The NY Times recently published a nice article on how our pets are sensitive to the same pollutants in the environment as humans, and can act as early warning systems or sentinels. This is because they respond faster and are more sensitive than humans to many pollutants - whether in the air (air pollution), in household dust, water, or on the ground and lawns.
Since they live shorter lives than us, negative effects, such as cancers, show up faster in pets than in humans. For example, they get the same cancers as us from lawn pesticides us, but years faster. A recent study found that on days with an increase in air pollution (from fine particulate matter) pet dogs and cats significantly increase veterinary visits.
Do go read the whole article. Excerpts from NY Times: In a Toxic World, Pets Could Be Vital Health Watchdogs
On a frigid February night in 2023, a freight train carrying toxic chemicals derailed in East Palestine, Ohio. For days, the train’s hazardous contents spilled into the surrounding soil, water and air. It was an environmental and public health catastrophe, and efforts are underway to monitor the long-term health effects on the people of East Palestine.
But one team of scientists is focused on a different group of local residents: the dogs. After the derailment, the researchers recruited dog owners in and around East Palestine, asking them to attach chemical-absorbing silicone tags to their pets’ collars.
The preliminary results, which have not yet been published, suggest that dogs living closest to the crash site were exposed to unusually high levels of certain chemicals. The researchers are now analyzing blood samples from the dogs to determine whether the chemicals may have triggered genetic changes associated with cancer.
Our pets breathe the same air, drink the same water and often sleep in the same beds that we do. And yet, there is relatively little research on how environmental toxins and pollutants affect our animal companions.
That is an enormous missed opportunity, experts said. Our pets, they argued, are ideally situated to act as environmental health sentinels, helping scientists identify hazards that transcend species barriers. Understanding more about how pollution affects pets could ultimately yield insights that improve both animal and human health.
Last week, Dr. Jarvis, now an assistant professor at the London School of Economics, published a paper ... He and his colleagues reviewed five years of veterinary data from across Britain, alongside data on the levels of airborne fine particulate matter, which is one of the main pollutants in wildfire smoke and a well-known human health hazard.
When air pollution rose, so did the number of veterinary visits for cats and dogs, the researchers found.
Smoke inhalation can cause an array of respiratory problems in animals, including coughing and shortness of breath. Studies have also begun to link wildfire smoke to other health consequences, including eye infections and cellular stress in dogs and heart problems and blood clots in cats.
Birds are especially vulnerable because they are highly efficient breathers, extracting more oxygen from the air than mammals do. Unfortunately, Dr. Sanderfoot said, that means that they are also “processing higher concentrations of all of the nasty stuff” in polluted air. “They are more sensitive overall to air pollution than we are.”
Cats and dogs, which tend to spend a lot of time on or near the ground, could be at elevated risk from other chemical contaminants. Compared to humans, they may have more exposure to cancer-causing chemicals used in lawn care or the heavy metals, like lead, that tend to accumulate in household dust.
In 2014, when lead began leaching into the drinking water in Flint, Mich., there was reason to believe that pets were especially vulnerable. Unlike people, pets usually “subsist wholly” on tap water, said John Buchweitz, a veterinary toxicologist at Michigan State University.
After Dr. Buchweitz and his colleagues set up lead-screening clinics for local dogs, they found several animals whose results were of “extreme concern,” including three Australian shepherds all living in the same household. The dogs had been losing weight and behaving strangely, and all three had elevated lead levels in their blood.
Dr. Buchweitz was alarmed; he knew that the family living there also had young children. “I personally reached out, contacted the health department, and said ‘This house needs to be investigated,’” he recalled. Officials subsequently found that the drinking water at the home contained enough lead to pose a clear danger to both people and animals.