• medgremlin@midwest.social
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    24
    ·
    edit-2
    1 day ago

    Careful with that one. Big pharma killed my cat once.

    My cat came down with Feline Infectious Peritonitis which is a coronavirus that is lethal to cats when the virus mutates and becomes FIP. FIP is 100% fatal without treatment, and there is now a treatment (originally developed at UC Davis) that is now owned by a big pharma company. They shut down the feline clinical trials in 2020 because they also make Remdesivir, and there was a concern that if there were any problems with the feline drug trial, the FDA might not approve Remdesivir for COVID. You can buy the drug on the internet from China, but it’s a 12 week course of twice daily injections, and you’re gambling on whether you got a good batch every time you get a shipment.

    By the time we found this out, it was too late to save our kitty, so he crossed the rainbow bridge.

    • nimble@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      17
      ·
      edit-2
      2 days ago

      I’m sorry to hear about your cat. 🫂

      Just to add on about FIP treatment— if your cat ever gets FIP then on Facebook look for “FIP warriors” or “global fip cats” (iirc) to find volunteers who can help supply medicine

      Also note that there IS an FDA approved compounded version but many vets aren’t aware about it, and even if they were aware since it is compounded they won’t have it in the office. This means that it will take a few days for you to order and treatment is often time sensitive from what I’ve heard.

      • medgremlin@midwest.social
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        11
        ·
        2 days ago

        FIP Warriors is who we went through, but it progressed too quickly because the fluid accumulation was in his lungs, not his abdomen.

        That medication is quite new to the market and wasn’t available when this happened about 4 years ago, but I will mention this to our current vet so that she knows about it.