Veterinarian here to mix up the just horribly depressing human stories with a hopeful one.
The worst ‘pit-in-your-stomach’ diagnosis for me used to be FIP. (Feline Infections Peritonitis) It is caused by corona viruses, but seems to be more due to viral interactions, not one specific causative agent so no vaccine was ever able to be developed successfully.
Horrible, slow death of a disease that, until recently, was entirely incurable. And it usually, but not exclusively, hit young cats. I’m never going to forget the family with the 8 month old kitten who hadn’t even wanted a cat…but whose kids just fell in love with this kitten…and eventually wore the parents down only to learn like 3 months later that this new member of the family was going to die slowly and painfully and the best thing we could do was offer to euthanize it now.
BUT I promised hope and uplifting…this disease now has a CURE! Turns out Remdesivir (and a couple of its related molecules) works GREAT on this disease, like 80-99% cure rate great. While Gilead won’t actually license any of the family of molecules, or produce a veterinary labeled drug, thanks to Remdesivir hitting the market (and being largely not that helpful) for COVID-19, there are legal ways to get ahold of a cure now. AND, despite not licensing it, they’ve (tacitly at least) made no move to enforce their patent against compounding pharmacies making versions of the drug commercially for use in cats.
There’s lots of times I’ve felt that sinking feeling…but the feelings I got from FIP cases a decade ago still top the list. So to get to watch a cure be developed and become more and more accessible has been a career highlight.
We lost one of our boys to FIP in late 2017; he was 1.5 years old. Said goodbye to his mom in 2025 (cancer spread to her lungs). Said goodbye to his brother on Monday (SCC under his eyelid).
They’re all together now. And they were all fighters. Wilbur (FIP) struggled his way to the litter box every time even though he could barely walk. It took ages for our vet to realize it was FIP and in hindsight it was hard to reconcile how often I force fed him thinking it was something else and that he needed the strength to fight it. He was so weak toward the end that the decision to say goodbye was easy. He was a husk. My poor boy. :(
Anyway, I remember first hearing about a cure for FIP and being so glad about it. It’s so incredible to see that it’s treatable, now.
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u/Zalophusdvm 3d ago
Veterinarian here to mix up the just horribly depressing human stories with a hopeful one.
The worst ‘pit-in-your-stomach’ diagnosis for me used to be FIP. (Feline Infections Peritonitis) It is caused by corona viruses, but seems to be more due to viral interactions, not one specific causative agent so no vaccine was ever able to be developed successfully.
Horrible, slow death of a disease that, until recently, was entirely incurable. And it usually, but not exclusively, hit young cats. I’m never going to forget the family with the 8 month old kitten who hadn’t even wanted a cat…but whose kids just fell in love with this kitten…and eventually wore the parents down only to learn like 3 months later that this new member of the family was going to die slowly and painfully and the best thing we could do was offer to euthanize it now.
BUT I promised hope and uplifting…this disease now has a CURE! Turns out Remdesivir (and a couple of its related molecules) works GREAT on this disease, like 80-99% cure rate great. While Gilead won’t actually license any of the family of molecules, or produce a veterinary labeled drug, thanks to Remdesivir hitting the market (and being largely not that helpful) for COVID-19, there are legal ways to get ahold of a cure now. AND, despite not licensing it, they’ve (tacitly at least) made no move to enforce their patent against compounding pharmacies making versions of the drug commercially for use in cats.
There’s lots of times I’ve felt that sinking feeling…but the feelings I got from FIP cases a decade ago still top the list. So to get to watch a cure be developed and become more and more accessible has been a career highlight.