From Mother Jones · Reveal · · 1m 20s
The cat drug black market
A one-eyed kitten named Otto got a death sentence, and a Facebook group had the only cure.
In brief
A one-eyed kitten named Otto got a death sentence, and a Facebook group had the only cure. When a cure exists but the law can't reach it, desperate owners build their own supply chain, and sometimes that pressure changes the rules. Originally reported by Mother Jones.
A criminal moves in
In 2023, Marlena Arjo adopted a one-eyed kitten she named Otto. Over eight months he shredded books, flattened houseplants and tore the calendar off her wall.
“I wasn't prepared for having a criminal in my home”
Then he stopped eating
Within months Otto got sick and quit his food. Arjo rushed him to the vet and came home with a name for it: feline infectious peritonitis, or FIP.
Nearly always fatal
FIP kills almost every cat that catches it. The clinic told Arjo there was nothing they could do for Otto.
The vet's whisper
On the way out, the vet offered something the clinic could not prescribe. Not a treatment plan, a tip about where other owners were buying the drug themselves.
“I shouldn't tell you this. But by the way, you can get drugs for this if you go to this Facebook group.”
A market built by owners
Cat owners ran an international gray-market supply for a medication their vets could not legally hand over. Reveal and the Hyperfixed podcast trace how it worked and why it had to exist.
Fighting to end it
The people running the black market also pushed to make it unnecessary, campaigning for changes that would put the drug in vets' hands legally.
The big picture
When a cure exists but the law can't reach it, desperate owners build their own supply chain, and sometimes that pressure changes the rules.
