(Beth Clifton collage)
Pacheco says he eats them
POMPANO BEACH, Florida––600 Million Stray Dogs Need You founder Alex Pacheco, who also cofounded People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals in 1981, is no longer distributing old photos of himself exchanging banter with soon-to-be-former-U.S. President Donald Trump.
But predictably as Trump’s temper tantrums over losing the presidency to Joe Biden in the November 2020 national election, Pacheco is again this holiday season distributing fundraising appeals, for the tenth consecutive year soliciting donations toward developing “a Spay and Neuter Cookie” that he says “will be able to spay or neuter a stray dog or cat, without surgery!”
“600 Million” founder Alex Pacheco poses with Donald Trump.
(From AlexPacheco.org)
“Spay/Neuter Cookies” & lost causes
Never mind that more than 50 years of scientific research has established that this proposition has no more likelihood of succeeding than any of the 57-plus lawsuits filed by Trump supporters, all of them promptly dismissed by federal and state courts at every level, in futile efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.
Never mind that there is no more evidence of Pacheco spending any money on animal contraceptive research and development, or indeed of having any scientists in his employ, than the courts have found in support of Trump’s claims.
(Beth Clifton collage)
Two million dollars for nothing
Donors have nonetheless entrusted Pacheco with upward of $2 million since 2011, according to the 600 Million Stray Dogs Need You IRS Form 990 filings, on the promise that he might somehow produce a “Spay and Neuter Cookie,” despite his lack of any relevant scientific credentials, any indication of having achieved verifiable results at even the most basic experimental level, any plausible suggestion of how a “Spay and Neuter Cookie” might be made, and indeed, any evidence that Pacheco actually knows how to bake cookies of any sort, regardless of the cookies’ effect on anyone’s gonads.
“We’re incredibly excited about using cutting-edge science,” the 600 Million Dogs Need You 2020 holiday season direct mail appeal declares, offering a link to a “Spay and Neuter Cookie Overview and Update” which appears to be largely identical to those in recent past years, going back at least to 2018.
(See Pseudo-science & the Alex Pacheco “Spay & Neuter” Cookie.)
(Beth Clifton collage)
Ate trial cookies?
This includes the assertion that Pacheco has “eaten trial Cookies” with “no negative side effects.”
That would not be the case if Pacheco had consumed the only animal contraceptive product with which 600 Million Stray Dogs Need You has ever had any verifiable association.
The Arizona rodent control product developer SenesTech in 2006 tested a product based on vinylcyclohexene, called ChemSpay, in dogs, funded by the Alliance for Contraception of Cats & Dogs, but the experiment, which used vinylcyclohexene to destroy ovarian follicles to prevent conception, was unsuccessful.
Cookie seller Alexa Pacheco.
(Beth Clifton collage)
Has not worked with ChemSpay developers since 2011
In December 2010 SenesTech announced that it would be working with Pacheco and 600 Million Stray Dogs Need You to raise funds to try again with ChemSpay.
Mentions of ovarian follicle counts in Pacheco’s 2020 “Spay and Neuter Cookie Overview and Update” imply that Pacheco is still experimenting with the patented ChemSpay approach.
In April 2011, however, SenesTech advised Alliance for Contraception of Cats & Dogs executive director Joyce Briggs that “neither ‘600 Million’ nor Mr. Pacheco have any claim, right, title, license or interest in our ChemSpay product or any other [SenesTech] product.”
Because vinylcyclohexene is an internationally recognized carcinogen, meaning that exposure could potentially cause cancer in humans, ChemSpay would in any event have been extremely difficult to register for use in dogs and cats.
See Alex Pacheco of “600 Million” says he was gunner on a boat with no guns.
(Beth Clifton collage)
The plumbing doesn’t work
Pacheco’s December 19, 2018 “Science Update” opened by asserting that he is “modifying known ingredients such as calcium chloride, zinc, vinylcyclohexene and others so that they (in a single dose) will safely sterilize a stray, without surgery.”
Calcium chloride and zinc are the chief ingredients in several experimental chemosterilants developed by various others over the past 30 years for injection into the testicles of male animals to block the release of sperm.
The various developers, unfortunately, have not been able to consistently avoid extremely painful scrotal swelling in many of the test animals. For this reason, the only zinc or calcium chloride chemosterilants ever actually marketed have been withdrawn, and have not been commercially manufactured since 2014.
Neither calcium chloride nor zinc could be put into a “Spay and Neuter Cookie” to any useful effect because an ingestible product, passing through the gastro-intestinal tract of an animal, could not deliver either calcium chloride, zinc, or any other mineral into the animal’s sperm ducts. The plumbing simply does not run in that direction.
(Beth Clifton collage)
Game developer out of the picture
Pacheco’s 2020 “Spay and Neuter Cookie Overview and Update,” although it now promises that the hypothetical cookies “are being designed to be species- and gender-specific,” omits any specifics as to just what might be put into a “Spay and Neuter Cookie.”
