pet connection

I’m allergic to cats. There. I’ve admitted it. Now, fact it that hasn’t kept me from enjoying the companionship of cats, going to cat shows, writing about cats and so on, thanks to the miracle of modern allergy and asthma medication. It has kept me from sharing my life with cats for the last few years because of one tiny problem:

My brother Joe.

Joe’s allergies are much, much worst than mine, and a few minutes in a home with a cat in residence can trigger hours of misery for him. Not a problem were it the case that Joe lived on the other side of the country, but in fact my brother is my best friend and we’re in each other’s homes all the time.

Still, it’s a tough choice: Cat-rich life, or best-friend brother? There are days when I think I’ve made the wrong choice, but only when Joe — a high-school teacher and coach — is droning on about softball coaching strategies. (Our rule: I don’t talk about dog shows, and he doesn’t talk about softball. But sometimes we digress into subject areas that make each other’s eyes glaze over.)

The new in recent years that it might be possible to one day have a cat who won’t trigger allergies is thrilling to me, since it means I may one day again be able to have a cat and still welcome my brother into my house.

But despite oodles of mostly uncritical gee-whiz publicity from most media outlets, there have been some interesting articles suggesting that the company promotion hyper-allergenic kittens is one that should be approached with caution. The San Diego Union-Tribune raised the alarm last year, and now, The Scientist does:

The company has been making the rounds of television, magazines, and newspapers advertising their low-allergen cats. Time magazine honored Allerca’s discovery as one of the Best Inventions of 2006. May speaks excitedly about the debut of the first litter, “definitely in the spring of 2007.” By then three or four kittens will be ready for adoption. They are a modest start to satisfying what May says is an “overwhelming” response by people with allergies seeking a cat – despite the one-year wait and $4,000 price tag. “It’s a little pricey,” May says. “However, if you break it down over the years, over 15 years that someone’s been deprived, it’s priceless.”

Theoretically, there could be many “someones.” Cat allergies are some of the most common; in a survey of 10,000 Americans, 17% reacted to a cat-allergen skin test. Fel d 1, which is unique to cats, is responsible for most people’s allergic reactions to cats. Still, little is known about the protein and Allerca’s findings could lend insight into the unknown function of Fel d 1 in cats, says Leslie Lyons, assistant professor at the UC-Davis School of Veterinary Medicine. “We’re interested in pursuing this stuff a little farther,” she says, but “they don’t present enough data to say how they’ve done it.”

Lyons isn’t the only one scratching her head over the lack of peer review of Allerca’s claims. “There’s a lot of skepticism in the academic community about whether or not these cats are hypoallergenic,” says Martin Chapman, a former professor of Medicine and Microbiology at the University of Virginia and the founder of Indoor Biotechnologies, a company that designs allergy tests. “We’ve not come across any documented scientific study that this is a real phenomenon.”

Read the rest. And thanks to fellow writer Cheryl S. Smith for pointing out the story.