Joe Tosini knows how to command a room. When he shakes your hand with an iron grip and leans in to stare you in the face, you know right away that whatever it is he’s about to say, he feels it from his temples to his toes.
“I used to be a preacher,” he said to me, and I believe it. He has that ability to grab a group of people. I first watched him do it at an ACES session at the Helen Woodward Animal Center, when he was there to tell a group of animal rescue advocates from around the country about his company, Ark Sciences, and how he wanted to change the world.
His subject now is not religion but unwanted pets, but he brings the same fist-clenching conviction to the topic that one would expect from any passionate believer. “We’re going to change the world,” he says, while talking of the pain he felt travelling all over the world and seeing the suffering resulting from animal overpopulation. The room felt it too.
With no background in animal science to speak of, Joe founded Ark Sciences and assembled a team of veterinarians, scientists and animal experts to move forward with his goal. They acquired the patent for a form of chemical castration, which had languished as Neutersol, and re-vamped the protocol under a new name, Esterilsol.
So what is it, exactly? Zinc Gluconate is a chemical that, when injected into the testicle, kills the spermatozoa and triggers the formation of scar tissue in the seminiferous tubules and rete testis. That is the short-short version. For the complete explanation, check out the thorough FAQ section of the Ark site.
The earlier form of chemical castration, Neutersol, did not succeed for a variety of reasons, be it business, some early adverse reactions, or a skeptical public. The problems with adverse reactions related to injection technique have been addressed; complication rates are about 1% (which is lower than that for the traditional surgical castration.)
It can be done with mild sedation, removing the need for general anesthesia. And it preserves the Leydig cells responsible for producing testosterone, preserving levels at about 50% of what it was pre-neuter. For many owners, sex hormone preservation and the emerging data regarding its impact on health is a major reason to avoid surgical neutering.
Since launching the product, Esterilsol has been approved in Mexico, approved by the FDA for dog castrations in dogs from 3-10 months (though they are expecting to drop the upper limit by the time it hits US markets), and is pending FDA approval of its US manufacturing facility, expected this year.
After extensive usage and approval in Mexico, Joe brought the Esterilsol product back to the US and began approaching humane societies, animal welfare organizations, and veterinary schools about his vision to end euthanasia due to pet overpopulation with this process that is fast, straightforward, and best of all to a cash strapped organization, cheaper than traditional neutering.
The reaction from the animal welfare community has been enthusiastic. That of the veterinary community is a little more cautious.
“Why wouldn’t you want to use this?” Joe asked me one night. “Why wouldn’t a vet want to start using this tomorrow?”
And I paused, and I laughed, because I totally get how my profession works. We have a procedure, and we know how to do it, and it works. We are born skeptics and born arguers. No one wants to be the first adopter of a new technology that ends up going south. We are old and crotchety and set in our ways.
“It’s going to be a while before it becomes widely accepted,” I said. “Everyone’s going to wait and see what happens when someone else does it before they take a risk on their own clients.”
Joe looked at me, and pulled from his folder the journal articles, the FDA statements, the technical papers from the veterinarians participating in the research. “I have all the proof right here,” he said. “What more do you need?”
“Other vets,” I said immediately. It is how we work.
And he told me about the animals he has seen all over the world, and we talked about that a bit. And I told him about those I have seen in South America, in Mexico, in Africa, and here in the States. I get it. I understand his drive to get this off the ground as soon as he can just as much as I get my colleagues looking at a syringe of something they haven’t tried yet and saying, “you first.”
It’s all quite complex and you might have lots of questions, so please, ask away if you haven’t gotten a chance to check out the Ark website. It’s fascinating, and you know what, it’s exciting. I think this is going to be big.
Joe is not one to be easily deterred. They’re working on the vets as we speak; the last time I spoke with the people at Ark, Western had invited them to teach their technique to the vet students there. Joe fixed me with his gaze and said with certainty, “This is going to save lives.” And you know what? He made a believer out of me.
I am very interested to see where this is going to go.
When will something like this be made available for CATS and WHEN can we get it in Greece??? Seriously urgently needed, here. For both cats and dogs, but personally I have a feral cat colony that hangs out just outside my back door, and one of the friendlier cats was in heat last week. So in about 8 weeks I can expect my feral cat colony to roughly double. :- I will be paying out of my pocket to spay the females as quickly as I can – and as quickly as I can manage to trap them without having them rip me apart – but I doubt I can keep up with them and this is just *my* neighborhood. The two neighborhood toms are neighbors’ pets, I think, and if I ever get a chance I’ll get them neutered too, owners’ opinions be damned. >:-|
You know… cat neuters aren’t really all that difficult or invasive. They usually take me about 30 seconds… not a whole lot more effort than the Esterilsol. Dogs, on the other hand, are a different story most of the time. I’m guessing Esterilsol might eventually get approved for kitties, but I’m not sure we need it quite as badly as we do for the dogs in these high volume stray situations. Although, as already pointed out I suspect it will help to make sterilization more culturally acceptable. I’ve done a lot of clinics in Mexico, and a few times I had people ask me whether we couldn’t just perform vasectomies on their animals instead of full-on castrations.
We have approval for cats in Colombia and we have an open file with the FDA in US.
Can you explain more on this: “For many owners, sex hormone preservation and the emerging data regarding its impact on health is a major reason to avoid surgical neutering.” Or point me in the direction of some sites that talk about the impact on health.
That would be a good thing, the Esterilsol. But I really do think a huge part of the pet population problem are people and how irresponsible they can be in regards to their own pets.
