CVM_SU14 - News at Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine

Transcription

Cummings
M AG A ZINE OF C UMMING S SC HO OL OF V E TERIN A RY MEDIC INE AT T UF T S UNI V ERSIT Y S U M M E R 2 01 4 VO L . 1 5 N O. 2
Veterinary Medicine
TUFTS UNIVERSITY OFFICE OF PUBLICATIONS 8545 07/14
BACKYARD
BATTLES
When people and wildlife collide
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CA S E SOLV E D
Liver Fix
When Ellen Penafiel adopted Shiloh, she wasn’t concerned
that the part Bernese Mountain Dog was so much smaller
than the other pups in her litter. “I joked to my kids that she
was going to be like Clifford the Big Red Dog,” she says, referring to the classic children’s book, in which the runt grows to
be 25 feet tall.
But the puppy’s size signaled that something was seriously
wrong. Within six months, Shiloh was vomiting, drooling and
acting agitated. A veterinarian in Boston diagnosed her with a
liver shunt, a birth defect that occurs when a blood vessel important for liver function does not close, affecting the organ’s
ability to process nutrients and filter toxins. As liver function
deteriorates and toxins build up in the bloodstream, dogs can
experience stunted growth, excessive salivation, vomiting
or diarrhea. They also can suffer from dementia, blindness or
seizures and eventually die.
Shunts that occur outside the liver often can be corrected
with abdominal surgery. But Shiloh’s shunt was in the liver,
where surgery can be risky.
The dog was referred to John Rush at Cummings School,
the only veterinarian in New England who treats liver shunts
with a new less-invasive procedure. Using real-time X-rays of
the liver to guide his work via a catheter, Rush inserts a special mesh stent, along with metal and fiber coils, to promote
blood clotting and reduce blood flow through the shunt. The
combination of stent, coils and blood clots creates a dam that
directs the blood back where it belongs.
“My 14-year-old daughter thought it was the most amazing
thing ever,” says Penafiel. “Some people wouldn’t have the
patience to explain the procedure to a teenage girl interested
in science. But Dr. Rush broke out his dry erase marker to
illustrate how it worked.”
Shiloh, now 2, has recovered well. “She’s much more playful with our five children,” says Penafiel. “She will go to her
bin and grab a toy, something she never did before.”
—genevieve rajewski
PHOTO: ALONSO NICHOLS
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contents
SUMMER 2014 VOLUME 15 NO. 2
features
6 RoadMedicine
We make a house call with Rachael Gately, one of
the Tufts Ambulatory Service’s nine large-animal
veterinarians who care for sheep, goats, cattle, pigs and
horses across southern New England.
By Jacqueline Mitchell
8 SightLines
When your pet is squinting, teary or red-eyed, it’s time
to see a veterinarian. By Genevieve Rajewski
13 OrganicNation
Alumna Melissa Bailey helps shape a $35 billion
industry as director of the USDA’s National Organic
Program standards division. By Julie Flaherty
COVER STORY
16 BackyardBattles
Many species of wildlife have taken up residence
in some of the most densely populated areas of the
country. What happens when human and animal
worlds collide? By Genevieve Rajewski
16
22 Heal Thyself
Stem cell research on canine diseases for which
traditional treatments often fail could help people with
similarly difficult diseases. By Genevieve Rajewski
departments
2 FROMTHEDEAN
3 UPFRONT
PEOPLE, PL ACES & ANIMAL S
27 RESEARCH
T H E PAT H T O D I S C OV E R Y
30 ONCAMPUS
CUMMINGS SCHOOL NEWS
33 ADVANCEMENT
G I V I N G . G R O W T H . G R AT I T U D E .
36 ASKTHEVET
IS PET INSURANCE WORTH IT?
33
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Cover illustration by Jason Holley
6/24/14 10:48 AM
FROM THE DEAN
What’s in a Name?
in september 2004, william s. and joyce m. cummings,
through their foundation (cummingsfoundation.org), committed
an extraordinary gift of $50 million to the School of Veterinary
Medicine at Tufts University. In recognition of that support, the
school was renamed Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine.
The Cummings Foundation philanthropy has given Tufts the
opportunity to shape the educational and clinical missions of
the veterinary school as well as its research programs to embrace
a vision for One Medicine—that the health of animals, humans
and the environment are tightly intertwined. It is a concept that
former Tufts President Jean Mayer promoted when the veterinary school was founded
nearly 40 years ago. The Cummings gift also has given us the ability to finance important
projects that have advanced scientific discovery and helped our veterinarians provide
top-flight care to animals throughout New England and around the world.
In his remarks at the school-renaming ceremony in 2005, Bill Cummings, an alumnus
of Tufts University, underscored the important role that Cummings School plays in fighting diseases that affect animals and humans. In this he foreshadowed the close association that would develop between the school and Cummings Institute for World Justice
around a global vision for One Health, particularly in aiding the postgenocide recovery in
the Republic of Rwanda. Cummings School and the institute have established an ambulatory clinic in the African nation that offers on-site diagnostic capabilities and professional
development for veterinarians and paraveterinarians. With the Rwandan clinic and other
endeavors, the school has embraced the principles of active citizenship that are dear to
Tufts and shared personally and professionally by Bill and Joyce Cummings.
The partnership with Cummings Foundation has allowed our school to grow and
thrive. Our students, faculty, staff and graduates are exceptional; our clinical services
are first-rate, and our burgeoning research enterprise is producing discoveries that will
benefit animal and human health.
It is fitting that we celebrate the 10th anniversary of our relationship with Cummings
Foundation with another name change—that of this magazine, which will now be
known as Cummings Veterinary Medicine. The quality of the magazine directly reflects
the excellence of our school. Neither would be possible without the generous investment
of Cummings Foundation and the support and friendship of Bill and Joyce Cummings.
This issue showcases the breadth and depth of Cummings School. I invite you to read
about dolphin health, urban interfaces among wildlife, people and the environment,
and the school’s ambulatory food animal practice, among other topics. You will see that
our students, faculty and staff make the school special, and it is their contributions that
advance animal and human health and well-being.
Thank you for your interest in and support of Cummings School of Veterinary
Medicine.
VOL. 15, NO. 2
SUMMER 2014
Executive Editor
Deborah T. Kochevar, Dean
Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine
Editor
Genevieve Rajewski
Editorial Director
Karen Bailey
Design Director
Margot Grisar
Design
2COMMUNIQUÉ
Contributing Writers
Michael Blanding, Julie Flaherty,
Kristin Livingston, Jacqueline Mitchell
Staff Photographers
Alonso Nichols
Kelvin Ma
Contributing Editor
Bob Sprague
Editorial Advisors
Ana Alvarado, Senior Director
Veterinary Development and Alumni Relations
Lorraine Daignault, Marketing Director
Joseph McManus, Executive Associate Dean
Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine
Rushmie Nofsinger, Associate Director
Public Relations
Cummings Veterinary Medicine is funded
in part by the Edward Hyde Cox Fund for
Publications. It is distributed to alumni,
friends, veterinary students, veterinarians
and key university personnel.
We welcome your letters, story ideas
and suggestions.
Send correspondence to:
Genevieve Rajewski, Editor
Cummings Veterinary Medicine
Tufts University
Office of Publications
80 George St.
Medford, MA 02155 or
email: [email protected]
The Cummings School’s website is
vet.tufts.edu
The telephone number is 508.839.5302.
Follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
deborah turner kochevar, d.v.m., ph.d.
dean and henry and lois foster professor
2 c u m m i n g s v e t e r i na ry m e d i c i n e s u m m e r 2 0 1 4
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7/1/14 1:23 PM
PEOPLE, PLACES & ANIMALS
IFAW’s marine mammal rescue team
responds to a mass stranding of
common dolphins on Cape Cod in 2012.
Dolphin Rescuers
Veterinary student’s research could improve survival rates for stranded animals by Genevieve Rajewski
N
o one knows why dolphins beach themselves, but once
they wash ashore, they will surely die without proper care.
A new study has found that the mammals’ blood may offer
clues about their chances for survival, and those who work to
save the dolphins are using this discovery to make beachfront decisions about
treating them.
The response to stranded dolphins has changed dramatically in the past
two decades, says Sarah Sharp, V15, the principal investigator on the research
conducted by scientists at Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts,
the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) and the Woods Hole
Oceanographic Institution. “As recently as the 1980s and ’90s, nearly every
stranded dolphin was put down,” she says. “It was assumed that the animal
had come ashore for good reason,” most likely a fatal illness.
PHOTO: COURTESY INTERNATIONAL FUND FOR ANIMAL WELFARE (IFAW). ACTIVITIES
CONDUCTED UNDER A STRANDING AGREEMENT WITH NMFS AND IFAW UNDER MMPA.
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Sharp estimates that roughly 300 live
dolphins strand in the U.S. each year.
Only recently have responders attempted
to return beached dolphins to the sea,
says Sharp, who worked as the stranding
coordinator for IFAW’s Marine Mammal
Rescue and Research Program for seven
years before starting veterinary school.
“The thinking became that maybe some of
the animals are OK to release, or at least the
ones that strand in a group.” Strong bonds
among dolphins, all extremely social,
could make the rest of the pod unwilling
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UPFRONT
to abandon a sick or confused animal that
ventures too close to shore, she says.
“We started selecting what we believed
to be good release candidates based on basic
physical exams and blood-work findings,
and releasing those that weren’t showing
signs of stress, shock or overt illness,” Sharp
says. Many rescue programs tag stranded
dolphins so they can be tracked via satellite once they’re released. “We’ve found that
some released animals do really well after
stranding,” she says. “Others stop transmitting a day after their release.”
The question became what hea lth
parameters are actually useful in making
decisions about which dolphins to release.
The study authors, including Joyce
Knoll, an associate professor at Cummings
School and Sharp’s mentor, found significant differences between those that lived
and those that died. Many dolphins that
didn’t survive or died within three weeks of
being released had anemia, a shortage of red
blood cells that supply oxygen to the body’s
tissues. The nonsurvivors also had higher
levels of lactic acid in their blood and weakened liver function. Many were dehydrated
or weighed less than they should.
Sharp says the data point to two very
different scenarios for at-risk dolphins.
Some have preexisting illnesses that traditionally were not picked up when they
Sarah Sharp, V15, listens to a common
dolphin’s heart in her preveterinary school
job as IFAW’s stranding coordinator.
STRESSORS ON SHORE
Sharp’s study, which was published online
in the journal Marine Mammal Science
in December, analyzed blood and the overall health of 26 common dolphins beached
on Cape Cod, where strandings are common, between January 2010 and June 2012.
That information was indexed against the
fate of the dolphins after they were tagged
and released.
were assessed on shore. Now responders
conduct more extensive blood tests that
better predict the animals’ chances of
surviving a beaching. For example, IFAW
rescuers now run additional screenings to
better assess liver function.
“Other dolphins’ blood work showed
acute changes that may have been due
to the stress of the stranding itself,” says
Sharp. “This is exciting because it points
to new treatment options that may prevent
these animals from dying after release.”
For example, the high levels of lactic acid
in the blood of dolphins that later died are
most likely caused by the physical stress of
being on land, Sharp says. When not buoyed
by water, a dolphin’s weight can crush its
internal organs. The stress also results in
blood flow being redirected to support the
heart and lungs. The muscles and other
tissues become oxygen-starved, and lactic
acid builds up, much as it does in human
long-distance runners. These dolphins are
at the highest risk of going into shock.
Responders already use large foam mats
to take the pressure off the organs. For dolphins with high levels of lactic acid, Sharp
says giving intravenous fluids on the beach
to boost blood volume, and therefore oxygen flow to tissues and muscles, might turn
the tide. “It is something that hasn’t been
done with this population of stranded animals, but it would not be too difficult to
do,” she says.
The study also compared the physical
exams, blood work and survival rates for
dolphins that came ashore alone with those
that had stranded en masse. “We didn’t see
a difference between the solo stranders and
the animals involved in mass strandings,”
says Sharp. “The dogma has been that single animals are sick and should be put them
down. But these data say why wouldn’t we
give these guys a shot?”
