News Briefs for the Week of April 28, 2002
By Marcella Durand for Cat Facts
- Lost Cat as Art
We all know that cats are works of art, but it looks like some art collectors in Britain have taken that notion a little too far.
When artist Tracey Emin lost her cat, Docket, she put up posters appealing for help. Unfortunately, art fans started stealing the posters, which were reportedly being valued at £500 each. While some of her artwork has been estimated to be worth as much as £150,000, a representative from Emin's gallery says, "The posters are not works of art, [they are] simply a notice of her missing cat to alert neighbors. It's not a conceptual piece of work and has nothing to do with her art."
Despite the disappearing posters, Emin was reunited with Docket late in March. "Tracey was very upset about losing her cat," says the gallery spokeswoman, "but Docket has been found." And, hopefully, that furry work of art will be more carefully protected against escaping.
- Progress on Vaccine-Associated Sarcoma
For many cat owners, it's a terrible choice between a rock and a hard place to get their cat vaccinated, knowing that there is a small but real risk their cat will develop a deadly sarcoma at the injection site. However, researchers have been hard at work to discover why cats develop vaccine-associated feline sarcoma, and exactly how something that is supposed to be good-namely, vaccines-could turn into something so deadly.
Happily, the hard work has started to yield some results. One of the questions dogging scientists was whether the vaccine itself was causing the reaction, or the adjuvants, which are chemical substances added to vaccines to stimulate stronger immune responses. After evaluating nine commercially available vaccines, researchers at the University of Minnesota found that the adjuvant products induced cell mutations in test tube studies. "We are now looking at ways in which vaccines might be able to cause DNA damage and mutation," says Elizabeth McNiel, DVM, the principal investigator of the study. "We have some evidence that it is due to the production of oxygen radicals in cells and that vaccines induce the production of oxygen radicals."
Although vaccine-associated sarcomas have been reported in association with a variety of vaccines, current data suggests they are more frequently associated with administration of feline leukemia virus vaccines and adjuvanted rabies virus vaccines. To learn more about vaccine-associated feline sarcoma, the Vaccine-Associated Feline Sarcoma Task Force was established in 1996 by the American Association of Feline Practitioners, American Animal Hospital Association, American Veterinary Medical Association and Veterinary Cancer Society. You'll find more information at www.avma.org/vafstf/default.asp
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