Q:   Hi, I live in South Africa and was wondering if you could help me?

I have heard that there is a new injection which you administer to a cat and it will "sterilize" the cat, have you heard anything about such a drug, I believe it is being developed in the US and think it is a wonderfull idea to assist with the rising Feral populations.

If you are aware of such a drug, plese let me know as I would like to enquire about it. Thank you for your assistance in this matter.

A:   Development is being done in the U.S. on a sterilization drug which could be admistered through food. It would be a real boon to people who are feeding and maintaining feral cat colonies. I used to have a link to an article on the Net about the drug, but the webmaster of that site either closed the site down or moved it to another location, so I don't have the current information.

The drug has not yet been approved for use. I'm sure that when it is, there'll be hoopla such as we've never seen before-- no need to trap the cats to sterilize them by surgery or with a shot.

The injection you are talking about may be the one on this site:

http://www.bcbr.com/may98/gonex2.htm Note that the article was written in 1998, so there is no way of knowing where the approval process is at this point.

Here's another small quote from a website on sterilization in general:
"For male cats, there is a new technology, called "chemical sterilization" that looks very promising. The patented chemical sterilant is named "Neutersol" and is an injectable substance consisting of neutralized zinc arginine. Once injected, Neutersol renders male cats permanently sterile within seven days, with no pain, discomfort, or side effects. Neutersol is already being used successfully outside the United States, but has not yet been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for use in the United States."

Thanks for bringing up this subject. It's an important one, and I intend to research further and write an article on it in the near future.

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