The opportunity to help more dolphins
survive has helped Sharp “find a new gear”
to power through the notoriously exhausting schedule of a veterinary student almost
a decade after she first graduated from college. “One of the reasons I love stranding
work is you really feel you are on the cutting
edge of science,” she says. “In the past, there
hasn’t been a lot of medicine involved. We
can change that.”
OVERHEARD
“Although it’s ultimately the breeders’ responsibility, if there’s
no pressure from the buyer, the system won’t change.”
—Jerold Bell, A GENETICS EXPERT AT CUMMINGS SCHOOL, IN A SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN ARTICLE ABOUT HEALTH ISSUES IN PUREBRED DOGS
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PHOTO: COURTESY INTERNATIONAL FUND FOR ANIMAL WELFARE (IFAW). ACTIVITIES
CONDUCTED UNDER A STRANDING AGREEMENT WITH NMFS AND IFAW UNDER MMPA.
6/30/14 7:14 PM
Pedaling for Police Dogs
It didn’t take much for Casey Dropkin, V16, to persuade
her mother Wendy to bike 4,000 miles cross country.
“When I was growing up, we always talked about
driving across the country, but gas got so expensive,”
Dropkin said. Because this summer will be her last big
chunk of time off before she graduates from Cummings
School, Casey told her mom she wanted to make the most
of it—but on two wheels, not four. “My mom said, ‘You
can’t do that without me. I’d be so jealous,’ ” Dropkin
said. “From there, we kind of dared each other into it.”
Mother and daughter started off from Puget Sound in
Washington on June 5 and plan to pedal for 67 days, following the northern-tier map from Adventure Cycling to Portland,
Maine. Skirting the U.S.-Canadian border, the route crosses four
mountain ranges—the Cascades, Rockies, Adirondacks and
Appalachians—and passes through Glacier National Park and
by the Great Lakes and Niagara Falls. Casey said they hope to
cover 60 to 80 miles a day. “We’ll be pretty loaded up, with four
panniers on each bike to carry our sleeping bags and camping
equipment,” she said.
To pay their way and raise money for a worthy cause, the
Dropkins set up a fundraising webpage. So far, they have raised
$2,600, the majority of which will be donated to Massachusetts
Vest-a-Dog, which provides bulletproof vests for law-enforcement K-9 programs.
Casey and Wendy Dropkin are biking 4,000
miles to raise money to buy bulletproof
vests for police dogs in Massachusetts.
Casey said that she and her mother chose to ride for the
nonprofit because it recognizes their love of animals while
also honoring her father, a police officer, firefighter and EMT
in Waterville Valley, New Hampshire. They were inspired after
meeting Sgt. Dustin Parent, a police officer from nearby
Guilford, and his partner, Agbar, a German shepherd that recently retired after serving the town for seven-plus years.
“This dog has such a bond with his officer and so many success stories from his days on the job,” Casey said. “He also had
several close calls while serving the community without a vest.”
FOLLOW THE DROPKINS’ JOURNEY VIA REAL-TIME GPS UPDATES AND BLOG POSTS AT
DROPKINGIRLSBIKEUSA.BLOGSPOT.COM.
Hammer Time
Tips for ensuring your cat’s safety and sanity during a home-remodeling project
even under the best of circumstances, the noise, dust and general chaos of home remodeling is enough to drive
people a bit bonkers. So imagine how stressful construction can be for cats, which thrive on calmness and consistency.
“A home-remodeling project is one of the top 10 reasons why cats start urinating around the house,” says Nicholas Dodman,
director of the Animal Behavior Clinic at Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine. “It’s an anxiety issue.”
To keep cats safe and reduce the risk of unwanted behavior during renovations, Dodman offers this advice:
n Place your cats in a familiar room as far away from the construction zone as possible.
n Be sure they have food, water, litter boxes, bedding, toys and a radio to mask construction din.
n Post a sign on the door in bold letters that reads: “Cats inside. Please do not open!”
n Each day, after construction workers have left, check for possible escape routes, such
as holes in the walls or open windows or doors.
n Pick up small objects (nails, tacks and staples) that a curious cat can easily swallow.
n Secure any poisonous materials, such as paint, paint thinner or used brushes.
n Spend extra time petting or playing with your cats to ease your stress and theirs.
ADAPTED WITH PERMISSION FROM CATNIP: THE NEWSLETTER FOR CARING CAT OWNERS, PUBLISHED BY CUMMINGS SCHOOL
OF VETERINARY MEDICINE. FOR SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION, VISIT TUFTSCATNIP.COM OR CALL 1.800.829.0926.
ILLUSTRATION: WARD SCHUMAKER
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ROADmed
BY JACQ U E L I N E M ITC H E L L
P H OTO G R A P H S BY A LO N S O N I C H O L S
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Ambulatory service veterinarians
V
are adept at switching gears
dicine
Clockwise from top left: A Romney sheep. Rachael Gately
listens to Josephine’s heart while owner Dottie Billington
steadies her horse. Gately holds a sheep while Emily
Picciotto, V15, administers a rabies vaccine and Elissa
Mopper, V15, fetches the next patient. Picciotto gets
supplies from the ambulatory service truck.
veterinarian rachael gately was headed to tina shippee’s
house to vaccinate some of her Romney sheep—a teddy-bearish
breed that Shippee’s twin daughters show at fairs across southern New England.
But the sheep would have to wait. Gately received an emergency call about a 28-year-old Paint mare in distress. “I thought
this was it,” says Dottie Billington about her horse, Josephine,
which she found lying in an unusual spot in her paddock—near
the manure pile. “She was really out of it.”
Billington called the Tufts Ambulatory Service for help.
Gately is one of the service’s nine large-animal veterinarians
who make house calls to farms all over southern New England,
caring for sheep, goats, cattle, pigs and horses. They make about
4,000 farm visits each year.
The traveling vets are headquartered in Woodstock, Conn.,
in a building with classroom space, a laboratory and a largeanimal treatment area. Most days, though, they’re on the road.
Service staffers manage the phones, helping the veterinarians
juggle regular wellness visits with all manner of emergencies.
Billington had given Josephine a drug called Banamine
(basically, equine ibuprofen), so by the time Gately arrives at
Billington’s home in Foster, R.I., the horse is on her feet. She
climbs out of a truck stocked with bottles of medication, buckets, overalls, galoshes and something resembling an accountant’s fat briefcase—a portable ultrasound machine.
Today, she is accompanied by Cummings School students
Emily Picciotto and Elissa Mopper, both V15. All veterinary students have two chances to rotate through the ambulatory service;
second-year students spend a day there as part of their clinical
rotations, and fourth-years complete a three-week rotation to fulfill their core clinical requirements.
Picciotto and Mopper watch as Gately listens to the mare’s
heart, inspects her mouth and gums and takes her temperature.
She then dons a long glove and gives the horse a rectal exam. She
is in shoulder deep when she feels something amiss.
“The spleen feels like a shark fin,” she announces. “What could
that mean?” she quizzes the students. They arrive precisely at the
answer Gately had in mind: an enlarged and displaced spleen, a
serious condition called nephrosplenic entrapment.
It’s not clear that is what is ailing Josephine, Gately says. Some
horses just have more prominent spleens. Because the mare
seems more comfortable, Gately prescribes extra water and a
very light supper. But should the horse’s condition worsen, the
next step would be to administer a drug that helps shrink the
spleen. Still, Gately thinks Josephine is likely out of the woods.
“You’ll know within the next couple of hours,” she assures
Billington as she climbs into her truck, her next stop to vaccinate
those Romney sheep. “If she goes back down, you have my cell.
Call me.” CVM
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SIGHT LINES
When your pet is squinting, teary or red-eyed, it’s time to see a vet
BY G E N E V I E V E R A J E WS K I
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P
pets don’t have to read an eye chart to keep a driver’s license or don prescription glasses to see the tiny text on a smartphone. But they still need eye care. In
fact, animals experience many of the same eye problems that people do, including
cataracts, glaucoma and injuries to the cornea.
Unlike people, though, pets usually don’t wind up at the vet because of obvious vision loss. “Dogs and cats are very good at memorizing their environment,”
says Christopher Pirie, one of Cummings School’s three board-certified veterinary
ophthalmologists. “We see lots of patients that have pretty advanced visual dysfunction without their owners being aware of it simply because the layout of their
home never changed.”
The vast majority of owners bring their
pets to the vet because the animal has a red
eye or is squinting.
To diagnose the problem, a veterinarian
will measure tear production, stain the eyeball to look for corneal ulcers (a scratch on
the cornea) and check the pressure inside the
eyeball to screen for inflammation or glaucoma. A slit lamp provides veterinary and
human ophthalmologists with a supermagnified view of the cornea, iris, lens and
interior of the eye; other diagnostic equipment is used to examine the retina, the
layer of light-sensitive cells at the back of
the eyeball.
It may be hard to imagine your dog or
cat sitting still through such a comprehensive exam. However, “95 percent of
our exams are performed with the animal
awake,” says Kara Gornik, an ophthalmology resident at Cummings School. For
example, she notes that “all Labs have a
head bob. You just learn to move with them
as their heads go up and down.”
Whether an eye problem is due to disease,
injury, anatomical irregularities or genetics,
the treatment for pets and people is pretty
much the same. And, says Gornik, “the vast
majority of conditions can be cured or at
least successfully treated for a while with
medications if they’re caught early enough.”
Troubles with the cornea—the transparent outermost layer on the very front of the
eyeball—account for many trips to the veterinarian. Dogs, cats and rabbits experience
corneal trauma (scratches), foreign bodies
(dust) and ulcers, which can also be caused
by disease and inherited conditions.
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“Corneal ulcers can cause the eye to rupture if they become deep,” says Gornik, “so
we like to catch those early” and prescribe
the appropriate medications. For some
severe ulcers, corneal transplants or conjunctival grafts are used to patch the wound
with a tiny graft from a donor animal’s cornea or from the patient’s conjunctiva, the
transparent mucous membrane that lines
the inside of the eyelids and the white part
of the eye.
Eye problems in cats tend to be caused by
viruses, says Gornik. Feline herpes, a common respiratory virus, can cause watery
eyes, squinting, discharge, severe conjunctivitis and even corneal ulcers. The disease
is treatable with medication, but can recur
over the pet’s lifetime.
GLAUCOMA AND CATARACTS
Dogs of ten suf fer from glaucoma, an
umbrella term for conditions in which fluid
buildup causes abnormally high pressure in
the eyeball and begins to damage the retina
and optic nerve; it can lead to blindness.
“There is no cure for glaucoma, but you
can treat it,” says Stefano Pizzirani, another
ophthalmologist at Cummings School.
“The goal is to lessen the pressure within
the eye and delay the onset of blindness.”
Eye drops often reduce pressure, he says,
but in some cases, pets will need surgery.
PHOTOS: ISTOCK
6/27/14 12:52 PM
HUMAN VS. ANIMAL VISION
Who sees better, pets or people? It all depends.
When it comes to the ability to see something clearly, humans win, says Christopher
Pirie, a veterinary ophthalmologist at Cummings
School. Normal vision in people is 20/20. A dog
with normal vision would be 20/60, and a cat
around 20/100, he says.
“That means a dog needs to be within
20 feet of what a person can see at 60
feet,” making normal human vision about
three times better than a dog’s and five
times better than a cat’s, Pirie says. “That
doesn’t mean that dogs and cats can’t
see anything at those distances, just
that what they see is grainer or more pixilated.”
Humans also have the advantage in terms of color perception, compared with other mammals. Cats, dogs, horses and small mammals, such
as rabbits, have only two types of the color-detecting cells called cones
in their retinas; we have three, says Pirie. Pets’ color palette has a much
smaller range than ours, consisting of duller blue, yellow and green tones
(given the lack of cone cells that see colors along the red part of the spectrum). “The contrast between colors also is not as vivid,” he says.
But birds and many reptiles and fish have four types of color-detecting
cones. “Their world is full of colors we can’t even imagine,” says Mary
Caswell Stoddard, an evolutionary biologist who is researching avian vision
and coloration at Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology. “I’d love to
wear bird goggles for a day.”
How we see a city street
(top image) versus how our cats
would see the same scene.
