Science and Compassion Are Needed to Halt Animal Suffering

This is a guest post from Ruth Steinberger who is the Founder and co-CEO of Spay FIRST (http://www.spayfirst.org/), a non-profit organization.

An estimated 500 to 700 million dogs exist worldwide. Three quarters of them live on the streets of impoverished communities scattered across the globe (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-UEb9KOgpE). Their life expectancy is just three years; the suffering is immense and the tragedy stretches beyond the canine victims.

In developing nations rabies kills 55,000 people each year, and over 95% of rabies cases in humans result from dog bites. Annually, 9 to 12 million people worldwide receive over two-billion dollars of prophylactic treatment for rabies after a bite by a potentially infected animal. For people living under the threat of rabies, street dogs are a dangerous vector, not a friend in need. The resulting collection and killing programs are cruel and largely ineffective at halting the disease, yet killing remains at the forefront of responses.

Prevention is the only humane, effective solution. However, according to the online animal welfare news service Animals 24/7 (http://www.animals24-7.org/) at least three quarters of dogs worldwide receive no veterinary care during their lives. Until recently, for free-roaming animals, prevention meant spay/neuter surgery or nothing at all.

Spay/neuter is the gold standard for preventing litters, however spay/neuter clinics cannot reach hundreds of millions of animals that exist in impoverished places around the world. A non-surgical contraceptive administered along with a rabies vaccine and parasite treatment could revolutionize the lives of street dogs, and save human lives, at a fraction of the cost of surgical spay/neuter.

Injectable sterilents and contraceptives exist, and others are on the horizon. However, some are not cheap and access to them is not equal; unless non-surgical options cast a net that includes animals in underserved areas, they will not stop the suffering.

Injectable calcium chloride in ethyl alcohol has been shown to be effective for non-surgical castration of male dogs; it is documented to reduce testosterone and it is permanent. Compounded from pharmaceutical grade ingredients that are too common to be patented, this low-tech solution is nearly universally available to veterinarians. The necessary equipment fits in a shoebox. The cost (including a rabies vaccine and parasite treatment) is under three dollars (USD) per dog. However, the millions of dollars needed for FDA approval does not make this product, which cannot be patented, attractive for marketing; sitting in distribution/marketing limbo, it has been overlooked for decades.

Non-surgical options do not need to be recognized as being equal to surgical spaying and neutering. Some will need boosters or not be 100 percent effective. They should be recognized if they are safe, effective, and low-cost and may improve the lives of animals in chronic poverty that otherwise are among the millions that suffer in the absence of veterinary care.

With overlapping issues of poverty, zoonotic diseases (diseases that can be transmitted to people that include rabies), and more, non-surgical sterilization options cannot arrive too soon. We are helping them get here.

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