< ebola >

[rayheinrich]

cats just got an expensive (though not so much more that past RXs) but worth it antibiotic shot
that lasts 10-14 days.

My sister: Why don't they have that for humans?

That antibiotic is cefovecin. My fierce-pirate-stray-outside-cats have gotten that drug
on occasion (after being captured by an old cast net* of mine) because it's almost lethal
(as evidenced by my past infections) to try to give them a much less expensive pill by
mouth (which I do with my hand-raised inside cats).

Dogs and cats can take a very high dose that takes 10-14 days to decrease to it's
minimum effective dose. That high a dose in humans causes nerve (which the brain
has a lot of) damage. (OK now, no jokes about not being able to notice brain damage
in a cat. They may be stupid about which door is which, but they possess a brain
that can calculate a trajectory with the precision to effortlessly land them on a shelf
with a 4 inch clearance from the ceiling. [Then they fall asleep and roll off of it.] )

More info from wiki (note the Sardinia ref.):

Cefovecin is a third generation broad-spectrum antibiotic of the cephalosporin class.
Cephalosporin compounds were first isolated from cultures of Cephalosporium
acremonium from a sewer in Sardinia in 1948 by Italian scientist Giuseppe Brotzu.

Although high dose cephalosporins have shown neurotoxic, and in some cases
nephrotoxic effects in humans, no adverse effects have been observed after
repeated treatments with up to 7.5 times the recommended dose of cefovecin
in dogs and cats.


*A cast net, also called a throw net, is a net used for fishing. It is a circular net with
small weights distributed around its edge. The net is thrown by hand in such a
manner that it spreads out in a circle before it falls on the water and sinks.
(I was quite good at this when I was a kid; caught dinner many a time.)