Because their eyes are set on the side of their heads, horses can view
things separately with each eye (monocular vision) in addition to using both
eyes to look in one direction (binocular vision). This gives horses a wider,
more circular range of sight than people. “There are only about 10 degrees
in their visual field they can’t see,” which gives them nearly panoramic vision, says Kara Gornik, an ophthalmology resident at Cummings School.
Animals’ ability to see things in low light is also far superior to ours,
notes Pirie. Cats have six to eight times as many rods—the type of cell
that’s most sensitive to light—in their retinas as do humans. The structure
of a feline eye enables it to capture and use very low levels of light. “You
may get up in what you perceive to be complete darkness and stub your
toe,” says Pirie, “but your cat will be happily watching you do it.”
— genevieve rajewski
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Tufts Veterinary Emergency and Treatment
Specialties (Tufts VETS) in Walpole, Mass.,
is the only practice in New England that
offers endolaser surgery, a human medical procedure in which an incision is made
in the eye and then a beam of light is used
to destroy the structures behind the iris
responsible for excess fluid production.
Cataracts, the clouding of the eye lens, can
occur in any species, but are most common
in dogs. Although cataracts can be caused by
diabetes, trauma or inflammation, the condition is mostly inherited and if left untreated,
can cause blindness or glaucoma.
Cataract treatment for pets and people
is the same. After making a small incision
in the eye, the veterinary ophthalmologist
uses a tiny probe to break up the cataract
with sound waves and suck out the cataract
particles. An artificial lens is implanted to
replace the diseased one. More than 90 percent of canine patients regain normal vision
after the surgery, says Pirie.
The Foster Hospital treats pets with
eyelid problems. Entropion, a condition in
which the eyelid rolls in and chafes the surface of the eye, can lead to scarring, infection or ulceration if the misshapen lid is not
surgically corrected. Dogs and cats can also
suffer from “cherry eye,” a congenital condition in which a gland in the third eyelid pops
out of place and appears as a red mass in the
corner of the eye.
SIGNS OF AN
EYE PROBLEM
If your pet is experiencing any of these
symptoms, you probably want your veterinarian to check it:
n Tearing
n Discharge
n Squinting
n Red eye
n Rubbing, pawing or scratching the eye
n Cloudy eye
n Color changes in the eye
n Loss of vision, usually evident when an
animal appears clumsy or confused in
low-light conditions.
Veterinary eye surgeons operate on their
patients under a microscope most of the
time, and pets undergoing surgeries inside
the eye also require much deeper anesthesia than what’s used in general veterinary
practice. “We essentially paralyze patients,
putting them on a ventilator and relaxing all
their muscles,” so the eye has absolutely no
reflex, says Gornik.
In some cases, an animal’s eye may need
to be removed. “Sometimes it’s because of
disease, like cancer,” says Pirie, “and sometimes it’s because of how long a problem like
glaucoma may have gone untreated.”
Although an owner may be anxious
about that kind of surgery, Pirie says it can
preserve a pet’s quality of life. “From the
dog’s perspective, it’s the most practical
option,” he says. “The eye is not functioning as it is. The dog won’t look in a mirror
and wonder what happened to its face. It just
doesn’t want to be in pain anymore.”
Most domestic animals that are partially
or fully blind function quite well, says Pirie,
who had a kitten patient that still chased
foam balls after having both eyes removed
because of a congenital problem.
Basic eye care is also essential to a pet’s
quality of life, says Pirie. “The eye is four
times more sensitive than the tips of our fingers. Think about when you have an eyelash
or piece of dust in your eye,” he says. “Every
time you blink, it is right there. You’ll do
anything you can to get it out.”
Animals with eye pain rarely whine, pant
or cry to signal their discomfort, says Pirie.
Instead, they tend to sleep more and be less
active—symptoms commonly misattributed
to aging. “Many owners don’t appreciate the
impact of an eye problem until after we’ve
addressed it,” he says, “when their dog starts
bouncing around like a puppy again.” CVM
Genevieve Rajewski, the editor of this magazine, can be reached at genevieve.rajewski@
tufts.edu.
SPOOKY SYMPTOMS
While dogs’ and cats’ ability to memorize their surrounding often masks
impaired vision, behavioral changes in horses can quickly alert owners
that something is wrong.
Because horses have evolved to scan the horizon for possible
predators, they “startle at visual disturbances much easier than dogs
and cats,” says Kara Gornik, a resident in veterinary ophthalmology at
Cummings School. “If a horse’s vision is off in any way, they can spook
on the side of the affected eye or react differently to situations than they
normally would. With hunters and jumpers, a rider may notice that the
horse seems to be struggling during events.”
Like people, horses can become more farsighted or nearsighted with
age, says Gornik, “but we can’t fit them for glasses or contact lenses.”
Equine cataract surgery is also not nearly as successful as the same
surgery in dogs and cats.
However, she says, many other eye conditions can be treated
successfully if caught at an early stage.
Corneal ulcers often result from minor trauma, such as a scratch from
a tree branch, a fly bite or a speck of dust. Injuries to the surface of the
eye can lead to scarring that can create a blind spot in a horse’s field of
vision, especially if it’s not caught early. Veterinarians often recommend
fly masks to protect an injured eye from harsh light or insect bites.
Iris cysts are perhaps the most common reason for spooking in horses,
says Gornik. Fluid-filled pockets form on the horse’s corpora nigra, a kind of
equine eye curtain that extends from the iris and protects the retina from
bright light. The cysts, which an owner usually can’t detect, “become larger
until they actually obstruct the horse’s pupil,” she says. “Instead of seeing
normally, the horse sees a black shadow, especially during the daylight,
which makes it more likely to spook.”
Remedying the problem is simple, says Gornik. “We use a diode laser
to pop the cysts, which sound like Rice Krispies when they pop.” — g.r.
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Organic
BY J U L I E F L A H E R T Y
NATION
P H OTO G R A P H BY
C H R I S H A RT LOV E
Melissa Bailey oversees the standards that
shape a burgeoning $35 billion industry
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6/27/14 12:52 PM
M
elissa bailey has been dir ector of the standar ds divi -
sion for the National Organic Program at the U.S. Department
of Agriculture since 2010. She helps the USDA develop the
rules for how all sorts of agricultural products—from cotton
fibers to chicken wings—become certified as organic.
Bailey, who studied biology as an undergraduate, earned a master’s in animals
and public policy from Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine in 2003. Her
interest in how farmers support conservation efforts led her to the Friedman School
of Nutrition’s Agriculture, Food and Environment Program, where she soon became
intrigued by the way agriculture intersects with the environment, labor and economics. In her dissertation for her Ph.D. in agricultural policy, which she received
in 2010, she investigated livestock production systems and water-quality policies.
We talked with Bailey about what it means for a food product to be certified
organic, how the rules governing organic are made and what she would change
about the system if she could.
What keeps you up at night?
It can quite literally be the amount of work
that we have on our plates. We have 34 staff
responsible for a $35 billion (and growing)
industry in the United States, so each staff
person is essentially overseeing a billion
dollars of product. And our program globally oversees approximately 25,000 certified
operations that operate in 133 countries. For
example, a farmer can be based in Mexico and
get certified to the USDA organic standards.
How does the National Organic Standards
Board, the 15-member panel that advises
the National Organic Program, influence
what ingredients can be used in certified
organic products?
The default rule for organic certification
is that natural materials are allowed in
organic production and synthetic materials
are not. The National List of Allowed and
Prohibited Substances outlines the exceptions to this rule.
There are certainly some natural substances that we wouldn’t want to allow in
organic production—for example, arsenic
or strychnine—so those are on the prohibited list. Then there are some synthetic
substances that are allowed, and these were
all recommended by the National Organic
Standards Board. In making such recommendations, the board considers the need
of the substance for organic production and
handling, how it affects human health and
the environment, and its compatibility with
sustainable agriculture.
For example, pheromones have long been
used as an effective, nontoxic way to confuse
insects that might otherwise infest organic
crops, especially fruit. Another example
would be vaccines for animals, which are
important disease-prevention tools, especially since antibiotic therapy is prohibited
under the organic standards. Then there are
processing aids like baking soda, which is
needed to leaven the dough for organic pancakes, baked goods or other products.
At the end of the day, it is really a balancing act between what is essential for producing organic food and what consumers
expect when purchasing these products.
What does the organic label tell consumers
about their meat, eggs and dairy?
A good way to talk about this is to walk
through the production of a specific food,
such as organic cheddar. Before milk can
be turned into cheese, organic milk has to
come from a certified organic cow. The cow
cannot be given growth hormones or antibiotics, and its feed must be certified organic.
The feed comes from land that has not been
treated with any prohibited substances—for
example, synthetic fertilizers and most synthetic pesticides—and the land cannot have
been treated with prohibited substances for
at least three years before harvest or grazing. The land itself must be managed in a
way that maintains soil fertility and minimizes erosion, while having distinct and
defined boundaries to ensure that prohibited substances don’t come into contact with
organic fields.
The organic dairy cow grazes on organic
pastures for the entire grazing season,
which must be at least 120 days a year. And
it has to receive at least 30 percent of its
nutrition from pasture during the grazing
season. Throughout the cow’s life, it has to
be raised in living conditions that accommodate its natural behaviors and support
health and welfare.
The cow is milked, and the milk gets
transported to a certified-organic processing facility. The milk goes through a cheddaring process, during which an enzyme,
such as rennet, would be added to separate
the curd and whey. That would be an example of a substance that is allowed in organic
food products.
Have animal-welfare concerns influenced
current standards?
If you look at the existing USDA organic
regulations, animal health and welfare
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6/24/14 10:53 AM
For that cheddar on your cracker to be certified
organic, the cow and the milk it produces also
have to achieve that national standard.
requirements already play a prominent role.
Organic livestock producers can’t use antibiotics and hormones. Continuous confinement of organic livestock is prohibited, and
producers must provide access to the outdoors, shade, shelter, fresh air, clean water,
dry bedding and direct sunlight. Livestock
have to be able to graze daily.
select suitable breeds and institute management practices that would minimize the
need for medical care.
There are some tools that are allowed in
organic production that veterinarians can
turn to when needed, including electrolytes,
certain pain medications and dewormers.
If an animal gets sick and ends up needing
If there is one thing you could change about
organic farming, what would that be?
I would like to see more farmers engage
in the further development of the organic
standards, whether it is at National Organic
Standards Board meetings or during our
rule-making process—and not just current organic farmers, but also farmers who
are deciding whether
they want to pursue
organic certification.
I recognize that it can
be dif f icult to f ind
time between planting and harvesting or
raising livestock. But
farmers offer such an
important perspective, one that we don’t
always hear when we are creating our rules.
Their voices are critical to the future of the
organic program. By one estimate, a half
a million people work in organic agriculture in the U.S. alone. We really want to see
more of those people involved in helping us
build success in this growing market. CVM
“Organic livestock producers are prohibited
from withholding treatment from a sick animal
to preserve its organic status.”
How do veterinarians care for sick organic
livestock if the use of antibiotics and other
substances is banned or limited?
Prevention is really a tenet of organic livestock production. Since organic farmers
can’t routinely use drugs to prevent disease
and parasites, they could certainly use guidance from their veterinarian about how to
PHOTOS: ISTOCK
41147_6-26.indd 15
antibiotics, organic standards require that it
receive these treatments, but be removed from
organic production. In other words, products
from treated animals can no longer be sold,
labeled or represented as organic. Organic
livestock producers are prohibited from withholding medical treatment from a sick animal
in order to preserve its organic status.
6/24/14 10:53 AM
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6/24/14 10:53 AM
The unhappy convergence of suburbia and wildlife
I L LU S T R AT I O N BY
JA S O N H O L L E Y
you’d think it would take a pretty exotic ecosystem to surprise
Chris Whittier, V97. He has, after all, treated wild gorillas in six national
parks in central Africa.
But when Whittier, now director of the master’s in conservation
medicine program at Cummings School, used motion-sensing infrared
cameras from his ongoing Africa work to figure out what was digging up
the dirt around his lamppost, he was stunned. Over just a few evenings,
red and gray foxes, a fisher, opossums, coyotes, deer, raccoons, a wild
turkey, a woodchuck and a skunk (the actual culprit) all passed through
his suburban yard in Grafton, Mass.
“Of course, I knew logically that these animals are around,” he says,
“but I never expected to see them all here.”