I am interested as well. I know that there is concern for spaying or neutering animals under 4 to 6 months of age due to the possible correlation with femoral bone breaks when they are older. But other than that, I am interested to learn the other concerns…
Very interesting! I am wondering as well about preserving testosterone levels. I know the story about neutering helping to calm aggressive tendencies and escape-oriented behavior. I haven’t heard much about the other side of the story.
How wonderful! I know many people, both here and abroad, don’t want to nueter their male dogs becuase it will emasculate them. And then their very masculine dogs go and knock up females. This way, they (both the dogs and owners) can keep their manhood, without the possibility of making more doggies.
I understand the urge to wait a little before introducing something new. I’m thinking here of medications/treatments that were approved for use and introduced, and it wasn’t until months or years later that other side effects were discovered (Vioxx, Fen-Phen on the human side.) Nobody wants to be the first doctor to introduce a new drug to your patients, then find out as more data emerges that you’ve put them at risk. It’s not to say that this isn’t a wonderful procedure- it looks great, and I hope it gets approved, is successful and safe, and becomes widespread. I think there’s just always that urge with anything new to be a little conservative, and stick with stuff where the risks are very well known.
Encourage you to look at the ingredients and know that we have followed dogs for up to 5 years and found no issues. It is hard to follow dogs for so long but here is Cooper going strong after 10 years.
I had the pleasure of seeing Joe speak at lunch at the HWAC ACES seminar last year. I think you were there with the Iams folks Dr. V. He is super engaging and they are doing great things!
I want to know how you’ll know if a strange animal has been given this shot. With the surgery, you can see for yourself that something’s missing. I know with TNR for cats, they tip the ears so you don’t have to handle the cat, but how are people going to know with this shot? You’ll be at the park with your dog, and people will see the still attached mojo and think “What an irresponsible owner.” or someone will be rounding up strays and perform an unnecessary neutering. How are people going to know?
In the video, they showed the featured dog being tattooed after receiving the injections. Tattooing at the time of sterilization would be the way to permanently mark these dogs.
i’m guessing there aer alot of men out there that would consider this over traditional neutering because the dogs get to keep their bits. for some reason, men have a real problem letting go of those doggie bits.
Look, I think this is an awesome way to control populations. But this is NOT castration, it’s just sterilization. By leaving the testosterone-production intact, you don’t have any of the (extremely important) effects of reducing the male secondary sex characteristics (humping, aggression, dominance) or any of the reduction of testicular cancers. And if you’re in an area where transmissible venereal tumors are endemic, this isn’t going to help your male dog avoid catching that TVT.
I think the veterinary community needs to remember that we don’t just do castrations for the sake of population control, there are other positive benefits to the owner and the patient that would be lost with this new protocol.
Does the decrease in humping only pertain to neutered males? I ask because my female was spayed at approximately age 4 (she was rescued so the age is iffy) and yet at age 10 she still humps. I neutered my male only because at the time I thought it was the responsible thing to do but he was never an aggressive dog and never humped either. I know it’s pounded into our heads that it’s responsible and beneficial to their health (esp in terms of testicular cancer) but apparently that’s not the entire story?
Neutering/spaying decreases the sex hormones (obviously,) which then often decreases their desire to hump, but humping is also a dominance behavior.
http://www.petplace.com/dogs/humping/page1.aspx
I know when my (younger, smaller) female dog feels like she is being picked on by my (older, bigger) male dog, she will go crazy with humping her bed. It makes me laugh because she can’t be dominant over her brother, but she can tell her bed who’s boss!
Sometimes I’d like to know what her dog bed did to her since she feels the need to dominate it! She’s an only dog in the household now and she has her strange old lady moments for sure.
Recent research is not as clear cut about the long-term health benefits of eliminating testosterone. Zinc neutering does not eliminate testosterone, it lowers it to about half. You may want to go through this metastudy based on over 50 peer reviewed papers.
http://www.naiaonline.org/pdfs/longtermhealtheffectsofspayneuterindogs.pdf
I can absolutely see the need here in high volume or clinic situations but as a general practitioner I can’t see me using it because most of the reasons I recommend castration have to do with the decrease in testosterone, which wouldn’t happen with this product. Still open to hear more about it though.
The procedure does decrease testosterone levels 41-52%. You may be surprised by some of the emerging findings on behavior change after castration if you look at not only the mating behaviors but the overall dog including fear, anxiety, trainability, etc. Here is one research paper currently being peer reviewed:
http://www.caninesports.com/SNBehaviorBoneDataSnapShot.pdf
As a high volume spay-neuter veterinarian, I see this as incredibly exciting. Being able to do chemical neuters means more time to fit spays onto my docket, and in turn, keep even more unwanted babies from being born. I can also see some private owners who won’t neuter their dogs because you’re taking away his “manhood” or like the look of their dogs’ testicles. I can also see some vets being slow to pick it up, both for the reason above, but also because any surgical procedure is a revenue generator for a practice. However, I think the steep decrease in the amount of time it takes might balance out with the revenue loss.
Wow! I can see this as a huge benefit in so many ways. If you had been able to use this injection when you were on your Amazon Cares trip, imagine how many more animals you could have served and how much easier it would have been given the facility challenges. Thanks so much for this information that I was totally unaware of!
This is amazing. I cringed a little seeing a needle in a testicle (Ouch!) but if this had been a popular thing when I had a male dog, he would have been neutered. Do you know if there’s similar research going into chemical female sterilisation?