Slashdot Mirror
Hypo-Allergenic Cats Now Available for Pre-Order
humuhumunukunukuapu' writes "Allerca Inc is now taking reservations for genetically engineered hypo-allergenic cats, which it calls 'lifestyle pets'... and apparently they are just the beginning... Read the press release here... and you can take delivery of a cuddy non-sinus bothering bundle of joy for just $3500. 'The hypoallergenic cats produced by ALLERCA will allow consumers to enjoy the love and companionship of a pet without the cost, inconvenience, risk, and limited effectiveness of current allergy treatments. Clients will take delivery of the first ALLERCA kittens in 2007. The hypoallergenic cat is the first of a planned series of lifestyle pets that ALLERCA will develop over the next few years.' Meow!"
One word for you: Monsanto
They prosecute people who illegally grow their GE corn/etc.
I'm sure the same applies.
Hell, last time I bought a rose bush for my lady it had a warning on it that it was illegal to propigate without permissions.
Please send all UCE to scally@devolution.com so I can f
However, like the old saying "One person's meat is another person's poison", I believe there is a reason for such allergy symptoms (maybe telling your body to get away from that bleeming cat?), and without this warning, I wonder if the still-allergic-to-cat person will suffer from far worse sickness because one of the cat allergens wasn't identified and removed?
An allergy, by definition, is an inappropriate immune reaction to a harmless substance. The only thing an allergic reaction is telling you is that your immune system screwed up. Again.
"They redundantly repeated themselves over and over again incessantly without end ad infinitum" -- ibid.
" I can make my cat like that with a shaver..."
r gy.htm
It's not really the animals hair/fur that is the most significant allergen, but rather their *dander*. (Dander is flakes of dead skin). Their saliva and urine can also cause an allergic reaction.
http://www.theallergyreliefcenter.com/animal_alle
From their site:
A glycoprotein, Fel d 1, secreted by the sebaceous glands, is the major cat allergen. This allergen is found in the fur, pelt, saliva, serum, urine, mucous, salivary glands, and hair roots of the cat.
Allerca cats will only lack one of the potential cat allergens... potentially deadly for people allergic to other proteins secreted by the cats. In addition, the gene silencing technique (I assume they refer to RNAi perhaps using siRNAs) cannot be guaranteed 100% effective--all it takes is one mutation.... More info about RNAi here and here.
However, as someone with moderately severe cat allergies, this is definitely a start.
--- "Many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view." ~ Ben Kenobi, 'Return of the Jedi'
Probably. You buy any pure bred cat nowaday you have to sign an agreement that you will have the cat neutered/spayed at the earliest opportunity.
Pure bred cat breeders don't want you to breed their cats any more than these guys do.
Life is like a web application. Sometime you need cookies just to get by.
Yeah, I'm not buying it. Digging back, we find that Allerca claims to be owned by Geneticas. If we check out the other "companies" under that umbrella, we'll find Genequus, who claim to do horse cell banking and cloning. Yes, that's right. They'll sell you a clone of your horse for $100k. Discounts for 10 or more.
Another one, LifeARK, claims to be doing cell banking for endangered animals. They want donations, and they accept them through PayPal. Don't think so. A large company that was doing such work wouldn't deal with PayPal's onerous agreement and high fees. Especially not if their other divisions were dealing with large sums of money already.
ForeverPet does cell banking for companion pets. But they can't yet clone them. But another division can clone horses? Yeah, right.
"The details of my life are quite inconsequential..."
It's not all about dander. Many of us have no problem with the dander but are allergic to the saliva, which--due to their grooming habits--is all over their fur. My doc says people who don't seem to be allergic to dogs but are allergic to cats are almost certainly reacting to the allergen in the saliva rather than the dander or the fur.
The term 'hypoallergenic' is not meaningful in any scientific sense whatsoever.
The FDA states that "There are no federal standards or definitions that govern the use of the term 'hypoallergenic'." Back in 1973, they tried to establish definitions for the use of the term hypoallergenic, but the regulation was overturned in court.
A little bit of googling returns this
It's a nonsense marketing claim, with no scientific standard or basis. People can be allergic to anything... even themselves.
---
the pen is mightier than the sword, the sword is mightier than the court, the court is mightier than the pen.
Wrong. The immune system is a very powerful system in our bodies that is simply designed to identify nasty pathogens in our body, and kill them with extreme prejudice. Now an allergy is simply an inappropriate reaction by the immune system something that is present in the environment but is not actually a risk to us, like pollen and food. Basically through some process that is not well understood the immune system was supposed to learn that these things are not a threat and should be ignored, except they often are not. Even more extreme example of the immune system making a complete balls up is autoimmune diseases like type 1 diabetes and ms, where the immune system gets so wayward it actually attacks the body itself and kills off some important component, for example the cells that make insulin.
if you look at the crap you have to agree to it says that the $250.00 deposit is non-refundable whether or not they ever produce or deliver a cat. with that kind of agreement i wouldn't reserve one until i saw one with my own eyes.
ummm, I was born via a c-section and was not breastfed (strikes 1 and 2 against developing a good immune system) and I have absolutely 0 allergies (pets or food) and have never had any sort of throat/lung problems (knock on wood), there goes the c-section theory.
BTW, I am originally from Europe, and it seems allergies are WAY more common here in North America (I don't think I've ever *met* a person allergic to something before moving here, where I'd say 20-30% of the people I know have an allergy of some kind, most of the time to cats but often to peanuts/eggs).
-- the cake is a lie
'Fraid not. Comparing the amount of the population in a city with relatively low pollution like, say, Stockholm (Sweden), with a relatively dirty one, say, Krakow (Poland), you'd expect the number of allergies to be far higher in the more polluted city. This turns out not true. Allergies are much more common in the modern "Western world" than in, for instance, the old "East block". And this even though there is a much higher percentage of coal used in heating homes, industry pollution levels are higher, and cars are generally older and typically generate worse exhaust. Just stating pollution as a factor doesn't make sense.
What is reasonably clear from a research perspective, however, is that growing up in a spotlessly clean environment makes you MORE susceptible to allergies. It seems better to be subjected to (a reasonable amount of) "filth" than to none at all. Unless, of course, you DO develop an allergy - in which case spotlessness is more or less your only option.
What I would personally like to see, is more research focused on this simple fact - what factors are different between the "richer" and the "poorer" societies - is it the chemicals we use to clean our homes? Or could there be some correlation with the kind of food we tend to consume?
I just think there's a lot we don't know here...