FBR Blog
Easy-to-read articles about animal testing and research.
Animal Research Offers Hope for Pancreatic Cancer Patients Like Senator Harry Reid
Former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid underwent surgery May 14 to excise a tumor from his pancreas, which was discovered during a routine screening. The veteran lawmaker’s surgeons are positive about his prognosis, and he will soon receive chemotherapy...
Animal Testing Offers Hope for Endangered Northern White Rhino
The last male northern white rhino, named Sudan, died on March 20, 2018. He leaves behind two females—both unable to reproduce naturally—along with any hope of saving the species without scientific intervention. Of the six species of rhino, the northern...
Are You Excited for Your Colonoscopy?
In Feb. 2000, President Clinton designated March National Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month. One month later, Katie Couric famously televised her colonoscopy on the Today show to promote screenings for colorectal cancer—the disease to which she had lost...
Stephen Hawking Supported Animal Research
The physicist Stephen W. Hawking died on March 14, 2018 at age 76. A memorable quote from his obituary in The New York Times reads: “Not since Albert Einstein has a scientist so captured the public imagination and endeared himself to tens of millions of...
Ebola: Should We Be Concerned?
“You bleed like a hemophiliac who has been in a fistfight. Your skin develops bruises and goes pulpy, and tears easily, and becomes speckled with purple hemorrhages called petechiae, and erupts in a maculopapular rash that has been likened to tapioca...
Lena Dunham, Dolly Parton, and New Frontiers in Women’s Health Research
By August 2017 the actress and writer Lena Dunham, 31, was fighting pain in her pelvic area that was so severe and unremitting she explained it made her delirious. “It hurts so bad that the human voices around me have become a sort of nonsense Teletubbies...
Did the Common Cold Interfere with Dreams of Olympic Gold?
The 2018 Olympic Winter Games in PyeongChang concluded on Feb. 25 with an elaborate closing ceremony. As athletes, coaches, and staff return home to their respective countries, some are still recovering from illnesses including the common cold. Along with...
Tackling CTE at Super Bowl LII
In 2009, Ann McKee, MD, director of the brain bank at the Bedford Veterans Affairs Medical Center, pulled out a photograph of a tissue sample from the brain of a deceased eighteen-year-old. “I’m not allowed to talk about how he died,” she explained to the...
Smoking during pregnancy: Do you know all the risks?
This week, in honor of National Birth Defects Prevention Month (January), the National Birth Defects Prevention Network has published several warnings against the dangers of smoking during pregnancy. After years of coordinated efforts by lawmakers, public...
Weight-Loss Surgery Myths Dispelled with Animal Research
Last week’s FBR blog examines the growing rates of obesity in pet cats and dogs, as well as interventions reached through animal research that could help curb the epidemic. This post is devoted to the myths surrounding bariatric weight-loss...
About those New Year’s Resolutions…
According to the Association for Pet Obesity Prevention, average house cats should generally weigh between 10 and 12 pounds. However, in the spring of 2012, it was his weight that propelled a two-year-old 39-pound orange tabby named Meow into...
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Jimmy Kimmel’s Son Undergoes Second Surgery to Correct Heart Defect
Seven months ago, Jimmy Kimmel opened his show with an emotional monologue that detailed how his newborn son, Billy, was born with a serious heart condition called tetralogy of Fallot. Talented teams of doctors and healthcare workers at...
Animal research changed my life—and saved my dog!
In my career, I have witnessed first-hand the vital importance of animal research in veterinary medicine and human healthcare. Monday through Friday, I work in a children's research hospital, and on weekends, I work as a licensed veterinary...
Your dog may be the first to know if you have cancer.
In Japan, a handler can train a Labrador Retriever to detect cancer in human urine for $44,000 USD over the course of three years. More than 700 men and women in Tateyama, a small town on the East Asian island’s southern peninsula, have...
Love your mom? Your sister? Your dog? Support Animal Research.
Did you know there are more than a dozen different types of breast cancer? We’re talking differences that are noticeable not just to doctors and cancer researchers, but also to patients. Tumors in most cases form in the milk ducts, and their...
Another year, another Nobel Prize awarded with the help of animal research.
“You are kidding me.” American geneticist and chronobiologist Michael Rosbash, PhD, was surprised to learn he was selected to receive a Nobel Prize this year, along with Jeffrey C. Hall, PhD, and Michael W. Young, PhD, for “their discoveries of...
Animal Research: The Quest to End Childhood Cancers
Statistics offer a powerful, if incomplete, picture of the advances in healthcare that have been made in the treatment of cancers that affect children. The survival rate of patients younger than 18 who have been diagnosed with cancer has climbed...