which on Friday (May 2) also announced plans to dismantle its primary research division. NASA would also lose about a quarter of its funding. Ultimately, Congress -- which is controlled by a majority from Trump’s Republican party -- will decide how the federal budget will be spent.”

During his joint address to Congress in March, Trump declared, “Our country will be woke no longer.” Many see this as a declaration of a war against reason, empathy, social justice, environmental concerns and responsibility.

Seventeen states have now filed a lawsuit challenging Trump’s attempt to stop the development of wind energy. Trump is pushing for more coal mining, and burning, to run data centers for AI and cryptocurrency, bypassing environmental protection laws and threatening endangered species and critical habitats. We need responsible management of AI, but cryptocurrency is ethically questionable altogether. Its transactions consume megawatts of energy and are environmentally harmful.

"One recent study estimates that a single conventional VISA transaction uses 1.5 watt-hours, and a single bitcoin transaction uses 703,250 watt-hours," writes columnist Bruce Saller, citing data from Statista.com. Concerns are being voiced over conflicts of interest in Trump’s promoting cybercurrency and deregulating its oversight while opening his own World Liberty Financial cryptocurrency company, along with American Bitcoin and the $Trump meme coin, during this time of extreme climate change -- references to which he has had deleted from federal documents and websites.

The dissolution of the EPA’s Energy Star efficiency rating system for home appliances is incomprehensible. Some may see this dismantling of government for corporate enrichment as a sign of executive dementia or pandering to vested interests. It is notable that the rich are major contributors to climate change. (See the study "High-income groups disproportionately contribute to climate extremes worldwide" by Sarah Schongart et al., published in Nature Climate Change in May.)

According to another recent study, "52% of people born in 2020 will face unprecedented lifetime exposure to heatwaves" -- even under a conservative projection for how climate change will unfold over the next 75 years. Under a more pessimistic forecast, that figure rises to 92%, compared with just 16% of those born in 1960. The study is among the first to pinpoint the numbers of people who will experience an “unprecedented life” in terms of extreme heat. (See the study "Global emergence of unprecedented lifetime exposure to climate extremes" by Luke Grant et al., published in Nature in May.)

I favor the more pessimistic forecast because climate change will also mean shortages of food and fresh water in many regions, compounded by the precipitous decline of bees and other beneficial insects and wildlife.

DEAR DR. FOX: Thank you for your recent essay on Pope Francis. I found it to be heartening, even though the topic of environmental destruction is so very distressing.

I noticed that in my paper, your column sits on top of an ad for our local Humane Society, which promotes animal adoption. I’ve decided to contact their offices and help pay for their advertising costs when it is paired with your column.

I’ve often felt that I should be more involved with local shelters, but I am the type who would want to bring every abandoned dog home with me, so I have avoided their offices. Maybe helping with their advertising bills is a good way for me to contribute.

Again, thank you for your essays, as they are truly thought- and action-provoking. -- B.V., Mount Vernon, Washington

DEAR B.V.: I appreciate your sensitivity and initiative. We can all do something to help our neighbors, and that includes the domestic and wild animals in our communities. So many are at risk from extreme climatic events. I am putting water out for the wildlife around my property, as Minnesota faces an unprecedented heatwave and drought.

Companion animals are at risk from rising care costs and rental housing restrictions, leading to shelter surrenders or abandonment. Many shelters across the U.S. are full.

A common response is to choose to live in denial because empathy hurts. This is a defense mechanism, but one that is ultimately self-limiting. Doing nothing, thinking others will deal with such issues, can feed guilt in those who feel for others.

Civil society has many challenging tasks in these times: combating racism, housing the homeless, helping immigrants, and protecting the rights and well-being of Indigenous peoples and native species (whose protection the Trump administration, under the Endangered Species Act, is eliminating). But we can all do something within our communities to help, including supporting local animal shelters and wildlife rehabilitation centers. We can also take action on our own properties. For example: My lawn is gone, replaced with a rewilded, pollinator-friendly assortment of indigenous plants!

(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.)