It was pouring rain the night that Eve Yohalem went to pick up her $6,000 kitten at the airport. She and her husband had been told to wait at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York City, where the cat would be arriving on a cross-country flight from Los Angeles. Finally, late that Friday night in October 2007, a cat carrier came into sight. Inside was the tiniest striped kitten Yohalem had ever seen, which bore little resemblance to the photo she had received months earlier.
Yohalem was one of the first customers ever to receive an as-promised hypoallergenic animal from Allerca, a company that today sells allergy-proof cats and dogs for $7,000 and $9,000, respectively.
Allerca claims it has found cats that carry a natural mutation in the gene encoding the major cat allergen—the glycoprotein Fel d 1, which cats produce through their saliva and skin. By breeding cats ...
