Here, kitty kitty

Written byKerry Grens

| 2 min read

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I am waiting for a hypoallergenic cat. Not one to keep, but just one to prove all the skeptics wrong. In the January issue of the The Scientist I wrote an linkurl:article;http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/39383/ about what scientists think of Allerca's hypoallergenic cats. The California company claims to have found and bred the world's first scientifically proven hypoallergenic cat, but most of the scientists I spoke with are dubious of its claims, not to mention the founder has a bit of a criminal past and Allerca continues to find itself in linkurl:trouble.;http://www.bizben.com/blog/posts/223-california-franchises-make-list.php/ The company promised to deliver the first batch of kitties this spring--and with the equinox approaching I emailed the press office to catch up on Allerca's progress. It's been a day and no one has responded, and I have yet to find any news reports of these $4,000 cats making it to their new homes. Yet the company's linkurl:website;http://www.allerca.com/ states that 'Customers who now own GD cats report that they make great family pets and are wonderful with children.' A few other sections of the website caught my eye as I was checking for updates. For one, the nonsense linkurl:data;http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/39381/ Allerca had posted--and which received criticism in my article--are no longer there, and the description of Allerca's screening technology has been modified. Also, though Allerca is only into the third generation of hypoallergenic cats, now just a few years old, the company claims they 'have a long life expectancy.' How do they know? It would be great to prove the skepticism of those in my article wrong. Cat allergies affect millions and many of those people would love to be pet owners; it's no surprise Time and Good Morning America praised Allerca for its work. Several months back I interviewed Allerca's founder Simon Brodie and he said the proof will be in the pets. So again I invite Allerca, as I did several months ago, to show us the proof.

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Meet the Author

Kerry Grens
Kerry served as The Scientist’s news director until 2021. Before joining The Scientist in 2013, she was a stringer for Reuters Health, the senior health and science reporter at WHYY in Philadelphia, and the health and science reporter at New Hampshire Public Radio. Kerry got her start in journalism as a AAAS Mass Media fellow at KUNC in Colorado. She has a master’s in biological sciences from Stanford University and a biology degree from Loyola University Chicago.
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