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6/24/14 10:53 AM
In just a few decades, many species of
wildlife have relocated to some of the most
densely populated regions of the country.
Because of development sprawl and the successful restoration of species and forest habitats damaged by human activity, we now
routinely encounter wild birds and animals
that our parents and grandparents rarely
saw. Today, the eastern third of the country
has the largest forest in the contiguous U.S.
as well as two-thirds of its people, reports
Jim Sterba in his 2013 book Nature Wars.
Many wild animals don’t simply adapt
to—but actually thrive in—the artificial
habitats we create. Canada geese, raccoons,
coyotes, skunks, opossums and deer all
seem to prefer the suburbs to more rural
areas, says Allen Rutberg, director of the
Center for Animals and Public Policy at
Cummings School.
“We fertilize and water our yards, creating a super-productive environment for anything that eats plants or eats living things that
eat plants,” he says. Birdfeeders, pet food,
unsecured trash and other features of suburban backyards attract raccoons, skunks,
bears, coyotes and other wild visitors.
PERILS IN SUBURBIA
ecause of the speed of these
changes, evolution hasn’t exactly
equipped wildlife with the mechanisms to cope with the dangers
of the suburban landscape.
“Many of our patients are brought in for
trauma resulting from human causes,” says
Flo Tseng, director of the Wildlife Clinic
at Cummings School. Admissions to the
clinic have increased 41 percent in just over
a decade, mostly due to accidental clashes
between animals and people. Cars hit all
manner of furry, feathered and scaly creatures. Fences and soccer nets ensnare birds.
Nestlings and baby squirrels crash to the
ground when homeowners prune trees and
shrubs. Lawn mowers chew up rabbit nests.
On a recent day at the Wildlife Clinic,
staffers hover around a painted turtle that
looks like Humpty Dumpty; its shell was
shattered during a run-in with a car. Staff
veterinarian Maureen Murray, V03, undertakes the painstaking process of putting the
reptile back together again. She inserts a tiny
breathing tube to administer anesthesia,
A few recent patients of the Wildlife
Clinic, clockwise from top left:
a young porcupine, a baby rabbit,
a lynx and a snapping turtle.
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PHOTOS: ALONSO NICHOLS
6/24/14 10:53 AM
and then drills tiny holes around the edges
of the fractured shell. She threads fine wire
through the holes, pulling it tight.
The shell will heal nicely around the
wires, and the turtle will be released when
it’s deemed healthy.
People who bring animals into the clinic
receive a case number for the patient they’ve
delivered—and many of them call back,
sometimes daily, for updates. “It’s always
great to be able to share good news,” says
Jessica Zorge, the staff assistant who helps
triage the 100 to 250 phone calls the clinic
receives every day during the busy season
from April to August. “Since they took the
time to bring an injured animal in, it’s satisfying when you can let them know it will
return to the wild.”
Wild animals are more likely to die from
trauma than our pets. A cat or dog attack
on a baby bunny might not look severe
initially, but Tseng says that many of these
animals are not in great shape by the time
people bring them to the Wildlife Clinic.
“The stress of the initial injury or illness,
followed by captivity, can sometimes be
too much, especially for prey species,” she
says. Wild animals that suffer even a mild
gash from a dog or cat’s teeth often go into
shock and die as a result of nasty infections
caused by the bacteria found normally in
pets’ mouths.
“Treating wildlife is a lot different from
treating pets,” Tseng says. “In small-animal
medicine, you can do a lot more medically
and surgically with the patients.”
The Wildlife Clinic staff weighs the benefits of giving medications and performing procedures against the potential harm
of handling a wild animal too much. “We
try to be as hands-off as we can,” Tseng
says. “Every time we touch a wild animal, it
thinks it’s going to be eaten. It’s like an alienabduction experience for them.”
Wild patients can’t get the level of
follow-up care that makes the prognosis
better for our companion animals. “Our
patients have to be pretty perfect to be
released,” says Tseng. A dog hit by a car may
have an owner willing to administer daily
pain relievers to keep it comfortable for the
rest of its life, she notes. But a coyote with
the same injury has to be able to run fast
enough to catch its meals.
PHOTO: ISTOCK
41147_6-26.indd 19
TOO CLOSE FOR COMFORT
Tips for sharing the picket-fenced jungle
Because we increasingly share
the same habitat with wildlife, we
can’t completely avoid one another.
Cummings School experts offer these
tips for keeping your family, pets and
backyard wildlife safe:
Don’t handle wild animals. All wild
mammals can carry rabies. Raccoons
and skunks also transmit a roundworm
parasite that can be fatal to humans.
Avoid inadvertently feeding wild mammals. Many of us love to watch birds at a feeder. But
the seed hulls and nuts that fall to the ground can attract nuisance animals like rats. Bird
feeders can also tempt bears or other large animals in search of the same high-calorie feed
as well as coyotes that hunt seed-eating rodents. Feeding your pets or neighborhood cats
outdoors or just inside a pet door also can invite unwanted encounters. Wildlife can smell
pet food from afar.
Keep your pets indoors or supervise them outside. You don’t want your cat or dog interacting with native critters that carry diseases or parasites. Domesticated animals are also
easy prey for coyotes, fishers, great horned owls and other predators. Free-roaming cats and
loose dogs also kill and injure large numbers of birds and small mammals.
Don’t try to save animal babies. Young animals often appear to be abandoned, but that’s
usually because their mother is limiting her visits to the nesting area to prevent predators
from finding them. A young animal’s best chance for survival is with its parents. If you know
the young are injured or the mother is dead, a licensed wildlife rehabilitator can advise
you about how best to proceed. Search for a rehabilitator by state and species, using the
resources listed at nwrawildlife.org/content/finding-rehabilitator or call the Wildlife Clinic
staff at 508.839.7918.
Make your home and yard a conflict-free zone. To prevent wild animals from setting up
shop where you don’t want them, pay attention to home maintenance. Keep your yard free
of brush piles, trim branches away from the roof, cap the chimney and plug any holes in the
foundation. If you hear or see signs of an animal around your home, the MSPCA has an interactive website that can help you identify the culprit and solve the problem humanely: mspca.
org/intruderexcluder.
Don’t relocate wildlife. Moving an animal from your yard is illegal in many states, and also
inhumane. Imagine if someone threw you in the back of a van and dropped you off someplace without your family, food or shelter? Moving a wild animal can also promote disease
transmission. The raccoon rabies strain now widespread in the eastern U.S. can be traced to
1978, when Virginia hunters imported raccoons from Florida and Georgia, where the disease
had previously been confined.
6/24/14 10:53 AM
OH, DEER
f course, not only wild animals suffer from living too
close to people. We have our
own concerns about living in
such proximity.
Even if you appreciate that bats eat pest
insects and help pollinate plants, you probably don’t want them living in your attic, says
Linda Huebner, the former assistant director of advocacy at the Massachusetts Society
for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
who oversaw its Living with Wildlife program for six years. “Although the risk is very
small, bats are still the source of nearly all
U.S. rabies cases in humans,” she says.
Raccoons not only tear apart garbage
bags, they also shed a roundworm in their
feces that’s potentially fatal to humans, she
says. And although harmless in most locations, beavers can flood out septic systems
and roads with their impressive dams.
Potential problems like these don’t just
create human-animal conflict—they also
Bambi’s offenses speak for themselves.
Telford has spent 30 years studying how
the deer population is related to the number
of ticks present in an area—he’s found as
many as 300 ticks on a single deer. “That’s
only one week’s accumulation,” he says,
“and if half of those are female, that’s 150
ticks, each enjoying a meal that will allow it
to lay another 2,000 eggs.”
Deer ticks can carry five infections that
affect people, Telford says. The alarming
growth in Lyme disease cases alone—they
nearly doubled between 2004 and 2009,
when almost 38,500 people were diagnosed
in the U.S.—is reason enough to be grim
about ample deer populations. “Car accidents [involving deer] are a public health
issue, too,” notes Telford.
Most communities in eastern Massachusetts have about 20 to 25 deer per square
mile, according to Telford. Rutberg notes that
in the Mid-Atlantic states, including New
York, Pennsylvania and Maryland, there can
be 30, 40 or more deer per square mile.
“
”
—Flo Tseng
spark human-human conflict, says Huebner,
who received a master’s degree in animals
and public policy from Cummings School in
1996. “You know who always seems to own
homes right next to each other? Someone
who wants to see wildlife every day… and
someone who doesn’t,” she says.
When it comes to polarizing creatures,
perhaps none is as divisive as the whitetailed deer.
“Deer are evil. You can quote me on
that,” says Sam Telford, an expert on tickborne diseases and a professor at Cummings
School. An animal lover, Telford says he’s a
public health official at heart—and that
To curb the incidence of Lyme disease
alone, Telford and Rutberg say the deer
population needs to be reduced to five or
fewer animals per square mile. This could
be best achieved through an increase in
hunting, Telford says, because it’s a free
solution. However, in the densely populated
Northeast, fewer and fewer suburbs have
land open to hunting with firearms. “Out
of two square miles, there might be 50 or
100 acres where you can discharge a gun,”
putting more than 90 percent of the land
off-limits, Rutberg says.
As a result, public discussion in many
communities has turned to an expansion of
bow hunting. Throughout the eastern U.S.,
town meetings about deer control draw
equally large numbers of hunting supporters and opponents.
Such was the case in Hastings-onHudson, N.Y., a small village 16 miles north
of Manhattan. As a result, the mayor opted
for a radically different approach to reduce
the 120-deer herd that has overrun the
town’s two square miles: the country’s first
birth-control study of free-roaming deer.
Rutberg will lead a team seeking to inject
40 to 50 does with a contraceptive vaccine
over the next two years. The community
hopes the vaccines—which work for at
least two years with one dose and have no
harmful side effects—will reduce the deer
population by 40 percent.
“It won’t be easy, but we wouldn’t
be attempting it if wasn’t doable,” says
Rutberg, who has studied the effectiveness of birth control in deer and wild horse
populations for more than 20 years. “We’ve
shown that we can reduce deer populations
in relatively confined spaces” by 30 to 60
percent, he says.
More than 50 residents volunteered to
assist with the research project. Children
and adults will track the movement of deer
in their neighborhoods and report in to
an online database. Others will monitor
whether deer consumption of seedlings
declines as a result of the program. The
local high school environmental studies
class is helping set up fenced areas to assess
how deer grazing affects local vegetation.
Rutberg says that he’s impressed by the
extent to which community members have
been involved in the birth-control project.
“There’s a lot of concern these days about
what is known as nature-deficit disorder,”
he says. The term was coined by the journalist Richard Louv in his 1995 book Last Child
in the Woods, in which he argues that kids’
behavioral problems are on the rise because
they’re spending less time outdoors. The
Hastings-on-Hudson program, Rutberg
says, “has provided an extraordinary opportunity for people to get more engaged with
wildlife and their own habitat.” CVM
Genevieve Rajewski, the editor of this magazine, can be reached at genevieve.rajewski@
tufts.edu.
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OPINION GAPS
Women and pet owners more likely to oppose lethal methods for controlling wildlife
Wildlife policy traditionally has focused on two groups of stakeholders:
farmers who want to keep pests and predators from hurting their crops
and livestock, and game enthusiasts who seek ample populations for
hunting and fishing. Now that more and more wild animals have moved
into our backyards, those with far more varied perspectives want a say in
how conflicts and conservation are handled.
Public opinion gatherers, however, continue to disregard a significant number of stakeholders—namely women, says Jennifer Jackman,
an associate professor of political science at Salem State University in
Massachusetts who holds a master’s in animals and public policy from
Cummings School. Most polling about these issues relies on published
telephone numbers to gather feedback—roughly 70 percent of which are
listed under a man’s name, she says.
The lack of a female voice hurts public policy because “gender is one of
the most significant factors when it comes to attitudes on wildlife issues,”
Jackman says. Research shows that women are far more likely than men
to oppose hunting, trapping and lethal methods to manage wildlife, she
says. Women also favored animal-protection measures more than men
in 11 state ballot initiatives, including ones that banned dove hunting in
Michigan (2006), cockfighting in Oklahoma (2002) and body-gripping traps
in Massachusetts (1996).
