We Love Our Dogs and Cats. But Are They Bad for the Environment?
Research shows that interacting with pets can lower blood pressure. Dogs need walks and playtime, which helps people stay active. And both dogs and cats can form deep bonds with humans. Basically, the enrich our lives.
'There's a whole body of literature supporting that,' said Pieter De Frenne, a bioscience engineer at Ghent University in Belgium.
Yet for all the good, pets come with environmental costs. Cats and dogs eat a lot of meat, for example. They also kill wildlife.
So, how can you get all those tangible and intangible benefits and keep the environmental, um, pawprint, as low as possible? Here's what the experts had to say.
A whole lot of meat
Gregory Okin, a geographer at the University of California, Los Angeles, calculated in a 2017 study that the estimated 163 million cats and dogs in the United States consume a whopping quarter of the country's animal-derived calories.
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Forbes
44 minutes ago
- Forbes
AstraZeneca's CFO On The Company's Bet To Increase Its U.S. Business
President Donald Trump has not shied away from making demands of private industry, and he formalized one of them last week. On Thursday, he sent letters to 17 pharmaceutical companies, demanding that they lower prices for U.S. customers. The letters are in keeping with the 'Most-Favored Nation' executive order Trump signed in May, aiming to align U.S. drug prices with those for other developed countries. Responses have varied. Pfizer said it's working with the Trump Administration and Congress on solutions to increase access and affordability for Americans. The trade group Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America said that importing foreign drug price controls to the United States would 'undermine American leadership,' and suggested that policymakers instead rein in the 'health care middlemen' who add complexity to the system and further drive up prices. But before these letters were sent, one of the world's largest drugmakers had already announced its intent to lower U.S. prices. AstraZeneca, the British pharmaceutical giant that makes key treatment drugs for cancer, cardiovascular health and respiratory conditions, had already announced serious efforts to reduce U.S. prices. On the company's Q2 earnings call last Tuesday, CEO Pascal Soriot said that they believe a 'rebalancing of pricing around the world is necessary. The U.S. can no longer pay for the R&D of the world.' In an interview after the earnings report, CFO Aradhana Sarin told me that while this is a complicated situation, AstraZeneca planned on increasing and improving its U.S. business, even before Trump's second term was guaranteed. Last year, the company announced a goal to deliver $80 billion in annual revenue by 2030—up from $45.8 billion in 2023—with half of that coming from the U.S. And that's through new business, not increasing prices on Americans. Drug prices here, she said, are determined through a complicated system. 'If you're familiar with the US healthcare system, there's a lot of money that goes in between,' Sarin told me. 'People think of pharma companies benefiting from that, but that's often not the case.' Today's edition of Forbes CFO focuses on Sarin, her nontraditional path to becoming CFO of a major pharmaceutical company, and how she's leading the company on a strategy intended to both encourage business growth and increase ties to the U.S. This is the published version of Forbes' CFO newsletter, which offers the latest news for chief finance officers and other leaders focused on the budget. Sign up here to get it delivered to your inbox every Tuesday. A NONTRADITIONAL PATH Most CFOs have deep backgrounds in business and finance, which Sarin has. She earned an MBA from Stanford University and has worked in the investment banking space for more than two decades. She moved to working in corporate strategy for Alexion Pharmaceuticals in 2017, becoming its CFO in 2019, and became AstraZeneca's CFO when it acquired Alexion in 2021. But prior to all of that, Sarin had been a medical doctor in India and Tanzania. 'Learning medicine was a lot of fun, but practicing was not the same,' she said. 'And I felt like I could do much more going broader into business.' Hands-on experience in how the medical field works has given Sarin important insight into the science behind drug development. AstraZeneca spends about $14 billion on R&D annually, she said, and the drug development cycle is long. It's not unusual for a drug to take eight to 10 years to get through the regulatory pipeline. And the entire process is fraught with risks. It's hard to know which potential products will end up being successful. AstraZeneca CFO Aradhana Sarin. AstraZeneca 'The background helps in making the judgment and the risk assessment of where you want to put that type of R&D money behind the highest probability of success assets, knowing that you are still taking risks,' she said. Knowing the pharmaceutical market from the patient care side also helps to make business decisions, Sarin said. Understanding the unmet need a drug can solve—as well as who the target patient is, how they will get the drug and how they will pay for it—informs the corporate process. 