What Can I Do?
Epilepsy Research Project
The canine epilepsy research project, headed by the University of Minnesota and the University of Missouri, is a collaborative study whose goal is to find the genes responsible for epilepsy in dogs. Once the genes are identified, a DNA marker test can be developed that will help dog breeders produce epilepsy free dogs. This project is supported by grants from the AKC Canine Health Foundation, National Institutes of Health and individual breed clubs.
If you have a dog with epilepsy, consider sending a blood sample to the University of Missouri. Instructions can be found at www.canine-epilepsy.net.
Donations made to AKC Canine Health Foundation will help fund this project. You may specify that your donation is used for epilepsy research.
Research for New Drugs to Treat Canine Epilepsy
Unfortunately, research for new drugs to be used in companion animal veterinary medicine is poorly funded. Most of the funding for drug research comes from the government or pharmaceutical companies. Because the cost of bringing a new drug to market is so high, pharmaceutical companies must be able to recover the cost of research before their exclusive patent runs out. Once the patent runs out other companies can manufacture the drug, without having the overhead associated with bringing a new drug to market.
At present, pharmaceutical companies have chosen not to develop anti seizure medications specifically for dogs, despite the number of dogs affected. Veterinarians resort to testing drugs that have been developed for treating epilepsy in humans to see if they are safe and effective for dogs.
What can you do?
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Contact your government representatives and let them know that you support funding for veterinary research for dogs. |
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Contact representatives of drug companies and tell them that your dog's health is important to you. If they believe that there is a market for a product, they just might invest in the research. |
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Make a donation to the veterinary school of your choice. You can specify that your donation should be used for epilepsy research. |
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Contact various funding agencies and let them know that you support funding of epilepsy research. These agencies include Morris Animal Foundation, AKC Canine Health Foundation, National Institutes of Health, AVMA research foundation, ACVIM research foundation and individual breed clubs. |
The following are links to some of these organizations:
Morris Animal Foundation
http://www.morrisanimalfoundation.org
AKC Canine Health Foundation
www.akcchf.org
National Institutes of Health
http://www.nih.gov/
American Veterinary Medical
Association
http://www.avma.org/
American College of Veterinary Internal
Medicine
http://www.acvim.org/