To gather more balanced data for her own research, Jackman used
voter lists—typically 53 percent of registered voters are women—when she
surveyed attitudes about coyotes on Cape Cod in 2005 and 2012. She
chose Cape Cod for her research because it was one of the last areas in
the Northeast to be colonized by coyotes and because human-coyote interactions frequently occur in this fragmented, semi-urban habitat.
COYOTES NOT SO UGLY
Both surveys sought to assess public support, fears and other attitudes
about Cape coyotes. The surveys included questions about pet ownership
and care.
“Both the 2005 and 2012 surveys found a significant gender gap on
policy issues, with women far less likely to support policy using lethal
interventions,” says Jackman. “But overall, in both men and women, there
was a growth in acceptance and tolerance of coyotes over the seven-year
period.”
Results from both surveys also revealed a statistically significant “pet
gap” in attitudes. Although harm to pets was the biggest source of complaints related to coyotes, pet owners were still more supportive and less
fearful of coyotes—and more opposed to lethal interventions—than those
without pets, she says.
Owners’ perceptions of their pets may offer clues about how human
behavior contributes to the escalation or resolution of conflicts with coyotes.
Jessica Bridgers, who received her master’s in animals and public policy
from Cummings School in February, analyzed interviews with 73 survey
respondents to explore that notion as part of her coursework.
Her research, which was supported by a grant from the Elizabeth
PHOTO: ISTOCK
41147_6-26.indd 21
A. Lawrence Endowed Fund, found that owners who view their pets as
“wild”—describing a dog as “cunning” or cats as “little tigers,” for example—are more likely to let their animals outside unattended.
“These owners believe their pets have the right to be interacting with
wildlife and the natural environment,” Bridgers says. Other owners don’t
view their pets as having a rightful place in the natural world. “As a result,”
she notes, “they’re more likely to keep pets separate from nature, either
indoors, fenced in or on a leash.”
Given that pets are the biggest source of conflicts with coyotes in urbanized areas, Jackman and Bridgers believe data like theirs can help local
officials develop better solutions to manage the wild animals. “As we craft
policies to address nuisance wildlife in the suburbs,” Jackman says, “it’s
important to know if people are changing their own behaviors.”
6/24/14 10:53 AM
I L LU S T R AT I O N BY S T UA RT B R A D FO R D
E AL
Stem cell therapy holds promise for treating
many incurable diseases in pets and people
“oh my god, come look at bella,” diane joseffy heard her husband call out. “she’s
actually sitting down!”
Joseffy’s yellow Labrador retriever Bella hasn’t sat willingly in years and not for lack of
obedience training. The 11-year-old dog suffers from anal furunculosis, a painful condition
that causes foul-smelling skin lesions in tissues in and around the dog’s rump.
“It’s a horrible disease, and one without a certain cure,” says Claire Sharp, a veterinarian at Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts. She and other veterinarians at the
school’s Foster Hospital for Small Animals are looking at stem cells—those multipurpose cells
that have the potential to become many types of tissue in the body—as a new way to treat
the condition. “It’s especially sad because the dogs have a really compromised quality of life,
even though the rest of their body is totally healthy,” Sharp says. “We really don’t know what
triggers the disease, but we suspect it has an autoimmune cause.” Some research suggests that
normal intestinal bacteria may provoke the body to attack itself and destroy healthy tissue.
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6/24/14 10:53 AM
Joseffy tried to control Bella’s disease for
seven years with two immunosuppressant
drugs that cost about $500 a month. When
her husband lost his job, she asked her veterinarian whether there was a cheaper way
to treat her pet. She got lucky. When her
veterinarian consulted with Lluis Ferrer,
a veterinary dermatologist at Cummings
School, she was not only advised on how to
switch to one immunosuppressant, she also
learned about the school’s free clinical trial,
which is assessing whether stem cells, paired
with conventional medications, can cure or
improve anal furunculosis.
Joseffy and Bella were in.
BIOLOGICAL REPAIR KITS
Stem cell therapy is considered by many
to be the most important breakthrough in
the life sciences since genetic engineering.
Researchers in human medicine are exploring the use of these cells to regenerate cardiac tissue in patients with heart failure and
brain tissue in stroke patients, for example.
Because stem cells send out signals that
regulate immune system function, they also
hold great promise as biological repair kits
for diseases in which the immune system
is out of whack, as in lupus or multiple
sclerosis; chronic inflammation
(rheumatoid arthritis);
or dangerous scar tissue, such as the kind
that develops after some heart attacks. At
Tufts School of Dental Medicine and Tufts
Medical Center, scientists are looking to
mine these cells’ potential to treat chronic
dental pain and the nonhealing foot ulcers
common in diabetics.
The FDA has outlawed the sale of stem
cells for use in human medicine, and any
stem cell treatment must meet the same
standards as a traditional drug trial. With
the exception of bone-marrow transplants—
which have been used since the late 1960s to
replace diseased blood-making cells with
healthy ones—stem cell therapy has not been
approved for human patients in the U.S.
At Cummings School, stem cell research
is focusing on several canine diseases for
which traditional treatments often fail. The
work could speed the development of stem
cell therapies for humans with similarly difficult diseases.
“We are gravitating toward patients that
are pretty dire,” says Andrew Hoffman,
director of t he school ’s Regenerative
Medicine Laboratory. Funded by a $1 million grant from the Shipley Foundation,
Cummings School veterinarians will test
stem cell therapy on such canine conditions as spinal-cord injuries that have
caused paralysis, fatal kidney disease and an
AT CUMMINGS
SCHOOL, STEM
CELL RESEARCH
IS FOCUSING ON
SEVERAL CANINE DISEASES
FOR WHICH TRADITIONAL
TREATMENTS OFTEN FAIL.
inflammatory disease of the brain and nervous system that’s akin to multiple sclerosis
in humans.
The hope for these clinical trials at the
Foster Hospital, Hoffman says, is that the
participating dogs will be able to live more
comfortably or, better yet, be cured. The
veterinary researchers also will determine
whether stem cell therapies can improve
patient outcomes in other ways, such as
reducing the cost of long hospital stays associated with a chronic disease or lengthening
the time between relapses.
Cummings School veterinarians chose
anal furunculosis for one of their first
clinical trials, in part because it’s similar
to a complication seen in some people with
Crohn’s disease, an inf lammatory bowel
condition affecting as many as 700,000 individuals in the U.S.
Drugs that suppress the immune system
combined with a high-fiber diet have helped
some dogs, and people, recover from perianal lesions. For others, this treatment provides only temporary relief. In some dogs and
people, these conditions become debilitating.
Given the high rate of relapse for Crohn’s
patients, researchers have begun to investigate whether stem cells could help. In a study
published in February in Gut, the journal
of the British Society of Gastroenterology,
researchers reported that stem cells successfully treated lesions in seven Crohn’s
patients and shrank lesions in three other
cases—all without any adverse effects.
Bella was in the first group of dogs to
participate in a similar clinical trial at the
Foster Hospital. For the study, Sharp drew
bone marrow samples from Bella and
four German shepherds; none of them
had responded to conventional therapy.
Hoffman used these samples to grow large
numbers of mesenchymal stem cells in the
lab. (See “A Field Guide to Stem Cells,” page
25.) Ferrer, the veterinary dermatologist,
then injected those cells into and around
the lesions once a month for three months.
The dogs experienced no ill effects, and
four of them had a 30- to 70-percent reduction in the width, length and depth of their
lesions. (The owner of one dog with extreme
lesions decided to euthanize it before the
study ended.) Ferrer presented the results
of the study in April at the North American
41147_6-26.indd 24
6/27/14 12:52 PM
A Field Guide to Stem Cells
There are several kinds of stem cells, and each plays a different role in the body.
Embryonic stem cells (also known as pluripotent stem cells) are the most clever and
versatile of all the stem cells because they can develop into anything a body needs: kidneys,
eyes, heart, teeth, you name it. They can be isolated five days after a sperm fertilizes an egg.
As an embryo develops into a fully formed animal, these stem cells essentially choose
a career path and lock into it. For example, embryonic cells will make kidney cells that will
forever remain kidney cells, heart cells that will always be heart cells and so on. A core population created by the embryonic stem cells is known as adult (aka somatic) stem cells.
Every organ in the body contains highly specialized adult stem cells that may be activated
in response to tissue damage. Heart stem cells may go into action after a heart attack, for
example. The majority of adult stem cells fall into these six categories:
1
Neural stem cells generate several types of specialized cells in the brain and spinal
cord as well as cells outside the central nervous system that communicate with one
another to produce physical sensation, cognition and vital functions, such as breathing.
2
3
6
Veterinary Dermatology Forum.
“Bella’s lesions didn’t go away,” notes
Joseffy, “but they seem a bit improved. She
has been doing better on just one medication
since the stem-cell injections.”
In a follow-up study, Ferrer and Sharp
will evaluate whether using mesenchymal
stem cells derived from human embryonic
stem cells will produce better outcomes than
treating the dogs with their own stem cells.
Because the potency of the stem cells may
vary greatly from dog to dog, using stem cells
developed from a more uniform source will
allow veterinarians to better evaluate the
INFOGRAPHIC: 2COMMUNIQUÉ
41147_6-26.indd 25
Mesenchymal stem
cells can generate bone,
cartilage, fat and other
kinds of connective tissue.
Easily harvested from
bone marrow, fat or
umbilical cord tissue,
these cells are often used
in clinical trials in human
and veterinary medicine.
Endothelial stem cells replenish blood
vessel and lymphatic cells, which are the
building blocks of the intertwined circulatory
and immune systems.
4
Found in the lining of the digestive tract, skin, lungs
and other specialized organs, epithelial stem cells
produce several kinds of cells that exchange fluids
or nutrients with their environment.
5
Reproductive stem cells replenish eggs or sperm
in the body, helping to maintain fertility.
Found in bone marrow, hematopoietic stem cells generate the body’s red and white blood cells,
which live only about four months before needing to be replaced.
therapy’s effectiveness. “It can be difficult to
tell if a treatment works when we are essentially giving all the patients a different pill,”
Hoffman notes.
ONE MEDICINE
Another clinical trial at the Foster Hospital
will look at the effectiveness of stem cells in
treating dogs whose intestines rupture after
they have eaten a sharp object.
As the intestine leaks into the abdominal
cavity, the gut’s naturally occurring bacteria
cause a severe abdominal infection known as
sepsis. Forty percent of these dogs will never
leave the hospital, despite aggressive treatment that involves surgery and high doses of
antibiotics.
“It’s not the bacteria in their bellies that
kill these dogs so much as the animals’
immune response to the bacteria,” says Sharp.
As the revved-up immune system attacks the
onslaught of bacteria, it can cause life-threatening collateral damage to the body’s bloodmaking abilities, kidney, liver and lungs.
If the stem cells function as expected,
Sharp says, they should keep the immune
system in check and prevent the infection
from taking over.
6/24/14 10:53 AM
Like dogs, people whose intestines rupture are at high risk of dying, even when
they receive the best care. “Abdominal sepsis
in people is a huge area of interest in medical research,” says Sharp. “But those clinical
trials take years to develop and still more
years to see results. They also cost billions
and often fail,” says Sharp.
“We have an opportunity in veterinary
medicine to get an idea into clinical trials
much more affordably,” Sharp says. Each
stem-cell pilot study at Cummings School
costs about $5,000 per dog; a similar human
trial would run $20,000 to $100,000 per
patient, depending on the study.
Unlike in rodent studies, in which drugs
Follow the Evidence
Even though veterinary stem cell science
Make sure you’ve done your
is in its nascent stages, several companies
homework on stem cell therapy.
are already marketing veterinary stem cell
therapies, most often for treating arthritis or
soft-tissue injuries. They manufacture kits for
veterinarians to harvest bone marrow or fat
from an animal and mail those samples back to
the company. The firms isolate the stem cells
and return them to the veterinarian, who injects
them into the animal.
Michael Kowaleski, V93, an orthopedic
surgeon who is conducting clinical trials of
stem cells for treating elbow osteoarthritis in
dogs at Cummings School’s Foster Hospital for
Small Animals, says pet owners should proceed
with such treatments only if there are proven, evidence-based results. Unlike in human medicine—in which sales of stem cells are banned and stem-cell treatments must undergo the
same approval process as a drug—neither the FDA nor the U.S. Department of Agriculture has
regulations governing the sale and use of stem cells in veterinary medicine.
