Public Service Announcement: Severe Combined Immunodeficient Cats Need Home.....

Calling All Cat Lovers! 

The LSUHSC Departmet of Internal Medicine has just completed an exhaustive 6-month research project involving cats with severe combined immunodeficiency syndrome, also known as SCIDS. The hardworking and ethical¹ scientists were able to use the cats as test subjects for a variety of experimental procedures not yet deemed safe for human subjects, thus helping to advance our understanding of the condition a little bit. And now that the testing is completed, the men and women who have worked closely with these frisky felines feel that they deserve a loving home.

Test subjects from projects such as this would typically be disposed of in a humane fashion, but these cats, though severely impaired, would make a loving pet for anyone and were just too cute and cuddly to be autoclaved². However, as they were born without a working immune system, they have necessarily lived their lives encased in a metallic, germ free environment and do have certain special needs. But despite their physical and emotional roadblocks, they love to snuggle as long as the hull of their sterile containment unit is never breached under any circumstances. If this were to occur, they would surely die within a matter of hours as their blood would quickly run rampant with a host of lethal and opportunistic microbial predators.

A complete lack of both T and B cells does not mean that these cats are deficient in fun. In fact, they love to writhe around and stare at an array of toys held safely out of reach, just outside the 3-inch porthole of their containment units. SCIDS may have reduced their humoral and cell-mediated immunity, but not their appetite³! And they love treats just as much as cats that don't immediately erupt in flames if exposed to sunlight. These playful fuzzballs go nuts over the 15 ml of vitamin rich nutrient and tuna solution injected intravenously twice daily. 

But honestly, the best part about owning one of these cats would be the satisfaction of knowing that you are making a difference in their lives⁴. And that difference would be obvious with every purr, if they had a functional larynx. We will truly miss working with these lovable cats, or as we liked to call them, test subjects 3, 8 15 39, 70, and 111.

Thanks in advance,
LSUHSC Severe Combined Immune Deficiency Feline Research Team

¹As determined by a team of ethicists at LSUHSC, the majority of which did not strenuously object to this project or quit in protest when it moved forward.
²Only one batch of cats was autoclaved as it was quickly determined that the cost of cleaning the equipment, and concerns from several staff members over being haunted at night by spectral meowing, was prohibitive.
³The cats are not technically able to eat using their remaining mouth parts, though they do appear to drool a bit when food paste is inserted into their GI tract using sterile plastic tubing.
⁴Though the cats do meet several of the historically accepted criteria for life, we consider them to be more "not dead" than really alive, which we realize might be a bit confusion but you'll see what we mean.