It also omits any mention of one Rayjay Kumar, whom Pacheco introduced as “one of our scientists” on December 22, 2018, about 24 hours after ANIMALS 24-7 first posted Pseudo-science & the Alex Pacheco “Spay & Neuter” Cookie.
Kumar, claiming degrees in electrical engineering and technology commercialization, with no evident background in biology or biochemistry, was according to his LinkedIn page the principal in Riot Shield Games, a one-person online game development company.
(Beth Clifton collage)
Enter star of pseudo-science cop show
For 2020 Pacheco offers a video endorsement from actor David William Duchovny, who from 1993 to 2002 played the role of “Fox Mulder” in the pseudo-science-oriented television cop show series The X-Files.
Duchovny’s most prominent previous association with animal issues appears to be that he stated on the November 16, 2007 episode of Live with Regis and Kelly that he had once been a vegetarian, and still did not consume red meat.
Beth & Merritt Clifton
(See also “600 Million” reasons to toss Alex Pacheco’s alleged spay/neuter cookies, SHARK circles Alex Pacheco & “600 Million Stray Dogs Need You”, Steve Hindi & SHARK up the ante & call Alex Pacheco’s bluff, and Alex Pacheco of “600 Million” says he was gunner on a boat with no guns.)
Please donate to support our work:
https://www.animals24-7.org/donate/
Related Posts
Pseudo-science & the Alex Pacheco “Spay & Neuter” Cookie- No, the wait for a single-shot chemosterilant for cats has not ended
- Waiting for Godot & a good, cheap non-surgical alternative to s/n surgery
- FDA verdict on Mifrepristone upstages more nonsense from Alex Pacheco
- Spay/neuter popcorn? It’s as real as Alex Pacheco’s s/n cookies!
- Alex Pacheco of “600 Million” says he was gunner on a boat with no guns
Sharing to socials with gratitude in the interests of trying to educate others to the facts: these people are NO friends of animals and anyone who cares about animals needs to do their homework before deciding whether or not to give them anything, including verbal support.
Senor Pacheco, diga la verdad, las vidas de los animals depende de ella.
Mr. Pacheco, tell us the truth, for the animals’ lives matter.
It was difficult to read about this ridiculous non-scientific alternative to surgery. Pacheco’ s focus is on money and not on animals. He has never cared about them.
Those of us who do spay and neuter know that surgery is the only sure method to prevent reproduction in animals. Until scientific evidence supports chemical sterilization, surgery is the only viable solution.
David Duchovny also hosted a DVD about pet adoption in the early 2000s titled “Best Friend Forgotten.”
I was told that my childhood cat received “birth control shots” to prevent her from having kittens. Any idea what this actually was?
There has never been a “birth control shot” for female cats approved by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration, nor such a product recommended by the Alliance for Contraception in Cats & Dogs. Depo Provera, an injectable product, was marketed in the U.S. and Europe in the 1960s and 1970s for use in dogs, but as the ACC&D handbook Contraception and Fertility Control in Dogs & Cats explains (available as a free download at https://www.acc-d.org/docs/default-source/Resource-Library-Docs/accd-e-book.pdf?sfvrsn=0), Depo Provera “was very effective in estrous suppression but caused pronounced cystic endometrial hyperplasia in the uterus, resulting in an epidemic of pyometra. This problem resulted in a withdrawal of the product from the market 2 years later, never to appear again for this use.”
There was never a version of Depo Provera made for cats. Megestrol acetate was prescribed for cats, a product using the same active ingredient which was in Ovaban for dogs, but as ACC&D summarizes, “In numerous studies over three decades, this drug, like other progestins, has been found to pose serious health risks in cats, including diabetes mellitus, mammary swelling and tumors, uterine disease, pyometra, and skin disorders. Megestrol acetate is not now, nor has it ever been, approved by the FDA for use in cats.”
Wow…the mystery deepens. I would imagine megestrol was probably what the vet used. I wonder what his motivation was for encouraging this problematic drug.
Thank you for writing this article, Merritt & Beth, and for referencing the scientific resources that the Alliance for Contraception in Cats & Dogs (ACC&D) has available. I wanted to mention that in addition to the handbook noted above, ACC&D has developed Product Profile & Position Papers on pharmaceuticals that are available in at least one country for contraception of cats and/or dogs. We have one that focuses on progestins: https://www.acc-d.org/resource-library/product-profile-position-papers.
I wanted to add, as well, that megestrol acetate has been shown to carry a particular risk of adverse health effects when used at high doses and/or for a long duration. The product could potentially have value for short-term use in emergency situations, like the shut-down of many spay/neuter programs at the start of COVID-19 (during kitten season here in the U.S.!). ACC&D is interested in this potential emergency use, which you can learn about here: https://acc-d.org/research-innovation/covid-19-resources. In looking at potential use for megestrol acetate in very limited circumstances, we of course collaborated with veterinarians and experts from the animal welfare field.