DEAR DR. FOX: I watched Dr. Sanjay Gupta’s “Animal Pharm” documentary on CNN on May 18 about genetically engineering and cloning pigs to be organ donors for people needing a new heart, liver or kidney. I wonder: What is your response to this amazing science of biotechnology? -- B.K., Washington, D.C.

DEAR B.K.: I wrote about this technology, called xenotransplantation, in my 2004 book, “Killer Foods: When Scientists Manipulate Genes, Better is Not Always Best.” I detailed the risks of swine viruses being transmitted to humans receiving pig organs, which was also mentioned in the CNN program. I also noted that in the U.S. and the U.K., “this research continues and entails much suffering for monkeys, who are used as test recipients for pig hearts and kidneys.”

I watched Dr. Gupta’s excellent coverage of this issue, which noted it will be some five years before there is a reliable supply of pig organs. However, there were no details about costs. The ethical cost is certainly high, in terms of paving the way for yet another form of animal exploitation. These concerns were mollified by the recipient of a pig’s kidney, who is Catholic and said he had received a letter from the Vatican stating, “God put animals on Earth to serve us.”

Several years ago, I wrote to the Vatican to ask where in the Bible there was any support for what Pope John Paul II declared in an address to veterinarians: that “it is certain that animals were created for man’s use.” The response I received was that a pope’s statements are infallible -- direct from God. That is not my God! I embrace the view of the 14th-century Christian theologian Meister Eckhart, who declared, “Every creature is a word of God.”

For many people, it is through animals and nature that God, or a higher power, speaks to them. To not feel this connection is to live in the absence of the sacred, opening the door to inhumanity. This insensitivity, which I call the empathy deficit disorder, led to the extinction of the passenger pigeon and near-extermination of the bison.

GENE-ENGINEERED PIGS APPROVED FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION

The Food and Drug Administration has approved CRISPR gene-edited pigs for consumption in the U.S. The pigs have been engineered by British company Genus to resist the virus that causes porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome, or PRRS, which thrives in overcrowded factory farms and kills piglets in the womb.

More details, as reported by MIT Technology Review (technologyreview.com):

"According to Matt Culbertson, chief operating officer of the Pig Improvement Company, a Genus subsidiary, the pigs appear entirely immune to more than 99% of the known versions of the PRRS virus, although there is one rare subtype that may break through the protection. ...

"Culbertson says gene-edited pork could appear in the U.S. market sometime next year. He says the company does not think pork chops or other meat will need to carry any label identifying it as bioengineered. 'We aren’t aware of any labeling requirement,' he says." (Full story: MIT Technology Review, May 2)

Regardless of any consumer safety issues, this does not change the stressful, overcrowded conditions under which pigs are kept in factory farms and CAFOs (concentrated animal feeding operations) around the world. Keeping dogs under such conditions would be prosecuted on the grounds of animal cruelty. CAFOs have virtually no biosecurity, and are a potential public health risk from viruses and bacteria that can spread to humans.

Over 125 million pigs are consumed annually by Americans. There are only an estimated 20 million vegetarians in the country, or 6% of the population. If Robert F. Kennedy Jr. truly wants to "Make America Healthy Again," he must address the overconsumption of meat. It poses many environmental and public health risks and also facilitates animal suffering, as documented in my book “One Health: Veterinary, Ethical and Environmental Perspectives” -- a copy of which I sent to Kennedy.

(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 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.)