Before agreeing to stem cell therapy, Kowaleski recommends that pet owners ask their
veterinarian these questions:
n Why are you recommending this approach?
n How does it compare with other treatments that are available?
n What is the evidence for the safety of this treatment?
n Was the treatment effective, and what were the objective measures for determining
that? For example, in an arthritic animal, were tests done with a force plate to show
that the animal was able to bear more weight after the treatment, or were the results
determined by owners’ observations that the animals seemed better?
n Was the research peer-reviewed, meaning was it determined to be valid by experts in
the field who were not associated with the study?
n Was there a control group of animals that received a placebo, such as a saline injection,
and how much benefit did the stem-cell treatment produce compared with the placebo?
n Was the research “blind”? That is, were the owners and researchers prevented from
knowing which animals received the treatment and which ones received the placebo to
ensure that expectations did not influence the results?
n Who funded the research, and does a commercial concern stand to benefit from it?
often appear to work but later in fail in
human patients, “we do all the same things
to save dogs with abdominal sepsis that are
done in human medicine,” says Sharp. “So if
we see benefit in our patients, that should be
an extra impetus to consider the treatment
in humans.”
To bolster the application of veterinary
research to human medicine, Cummings
School has filed several stem-cell pilot studies with the FDA Center for Veterinary
Medicine. This creates an important public
record of the steps involved in the harvesting, growth, storage and delivery of stem
cells to patients.
The FDA also collects the research plan,
or protocol, for each clinical trial. Designed
to safeguard the health of participants and
answer questions about experimental treatments, the protocol outlines the reason
for conducting the study; the schedule of
tests, procedures and stem-cell injections
and dosages; and what information will be
gathered about the participating animals,
among other data. Most important, the FDA
makes suggestions about how to conduct the
trial better, including how to improve the
client-consent forms so that pet owners are
absolutely clear about the benefits and risks
of participating in a clinical trial.
Collectively, such research protocols will
create a national resource about which stem
cells work best for which diseases and how
well the canine disease models predict the
success of such treatments in humans.
Because dogs are so anatomically and
physiologically similar to humans and live
among us—therefore sharing our environmental risk factors for disease—Hoffman
expects that the results in dogs will be
highly predictive of how humans with
similar medical conditions might respond.
But, he says, the possibility of finding new
therapies for canine disease alone is payback enough.
“These pets desperately need alternatives,”
says Hoffman “They need help just like people do, and we have to start somewhere.” CVM
Genevieve Rajewski, the editor of this
magazine, can be reached at genevieve.
[email protected].
TO LEARN MORE ABOUT CLINICAL TRIALS AT CUMMINGS
SCHOOL, VISIT GO.TUFTS.EDU/VETTRIALS.
41147_6-26.indd 26
PHOTO: ISTOCK
6/27/14 12:52 PM
research
THE PATH TO DISCOVERY
Ben Nephew is studying female animals as
models for human anxiety and depression.
Most research in this area has used male
animals, even though these conditions are
more common in women.
Help for New Moms
Hormone studies in rodent mothers could lead to better treatments
for postpartum depression in humans by Michael Blanding
C
aring for a new baby can be fraught with difficulty—
even more so for a mom living with stressful family dynamics or other uncertainties. Now a Cummings School researcher
has shown how stress and hormone levels impair a mother’s
ability to fully care for her offspring—work that could lead to new ways to
prevent or treat the postpartum depression experienced by 9 to 16 percent
of human mothers.
Ben Nephew, a reproductive biologist who specializes in maternal behavioral disorders, says his research uses the behavior of female rats that have just
given birth to draw broader conclusions about stress levels and well-being of
mothers and their offspring. He creates social stress by introducing a different
male rat into a new mom’s cage each day. To protect their young, the mothers
become aggressive, and so in addition to being exposed to conflict, the rat
pups receive less attention from their moms.
“This type of exposure is very similar to a human situation where there
is social stress in the family that adversely affects maternal behavior,” says
Nephew, who earned his doctorate in biology from Tufts.
PHOTO: VEER
41147_27-36.indd 27
He observed distinct differences in
behavior between control and stressed
rats after just a week of daily visits from
the male. “The control mother would
go about a typical routine of gathering
her babies back into the nest, grooming
herself, grooming the pups and then settling down to nurse. The stressed mothers
would take longer to retrieve the pups and
wouldn’t groom or nurse them as much.”
Nephew say s t he a n x iou s moms
a lso roamed around the cage more.
“Sometimes they would even move the
location of the nest, which isn’t normal
behavior. We think these changes represent a good model of maternal-specific
anxiety,” he notes, “in addition to the
diminished maternal care often seen in
depressed human mothers.”
The anxious behavior also affected the
pups’ ability to thrive. The pups who were
exposed to the male intruder weighed
9 percent less at 70 days of age than the
control pups, a sign that they were getting
less milk from their moms.
G EN ER ATIONAL ANXIE T Y
The effects of stress on one generation of
mothers can also impede their daughters’
maternal abilities, Nephew discovered.
To gauge t he relevance of his rat
research to human mothers and their
children, he consulted with Kristina
Deligiannidis, an assistant professor of
psychiatry and obstetrics and gynecology
at the University of Massachusetts Medical
Center who specializes in postpartum
depression. The most severe cases of postpartum depression and anxiety are seen
in women who have experienced chronic
stress throughout their lives, not just after
giving birth, she says.
To test that theory, Nephew looked at
the maternal behavior of female offspring
exposed to social stress as pups. He draws
a parallel with human children who have
experienced family conflict both firsthand
and indirectly as a result of the lack of attention they received from their mothers. He
6/24/14 12:33 PM
RESEARCH
found that the second generation of mother
rats also had trouble caring for their young
and experienced anxiety and impaired lactation—even though they were not exposed
to male intruders after they had given birth.
Nephew found a potential cause of this
phenomenon in the hormones oxytocin and
prolactin, which affect maternal care and
milk production. The second-generation
mothers had lower levels of oxytocin and
prolactin in the brain and less prolactin in
the blood.
“That really indicated that there was
some kind of impairment in their ability to
regulate nursing at the level of the brain,”
says Nephew. He theorizes that because the
second-generation moms were exposed to
stress early on, it impaired the development
of the mechanisms that control these hormones. The good news is that after a week,
the second-generation mothers seemed to
compensate and spent more time grooming
and nursing their pups. Nephew speculates
that the mothers may have responded to
some form of ultrasonic vocalization from
their pups that they need more milk.
Nephew’s most recent data indicate that
the regulation of prolactin and oxytocin
and the social behavior of both male and
female rats from the third generation are
also impaired, supporting observations of
increased risk for depression, anxiety disorders and autism in the children of human
mothers exposed to stress early in life.
The research, published in the journals Stress, Psychoneuroendocrinology and
Hormones and Behavior, has direct relevance
to human mothers, says Nephew, because it
may finally provide a more behaviorally relevant way to assess new preventive measures
and treatments for postpartum depression,
anxiety and nursing difficulties.
Working with Deligiannidis, Nephew is
looking at both synthetic hormone replacement therapies and natural methods of
manipulating hormone levels to determine
their effects on postpartum depression in
rodent moms.
“If you can prevent or effectively treat
depression or anxiety in a mother,” he
says, “the gains you can make in terms of
improved mental and physical health of her
offspring and subsequent offspring is very
exciting.”
41147_27-36.indd 28
Having a pet can boost
kids’ engagement with
the world around them.
Caring for Animals May
Make Teens Better Adults
Young adults who have bonded with a pet may forge stronger social relationships
and better connections to their communities, according to a Tufts study.
“Our findings suggest that it may not be whether an animal is present in an
individual’s life that is most significant but rather the quality of that relationship,” says study author Megan Mueller, a developmental psychologist and
research assistant professor at Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine. “The
young adults in the study who had a strong attachment to pets reported feeling
more connected to their communities and relationships,” she says.
For the study, published earlier this year in Applied Developmental Science,
Mueller surveyed more than 500 predominately female participants, ages 18 to
26, to evaluate their attitudes about and interaction with animals.
Those who cared for animals reported engaging in more “contribution” activities, such as participating in community service, helping friends or family and
demonstrating leadership than those who did not. The more actively they participated in a pet’s care, the higher their “contribution” scores.
The study also found that high levels of attachment to an animal in late
adolescence and young adulthood were associated with feeling connected with
other people and possessing empathy and confidence.
Mueller’s assessments were drawn from the ongoing 4-H Study of Positive
Youth Development, research sponsored by the National 4-H Council in which her
500 subjects also had participated. Since 2002, the study has surveyed more
than 7,000 adolescents in 42 states to determine the impact of 4-H programs
on future success, from healthier lifestyle choices to academic achievement to
civic engagement.
While there is mounting evidence of the positive effects of animals on children in therapeutic settings, not much is known about how everyday interactions
with pets may benefit youth development.
This study cannot prove that having a pet helps children grow up to be happier and more responsible adults, but “it is a promising starting point to better
understand the role of animals in our lives,” says Mueller, who holds bachelor’s,
master’s and doctoral degrees in child development from Tufts and is a faculty
member at Tufts’ Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service.
PHOTO: ISTOCK
6/30/14 7:05 PM
The Genetics of Bloat
Researchers hope their work will help predict which dogs may get the deadly disease
by Genevieve Rajewski
V
eterinary researchers at cummings school are
teaming with scientists at Harvard, MIT and Nestlé
Purina PetCare to decipher the genetics of bloat, a common cause of death in large dogs.
For veterinarians and breeders, bloat remains a baffling disease
that’s difficult to prevent or treat. It develops when a dog’s stomach
twists over, like a hammock in a storm, between its fixed attachments at the esophagus and the upper intestines. The stomach
contents, which contain gas-producing bacteria, become trapped.
The stomach swells from the growing gas pressure so much that it
eventually crushes a major vein, preventing blood from returning
to the heart and often sending a dog into shock.
“Bloat is a challenging disease because it escalates quickly,” says
Claire Sharp, an emergency and critical care veterinarian at the
Foster Hospital for Small Animals. “The dog is fine one minute and
in a life-threatening situation the next. Dogs often die from bloat
while their owner is off at work or sleeping at night.”
A quick diagnosis and emergency surgery to untwist and stabilize the stomach doesn’t guarantee a
happy ending. “Many pets are euthanized because their owners can’t afford
an unplanned major operation,” says
Sharp. Even with surgery, 10 to 30 percent of dogs with bloat die, she says.
M EDIC AL MYSTERY
Bloat most commonly occurs in largebreed and deep-chested dogs, such as
German shepherds, Great Danes, big
mixed-breed dogs, standard poodles
and Labrador and golden retrievers.
And although bloat appears to run in
families, Sharp says no single gene has
been identified as the culprit.
The Tufts-led research could provide
some genetic targets for the first test for
bloat. Sharp and Elizabeth Rozanski,
another emergency and critical care
veterinarian at the Foster Hospital, have
been awarded a two-year, $250,000 grant
from AKC Canine Health Foundation
to unravel the complex genetics of bloat.
They will work with researchers at the
Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT,
where scientists are studying the genetics
PHOTO: ISTOCK
41147_27-36.indd 29
Bloat is the number one
killer of Great Danes.
of purebred dogs to gain insight into how human and canine diseases
develop, as well as scientists at Nestlé Purina PetCare who want to
understand the effects of nutrition on dog health.
Using blood samples from canine patients at Cummings School
as well as samples from the Broad Institute, researchers will attempt
to tease out the differences in the genetic makeup of purebred dogs
with and without bloat.
Currently, researchers believe that bloat is most likely linked
to a dog’s size and conformation, among other factors. “The ligaments that hold the dog’s stomach in place may be too loose,” Sharp
says. She notes that bloat also appears to occur more often in highanxiety dogs, perhaps because they tend to gulp in lots of air when
they pant. Veterinarians suspect that excess air in a dog’s stomach
may cause it to twist. The disease probably involves a variety of
genes as well as environmental and dietary influences “that push
the dog over the edge from being highly at risk to actually developing the disease,” she says.
