Please read carefully and tell me what you think

Quote "In a study of experimentally infected foals" :mad:

I appreciate that medicine has to be tried and tested in as close to life situations as possible, but I do find this incredibly sad that animals and their young are experimented on, resulting in death.

I don't have a viable option and I guess if the outcome was positive, little will change - still saddens me though.

And of course, i'll probably not give it a thought when I next pick up my wormers :o
 
Seems pretty much unnecessary to me...sadly. We desperatly need new wormers, not more evidence that the wormers we have work.
 
I work in research (not with horses, mind). The standard when testing out/comparing treatment is to compare the 'new' treatment with the best, currently available alternative. So for example, if you have a new dementia-slowing drug you categorically DO NOT have a group left with no treatment whatsover; you merely compare the new drug to the widely used treatment it is proposed to replace. Everyone knows it's a horrible thing to leave a problem in any species untreated, and there's nothing to be learned from it. If we're not prepared to leave our own species untreated in research to learn about new treatments, then we shouldn't force it on any other species, especially as they're not given a choice whether to take part or not.
 
The abstract from the first study:

In recent years, numerous veterinary practitioners have reported anecdotal episodes in which anthelmintic treatment did not appear to deliver the expected efficacy against equine pinworms (Oxyuris equi). Anthelmintic resistance has not been demonstrated formally in equine pinworms, so a clinical study was designed to evaluate the efficacy of paste formulations of pyrantel pamoate or ivermectin against naturally acquired infections with O. equi. Twenty-one horses (>4 months to 15 years of age) with patent, naturally acquired pinworm infections were blocked by source of origin and allocated randomly to one of three treatment groups: horses (n = 7) assigned to Group 1 were treated orally with pyrantel pamoate paste at a dosage of 13.2 mg/kg (2× label dosage), Group 2 horses (n = 7) were untreated controls, and horses (n = 7) assigned to Group 3 were treated orally with ivermectin paste at a dosage of 200 μg/kg. Fourteen days after treatment, horses were euthanatized, necropsied, and large intestinal contents were processed for recovery of adult pinworms. In addition, duplicate 1% aliquots of intestinal contents from the cecum, ventral colon, dorsal colon, and small colon were collected, preserved, and examined for recovery and enumeration of fourth-stage larval O. equi. Anthelmintic efficacy against pinworms was evaluated by comparing the post-treatment worm counts of Groups 1 and 3 to those of control animals. Mean numbers of O. equi adults recovered postmortem were significantly decreased by both pyrantel pamoate (P = 0.0366) and ivermectin (P = 0.0137) treatment, with respective efficacies of 91.2% and 96.0%. In addition, both products demonstrated >99% efficacy against fourth-stage O. equi larvae. The current study demonstrated acceptable adulticidal and larvicidal efficacy of both pyrantel pamoate and ivermectin paste formulations against O. equi and did not support the existence of macrocyclic lactone or pyrimidine resistance in the pinworm populations evaluated.

This study.. Yes I agree, not convinced it contributes all that much to what we "know" about wormers. The two sections in italics, - their reasons for conducting the study, and what they actually found, aren't exactly ground breaking. The sample was also rather small to be significant if looking at the potential problem of resistance - anecdotal evidence may still be correct in some areas where resistant strains have developed?
Should the horses have been "euthanatized" and necropsied? I'm sure there were other methods available to establish worm burden post treatment. I', not sure faecal worm egg count would establish adult and lavae numbers however. Perhaps these horses could have simply been cut open under general anaesthetic, had their intestinal contents examined, and then been closed up and looked after for several weeks post-operatively. But I don't think this idea is viable in the world of clinical trials, nor would I choose that as an option for the horses over being PTS in a fast and humane way.
The horses in East Tennessee that were used in the trial: do you honestly think horses that had already naturally acquired significant worm burdens were someone's best buddy, some child's pet, that had by some cruel twist of fate ended up in the hands of the evil scientists?
The researchers probably obtained horses that probably would have ended up as dog food, glue, or going through an auction anyway to some unpleasant fate. These were not $$$$$ horses that were used, I can guarantee! OK, maybe some of them could have had a future, but at the point at which life ceased, they no longer knew that.If the horses had been treated inhumanely, made to suffer, or been knowlingly subjected to horrendous side-effects, perhaps we would have reason to be up in arms, but I don't know enough about the study design (and I'm not paying $31.50 to find out) to be able to say that was or wasn't the case. But I suspect the horses were treated well, up to the point of the deaths.
So while I may question the reliability and validity of the trial, the method doesn't surprise me much. It was also published in a fairly reputable journal in which, I believe, studies are peer reviewed... If it was that abhorrent, this would have been picked up on.
Research happens, in all fields, from medicine, to veterinary medicine, to feed companies, to pharmaceuticals, to farriery. You name it, some bloke with a PhD and probably not alot of friends, has designed a study, and carried it out... :rolleyes::rolleyes:
 
MissSBird said:
Seems pretty much unnecessary to me...sadly. We desperatly need new wormers, not more evidence that the wormers we have work.
Click to expand...

The point the study makes, or rather it's evidence "shows", is that we don't need new wormers for these particular worms, because the anecdotal evidence of resistance has been disproved (in this sample). Hence we should be making better use of the wormers we already have.

Testing efficacy of existing products and their applications is probably more humane than subjecting a new sample (or multiple samples) to initial trials of new, as yet untested, anthelmintics?
 
MissSBird said:
Seems pretty much unnecessary to me...sadly. We desperatly need new wormers, not more evidence that the wormers we have work.
Click to expand...

While I wholeheartedly agree that it would be nice to develop new wormers it's generally thought that it's unlikely we'll get any any time soon - it's something like 20 years since any new wormer compound groups were introduced for horses - so the point here is to try to look after what we do have and use in a sensible way, without over use or unnecessary use - the more we abuse them, the shorter time they'll work before we get more and more resistance.

There have been reports of resistance to all of our current worming groups already and these have to be followed up with investigation - hence the trial work and efficacy is measured as a percentage reduction vs no treatment hence why 1 group not treated (this is common in the animal world - and would only be where the disease doesn't cause pain or suffering during the trial - i suppose when they're treating humans they will have done a lot of the work in the lab/ on animals first anyway)

Unfortunately for wormers and efficacy the only accurate way is to count the worms - surgery to do this could be seen as causing more pain and suffering than euthanasia (and practically wouldn't be easy - you couldn't get to all the intestine easily and it would be very likely some contamination would occur leading to peritonitis etc etc)

So yes not nice that this has to happen, but for us to provide the best care we can it has to and it's very strictly controlled - can't happen unless you get approval from on high and finance which is never easy to get and wouldn't get it at all unless trial very very valid in the opinion of expert reviewers.

Sorry so long - well done if you get this far!!! :o :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top