Recently, a company called “Loyal” received pre-approval status from the FDA regarding their life extension hormone treatment that has show early promise in extending the lifespan of dogs that weigh > 40lbs. Big dogs have extremely high levels of a particular hormone associated with increased cellular aging and the treatment is designed to combat that and apparently shows promise in doing so. From what I understand about the treatment is that it would be chronically administered and thus would require the owner to consistently pay for the medication to continue the life extension benefits.
Considering the typical costs of new treatments that come to market as well as the general expensive nature of the pet health market in general, I’m expecting this treatment to be relatively expensive for the average pet-owner. I’m wondering, from an ethics perspective, if extending the life of your pet is considered a required part of being a responsible pet owner and caring for the health and well-being of our furry friends.
Any thoughts on this?
Link to news from Loyal’s website about their recent pre-approval:
Umm, probably not. If you specified what framework you subscribe to and what you think creates ethical obligations, I could probably answer specifically (but also wouldn’t have to, as you’d already know).
I know of no common ethical belief sets that mandate spending significant sums on animals, especially when the currency of such expenses (time or labor) could be spent on improving or extending human lives.
Just returning to this—Thank you for your comment. I think I need to do a bit more epistemological legwork before I can truly give you a response. Suffice it to say for now that I’m not really torn up about the issue and asked more out of boredom/general curiosity, but I see now that my question was asked lazily.
Perhaps one day soon I’ll comment on this with the relevant context/information.