Sharp and Rozanski also will collect blood and abdominal tissue samples from canine patients with
and without bloat to determine whether
certain types or amounts of proteins,
hormones and other molecules in blood
and tissues can predict which dogs will
get the disease.
“We are confident that a significant amount of risk for bloat will be
explained purely by genetics,” and thus
provide data to develop a test for the
disease, says Sharp.
A genetic test could determine
which dogs are at highest risk of
developing bloat. At-risk dogs could
undergo preventive surgery known
as gastropexy to affix the stomach to
the abdominal wall so it can’t twist. It
would also be a breakthrough for the
dog-breeding community, Sharp says.
“A genetic test would help them dramatically reduce the likelihood of bloat
in future offspring.”
If you have a dog that has had bloat
and would like to contribute DNA to
the study, please email Claire Sharp at
[email protected].
6/24/14 12:33 PM
ON CAMPUS
CUMMINGS SCHOOL NEWS
Veterinary cardiology resident Vicky Yang,
V09, was the first Cummings School
resident to shadow physician counterparts
at Tufts Medical Center in Boston.
One Medicine,
Two Perspectives
Veterinary residents and their physician counterparts find they
have a lot in common by Jacqueline Mitchell
N
early forty miles separate
the campuses of Cummings
School of Veterinary Medicine
in rural North Grafton, Mass.,
and Tufts School of Medicine in bustling
downtown Boston. Leaders at both schools
are working to close that distance
For two years, veterinary residents from
Cummings School have had the chance to
observe their physician counterparts during
weeklong rotations at Tufts Medical Center.
The veterinary specialists-in-training
41147_27-36.indd 30
participate in hospital rounds and watch
the physicians interact with patients and
their families, work up diagnoses and perform surgery.
“The university considers all medicine
to be one medicine,” says John Berg, a professor of soft-tissue surgery at Cummings
School and a founder of the residency
exchange program. “Our veterinary residents see that many of the challenges and
diseases in veterinary medicine are present
in human in medicine as well.”
The exchanges “could be a very valuable experience,” says Douglas Payne, a
former cardiothoracic surgeon and professor emeritus of surgery at Tufts. The
only medical school faculty member on
Cummings School’s board of advisors,
Payne partnered with Berg to create more
interaction between Tufts’ Boston and
Grafton campuses.
They launched the exchange program
in fall 2012, sending veterinary cardiology
resident Vicky Yang, V09, to Tufts Medical
Center for a week; three other veterinary
residents followed. This year, six residents
and two Cummings School faculty members participated.
“We thought it would be a nice opportunity not just for [Yang], but also for us to
learn about the kind of work they’re doing
at the veterinary school and about possibilities for research collaboration,” says Ayan
Patel, a professor of medicine who hosted
Yang during her rotation.
Yang, who studied engineering as
an undergraduate, was eager to see the
state-of-the-art imaging technology at
Tufts Medical Center. She was particularly
interested in the hospital’s 3-D echocardiogram machine, which provides a moving image of the beating heart that reveals
its size and shape as well as how efficiently
it is pumping.
Most veterinarians won’t get their hands
on these machines any time soon. The latest technology generally debuts in human
medicine because of the greater volume of
patients and the insurance-payment model,
Berg says. But many innovations in medical
technology eventually end up in the veterinary clinic, so it behooves a young vet to get
a jump on handling them.
But the veterinary residents say that not
PHOTO: KELVIN MA
6/30/14 7:05 PM
every lesson comes with a big price tag.
Tracy Sutton, V11, a neurology/neurosurgery resident who completed her
rotation in March, says she appreciated
learning more about human medicine
because many owners’ expectations about
pet care come from their own experiences. Pet owners often ask her about spinal fusion, in which two or more vertebrae
are bonded after disc surgery. That’s not a
standard procedure in dogs, but many of
Sutton’s human clients have had it. Before
the Tufts Medical Center rotation, Sutton
says she wasn’t sure how to address their
concerns about their dogs not getting the
gold standard of care. Sutton learned that
fusion helps stabilize humans’ upright
spines, but dogs’ horizontal spines don’t
require as much support.
Yang says she learned a simpler way of
calculating the size of an aortic stenosis—a
narrowing of a major heart valve that can
lead to cardiac damage—from her human
medical colleagues.
Some of the rotations’ more intangible
lessons underscore the ways in which the
two professions overlap. Physicians and
veterinarians both grapple with families’
grief and loss, notes Berg, and both professions encounter the occasional challenging
personality.
Veterinarians often lament that their
patients can’t tell them where it hurts, says
Melissa Bucknoff, a third-year veterinary
resident in emergency and critical care who
completed a hospital rotation last fall.
“Af ter spending time with elderly,
medicated postsurgical patients—many of
whom did not speak English as their primary language—I saw the medical doctors
cope with the exact same hurdles,” she says.
“Communication is the most important
part of both of our jobs.”
The veterinary and medical residents
predict they will consult with each other
and perhaps work together on cases or
research projects. That kind of interdisciplinary collaboration was the goal of the
resident exchange in the first place.
“Most of the flow historically has been
from human to veterinary medicine,”
Berg says, “but that is starting to reverse.
That’s a good, healthy thing and what One
Medicine is all about.”
PHOTO: KELVIN MA
41147_27-36.indd 31
From Labs to Laps
Students and beagles trade roles as teachers and learners
For Cummings School students, beagles are among their best teachers, helping
them learn such skills as conducting physical exams, performing ultrasounds
and taking X-rays. Eventually, the tables are turned, and the veterinary students
teach their canine instructors about life after the classroom.
The school has 20 teaching beagles, and first-year veterinary students take
on the task of socializing the dogs so they can go to permanent homes. For the
course Human-Animal Relationships, they take the dogs on daily walks and help
them master basic obedience skills.
The beagles come to Cummings School from other research institutions as
young adults; all were bred specifically for research. Beagles are popular laboratory dogs for the same reasons they are popular pets: They are small, docile and
get along well with other dogs and humans.
“All our teaching beagles have been donated from outside labs,” says Emily
McCobb, V00, M.S.03, director of the shelter medicine program at Cummings
School. “After about three years of teaching service here, they are adopted to a
‘forever home.’ ”
Because the beagles grow up in kennels, most have behavioral issues that
need to be addressed before they can become someone’s pet. “They can be
challenging to housebreak, because they have never gone to the bathroom outside on a leash,” McCobb says.
The students train the dogs to sit, stay, lie down and respond to their names.
They also take the dogs out daily to play off–leash in groups.
“I love seeing the transformation,” says Amanda Steneck, V17, who helps
coordinate the dog-walking schedule. “The beagles go from being [timid about]
the outdoors to racing down the kennel aisle to go outside for a walk.”
The students have proven to be as gifted at teaching as their canine instructors: Every beagle has made the leap from class to couch.
Kimberly Flink, the research veterinary technician who runs the socialization
program, estimates that over the past five years, she has placed 40 beagles in
permanent homes. “We have a 100percent adoption rate,” she says.
The program is a win for students
as well. “Not every student has owned
a dog before,” says Eric Littman, V17.
“This lets them get that hands-on experience with small animals without
having to commit to having a pet.
Scout, the 7-year-old former teaching beagle
“Initially, I was pretty indifferent
that Kelsey McKenna, V15, adopted.
to the idea of the program, as it was
just another thing I had to do,” confesses Littman, who has been walking Aries, a 2-year-old beagle, since last fall.
“Now when it’s my turn to walk Aries, I plan my day around it to make sure I can
visit with her a couple times, if possible. On a bad week, we have 40 hours of
classes, and that’s not including studying. So that hour a week we get to spend
with our dog is fantastic.”
INTERESTED IN ADOPTING A TEACHING BEAGLE? EMAIL KIMBERLY FLINK AT KIMBERLY.FLINK@TUFTS.
EDU OR SHERRY ANN CASTONGUAY AT [email protected].
6/27/14 12:59 PM
ON CAMPUS
Diversity Council Issues Final Report
T
he u n i v ersit y cou ncil on
Diversity’s final report outlines
specif ic measures to achieve
greater diversity among the student body, faculty and staff and to ensure
that Tufts promotes and embraces a culture
that is welcoming to all.
Among the report’s recommendations
are hiring a chief diversity officer, increasing financial aid to attract and retain talented students who traditionally have not
considered Tufts, examining curricula and
other programs to make sure they support
diversity and inclusion, and articulating
more clearly how central these values are to
Tufts’ mission and vision.
The report stresses that fostering diversity and inclusion is the shared responsibility of the entire university community. “The
council believes that Tufts is well positioned
to be an institutional leader and live up to
its values in these areas,” the report states.
“Diversity drives excellence in our academic mission,” says President Anthony
Monaco, who established the Council on
Diversity in early 2012 and underscored the
importance of the initiative by chairing the
group. “Having faculty, staff and students
who come from different backgrounds and
have different perspectives enriches everyone in our community.”
A diverse campus environment, he
notes, is equally essential to the success of
Tufts graduates, who will live and work in
an increasingly multicultural society.
The council, made up of faculty, staff
and undergraduate and graduate students,
consulted extensively with the wider
Tufts community during its 18-month
review. Joanne Berger-Sweeney, dean of
the School of Arts and Sciences, served as
council vice chair.
The group’s work helped shape the university’s strategic plan, Tufts: The Next
10 Years, which the Board of Trustees
approved in November 2013. One of the
plan’s four major themes seeks to engage
and celebrate commonalities and differences within the Tufts community, and
the council’s recommendations will help
advance those shared values, Monaco says.
The members of the council worked
from a broad definition of diversity that
encompasses many aspects of personal and
group identity, among them race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, religion, gender,
“Having faculty, staff and students who come from different backgrounds and have different
perspectives enriches everyone in our community,” says Tufts President Anthony Monaco.
cultural background and sexual identity.
Through focus groups and community engagement, surveys and quantitative research, three council working
groups examined particular areas of the
university experience—undergraduate
students, graduate and professional students, and faculty and staff. Joyce Sackey,
dean of multicultural affairs and global
health at the School of Medicine, chaired
the Graduate and Professional Student
Experience Working Group.
TH E CASE
FOR FINANCIAL AID
Recognizing that the cost of a Tufts education has a bearing on the university’s
ability to attract students from minority
and other underrepresented groups, the
council urges continued fundraising for
scholarships and fellowships.
Despite the strong efforts made during the university’s last major fundraising
campaign, Tufts still provides less financial aid than many of its peers. Related
to affordability is the need to expand the
so-called pipeline programs, reaching out
to students who traditionally have not
applied here. For instance, the School of
Medicine recently started a program with
the University of Massachusetts Boston to
attract students who might not otherwise
consider careers in medicine or biomedical research. The council’s report calls for
more such efforts.
Because faculty members play a key role
in mentoring students, the council says the
diversity of the faculty should more closely
mirror that of the student body. “Study
after study shows that providing a supportive and welcoming environment for students helps them achieve, and not having
that kind of environment impairs their full
achievement,” says Berger-Sweeney.
“At Tufts, diversity and excellence
must be inextricably linked,” Monaco
says. “Only then can we achieve our collective potential as a community.” To read
the full report, go to president.tufts.edu/
strategic-initiatives/diversity.
41147_27-36.indd 32
6/30/14 7:05 PM
A DVA NCE M E NT
GIVING. GROWTH. GRATITUDE.
Anne and Travis Engen, pictured with
their corgis Sally and Owen, support
the renovation of the Foster Hospital at
Cummings School. The hospital provides
comprehensive care, including cancer
treatment and emergency surgery.
Where the Heart Is
More than 28,000 pets come to the Foster Hospital each year. Expansion will enable its vets
to help even more by Kristin Livingston
T
he call came on thanksgiving night two years ago. “your
house is on fire,” the police officer said.
Nicole McManus immediately thought of her family: Her
son, Aidan, was safe with his father, but her 6-year-old cats,
Luna and Hermione, were in the burning home. When she reached the house,
she learned that Luna hadn’t survived. A firefighter held Hermione, who was
seriously injured.
“Her ears and paws were burned and bleeding,” McManus says. A friend
rushed the cat to Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine, where McManus
found a community of skillful, compassionate veterinarians and others who
would help her pet.
Within minutes of arriving at the Foster Hospital for Small Animals,
Hermione was in intensive care for third-degree burns to her paws, tail, ears,
PHOTO: ROBERT CAPLIN
41147_27-36.indd 33
nose and cheeks; her tail had to be amputated. A team of seven emergency and
critical-care veterinarians, two surgeons
and a dermatologist managed the cat’s care
around the clock. Despite her severe injuries, Hermione happily received belly rubs
and dispensed purrs for everyone. After a
few days, she was well enough to go home.
McManus still had a tough road ahead.
“I had just lost everything,” she says.
A single mother, she couldn’t afford
the care Hermione needed. The staff at
Cummings School found grants to cover
6/30/14 7:05 PM
A DVA NCE M E NT
Caring clinicians and generous benefactors
helped Hermione recover from severe burns.
some expenses, and someone she met in the
hospital waiting room paid the remainder
of the bills anonymously. “I can’t thank
them or the Cummings team enough. No
one was willing to give up on Hermione.”
In time, Hermione made a full recovery,
though she looks different. “People think
she’s a bobcat with her rounded ears,”
McManus says. “But she’s still the same
loving, cuddling ‘sister’ to Aidan that she
always was.”
The Foster Hospital takes care of more
than 28,000 pets every year. The hospital is such a lifeline for so many pets and
their owners that Cummings School has
launched a major renovation and expansion project so Tufts veterinarians can help
even more animals.
G IF TS OF THAN KS
Anne and Travis Engen have been longtime
benefactors of Cummings School. It is their
way of recognizing the exceptional care
Tufts veterinarians provided to their corgis,
Belle and Dusty. In 2008, the couple honored
the faculty clinicians who treated their dogs
with a significant gift to support veterinary
research and patient care. In 2009, after
Dusty died of cancer, they made another
generous gift to help the school establish a
program in comparative oncology, which
brings together veterinary and medical
oncologists to advance understanding of
cancer biology and to improve treatments of
the disease in animals and humans.
Most recently, the Engens have donated
$2.5 million to the $8 million campaign
to renovate the Foster Hospital. Their gift
helped the school reach 50 percent of the
$5 million that needs to be secured by the
end of the year to meet a matching challenge grant from the Amelia Peabody
Charitable Fund.
When the Foster Hospital opened in
1985, the patient caseload was expected to
be 12,000 animals annually; that has grown
by more than 133 percent over the past
three decades. The renovation is important
for providing the highest level of care to
pets as well as for attracting the best students and faculty to Cummings School.
“My fundamental belief is that you look
around and ask, What draws me to help?,”
says Anne Engen. “And you choose a worthy object that touches your heart.”
You Make
the Difference
Act now and you can help Cummings
School veterinarians save even more
lives. The Amelia Peabody Charitable
Fund has given the Foster Hospital
renovation project a huge boost: If
the school raises $5 million in gifts
or pledges by December 31, the fund
will donate $2.5 million to the project.
That’s $1 extra for every $2 raised.
Please make your gift by contacting Ana Alvarado, senior director of
development at Cummings School, at
508.839.7905 or ana.alvarado@tufts.
edu. Or visit vet.tufts.edu/renovation.
WHY THEY GIVE
“I will always be grateful for the
staff at Tufts for giving Honey
back to us and allowing her
to get well and come home. She’s
Honey again. It’s amazing. It was
a great team. That’s the only way
she made it—a team effort.”
—Cindy Tingle,
OWNER OF HONEY, AN 8-YEAR-OLD ENGLISH SETTER (RIGHT)
THAT UNDERWENT EMERGENCY SURGERY FOR A HOLE IN HER STOMACH
HONEY’S HAPPY ENDING AND THE EDUCATION OF COMPASSIONATE VETERINARIANS ARE MADE POSSIBLE BY YOUR ANNUAL GIFT TO THE CUMMINGS
VETERINARY FUND. TO MAKE A CONTRIBUTION, VISIT VET.TUFTS.EDU/GIVENOW2.
41147_27-36.indd 34
PHOTO: ANDREW CUNNINGHAM
6/30/14 7:05 PM
Willy’s Gift
Connecticut couple establish research fund to recognize the care their cat received
by Kristin Livingston
I
n the kitchen, willy hale is always
underfoot, waiting for an errant morsel
to drop. The black American shorthair
cat has polydactyl paws wide enough to
pick up almost anything that hits the floor.
Retired doctors Zoey and Mahlon
Hale smile at their cat’s antics. “He’s a
grand cat,” Zoey says. For 14 years, Willy
has lounged and lazed, a part of their lives,
occasionally scampering through the yard
of their Connecticut home on warm afternoons. When he comes back inside, he
always “kisses” his 5-year-old feline sister
Cleo hello.
Two years ago, Willy’s charmed life was
threatened when the Hales found a growth
on his chest. Their local veterinarian
removed it. But the tumor grew back, and a
biopsy showed cancer. The Hales were devastated. Their veterinarian recommended
the Hales see an oncologist.
“Of course we came to Cummings
School at Tufts,” Zoey says. “Everyone
knows about the Foster Hospital, because
it’s the best in the area.”
Veterinary surgeon John Berg diagnosed
Willy with fibrosarcoma, a cancer of the
connective tissue. The large mass needed
to be removed as soon as possible.
“Fibrosarcoma is the kind of cancer
that usually isn’t located next to any vital
organs, and so generally it won’t be fatal,”
Berg says. “But even cancers like this on the
surface of the body, if left untreated, can
grow beyond what we can remove surgically. That’s life-threatening.”
Fortunately, Willy was treated at an
early stage. More than a year later, there
is no sign of a recurrence, and he’s back to
waiting patiently by the fridge for his daily
bite of turkey. “The odds are very strong
that he will be fine,” Berg says.
The Hales are thrilled with the prognosis, not to mention the care Willy received.
“We loved Cummings,” Zoey says.
“We loved seeing all the other patients,”
PHOTO: GALE ZUCKER
41147_27-36.indd 35
Zoey and Mahlon Hale with Willy,
for whom they named a research
fund at Cummings School.
Mahlon adds, “but most importantly, we
appreciated how timely and thorough Dr.
Berg and the staff were and how they constantly kept us in the loop. Because of all
this wonderful care, we are very grateful.”
To say thank you, the Hales have given
Cummings School $100,000 to establish
the Willy Hale Fund, which will support
research by faculty, hospital clinicians and
students. The extra help is important, Berg
notes. “The federal government doesn’t
provide much research funding for dog
and cat diseases, so we’re very reliant on
support like this. Every dollar invested
in research helps us teach residents and
interns-in-training and, in the end, can
potentially help every animal.”
As health-care professionals themselves (Zoey is an infectious disease specialist, and Mahlon is a psychiatrist), the
Hales understand the need to invest in
the future of the profession. But this gift
is also deeply personal. Every student who
receives Willy Hale research funding will
also get a photograph of the fund’s namesake, the cat named Willy, born on Leap
Day, with many more years ahead, thanks
to Cummings School.
6/27/14 12:59 PM
ASK THE VET
ADVICE FOR OUR READERS
Pros and Cons
of Pet Insurance
Steven Rowell, V83, an assistant professor emeritus at Cummings
School, responds to a reader’s question about pet insurance.
Q:
A:
I just adopted a new dog. Is buying pet insurance a
good idea? What does it cover?
Many pet owners end up having to spend a large sum of
money because of an unexpected health crisis. And euthanasia for financial reasons is all too common in veterinary practice.
Pet insurance can make the difference between being able to go
ahead with treatment or not.
If you have a young, healthy pet and plan to treat it like a family
member, pet insurance is a smart way to help control costs over its
lifetime. However, if you are looking to buy insurance for an older
pet, many companies will look at the animal’s medical history very
carefully to exclude preexisting conditions. This can make it difficult
to find adequate, affordable coverage.
What pet insurance covers depends on the plan you purchase—
and you get what you pay for. Some plans will help you with reimbursements toward wellness visits, plus costs associated with accidents or illness. Or you can buy a plan geared more toward providing
catastrophic coverage. The monthly premium will be based on your
pet’s age, medical history and breed, as well as the cost of veterinary
services in your area.
Pet insurance usually doesn’t cover 100 percent of veterinary
costs. Typically, there’s an annual or per-medical-incident deductible, and you may be required to pay a certain percentage of costs.
With most plans, you pay the entire bill upfront and then receive
reimbursement after you submit a claim. However, your veterinary
hospital may be able to bill the insurer directly, so be sure to do your
research if that’s important to you.
The American Veterinary Medical Association lists pet insurance
providers at avma.org/public/petcare/pages/pet-insurance.aspx.
PLEASE EMAIL YOUR QUESTIONS FOR “ASK THE VET” TO GENEVIEVE RAJEWSKI,
EDITOR, CUMMINGS VETERINARY MEDICINE, AT [email protected].
BECAUSE OF THE VOLUME OF INQUIRIES, WE CANNOT RESPOND TO ALL
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED. FOR ANY PET HEALTH ISSUE, OWNERS SHOULD CONTACT
THEIR VETERINARIAN.
HOW TO REACH US
Main hospital switchboard and after-hours emergencies
Henry and Lois Foster Hospital for Small Animals, appointment desk
Hospital for Large Animals, appointment desk
Tufts Ambulatory Service, Woodstock, Conn.
Tufts Veterinary Emergency and Treatment Specialties, Walpole, Mass.
Wildlife Clinic
Directions to Tufts
(ext. 84650)
Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine Administration
Veterinary Student Admissions Office
Veterinary Alumni Relations
Cummings Veterinary Fund
Tufts Pet Loss Support Hotline
Continuing Education
Public Relations
41147_27-36.indd 36
508.839.5395
508.839.5395
508.887.4840
860.974.2780
508.668.5454
508.839.7918
508.839.5395
508.839.5302
508.839.7920
508.839.7909
508.839.7902
508.839.7966
508.887.4723
508.839.7910
Website: vet.tufts.edu
If you are interested in learning
more about how you can support
Cummings School of Veterinary
Medicine, contact Ana Alvarado, senior
director of veterinary development and
alumni relations, at 508.839.7905, or
[email protected].
ILLUSTRATION: WARD SCHUMAKER
6/30/14 7:05 PM
“We’re part of the Cummings School family.”
Martin and Linda Haspel have been raising Irish Setters
for more than 40 years. The proud parents of Ruaidri, six,
Deaglan, two, and Aedan, seven (not pictured), the Haspels trust the
Foster Hospital for Small Animals to provide state-of-the-art, compassionate care for their dogs.
Eight years ago, when their dog Brendan was diagnosed with diabetes, their local veterinarian recommended that
they bring Brendan to the Foster Hospital so he could receive the best possible care from world-class internist
Dr. Linda Ross. Fast-forward to today: Martin and Linda continue to bring their loved ones to Cummings for
specialty veterinary care and have become good friends with Dr. Ross and other staff and clinicians there.
Including a bequest for the Cummings School in their estate plans was a “no-brainer,” says Martin. “We want to
continue this legacy of exceptional care. By deciding to leave a percentage of our estate to the school now,
we can commit ourselves to its future, no matter what happens to us.”
If your family is a Cummings family, consider
including the school in your estate plans.
For more information, please contact Tufts’ Gift Planning Office:
888.748.8387 | [email protected] | tufts.edu/giftplanning
www.facebook.com/CharlesTuftsSociety
41147_cov.indd 3
6/24/14 10:24 AM
Cummings School of
Veterinary Medicine
NONPROFIT ORG.
U.S. POSTAGE
PA ID
200 Westboro Road
North Grafton, ma 01536
BOSTON, MA
PERMIT NO. 1161
www.tufts.edu/vet
When Leigh Clayton, V97, director of animal health at the
National Aquarium in Baltimore, needs a break, she goes
animal gazing. The chance to watch how they behave
and learn “brings home to you how smart all animals are,”
she says. Learn more about how Clayton helps care for
the 750 species of fish, birds, amphibians, reptiles and
mammals at the aquarium, many of them rescue patients,
in this five-minute documentary produced by Chris Mattle
and filmed by David Coffey: http://bit.ly/1p6z2mn.
41147_cov.indd 4
TUFTS UNIVERSITY OFFICE OF PUBLICATIONS 8545 07/14
THINK TANK
6/27/14 12:07 PM

CVM_SU14 - News at Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine

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