'It makes a huge difference when you think of it from the lens of a clinician and say, 'Okay, as a physician, how would you treat this patient?'' she said. INVESTMENT AND OPPORTUNITY AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot announces the company's planned $50 billion investment in the U.S. at an event in Washington, D.C. last month, as Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin and AstraZeneca executive vice president for global operations Pam Cheng look on. Al Drago © 2025 Bloomberg Finance LP AstraZeneca's big U.S. push looks like something that many international companies are pursuing today, both to escape new impending Trump tariffs and to appease the president. Sarin said that isn't the case for AstraZeneca, which announced its plan to expand its U.S. business last spring. Last month, AstraZeneca made another announcement deepening its commitment to the U.S. It will invest $50 billion in U.S. facilities for R&D and manufacturing by 2030. But, Sarin said, this announcement had little to do with Trump. 'For us, it was a business decision,' she said. 'We didn't rush to make any announcements as some of our peers did several months back.' The most significant portion of the investment, a manufacturing facility in Virginia that will make drug substances for its metabolic and weight management portfolio, will represent AstraZeneca's largest single manufacturing investment in the world. Sarin said that the deal materialized quickly. AstraZeneca had a clear vision for what they wanted to build and was looking at sites in several states. But Virginia had its eyes on the prize. Sarin said there were just 33 days from their first conversation with the state to the facility announcement. AstraZeneca tends to move quickly in negotiations, she said, but governments often do not. However, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin was an investment banker before he came to government, and Sarin noted the state's current economic development office is structured more like one in the private sector, with analysts and economists looking for the best opportunities and seizing on them. 'Bringing what you see often on the private side and on the business side—that type of working-style agility, get-it-done type of agenda and objectives to do this—I think made a big difference.' The exact location and timeline for this facility construction have not yet been announced. The other areas where AstraZeneca plans to invest include expanding its R&D facility in Gaithersburg, Maryland; an R&D center in Cambridge, Massachusetts; manufacturing facilities for cell therapy in Rockville, Maryland and Tarzana, California; and expanding manufacturing facilities in Mount Vernon, Indiana and Coppell, Texas. EXPANSION PROGRESS A person walks by the sign at the AstraZeneca facility in Gaithersburg, Maryland. Graeme Sloan © 2024 Bloomberg Finance LP AstraZeneca is making progress with its goals to expand its business, both overall and in the U.S. In its earnings last week representing the first half of 2025, the company reported more than $28 billion in revenues, an increase of 11% above 2024. The U.S. represents about 43% of that total. To focus more on the U.S., Sarin said AstraZeneca had already decided to shift more of its operations here. 'We have been deliberate on research. Not just labs—which we do have plenty of labs as well, but also clinical trials,' Sarin said. 'There's been a big investment to make sure.' AstraZeneca currently strives to do at least 10%, if not more, of all clinical trials in the U.S., she said. It represents a new tack; more of the trials used to take place in Europe. However, increased reach into the U.S. isn't the only place where AstraZeneca is seeing growth. In its results last week, the company saw expansion across the board. Cancer drugs represented 44% of its earnings. Respiratory and immunology drugs saw 15% growth in the quarter, and Sarin remarked that many of those have only been on the market a few years, so there is a lot of runway for more growth. There's more in AstraZeneca's R&D pipeline, Sarin said, but there's also bound to be growth as some of the company's newer drugs are found to be effective in treating other conditions. STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP The degree of expertise that Sarin has in the business of the company she works at is rare, but she said that any CFO can become a true strategic partner. It takes time to devote to learning about the industry and its ins and outs, and CFOs now have a powerful opportunity to use their expertise—both about finances and industry—to shape what a company does going forward. Sarin says she sees herself as a transformational leader, which all CFOs should be. CFOs will remain central to company strategy, she said, because they control the money—which touches everything the company does. No amount of technology, AI platform or change to the structure of business can shake the CFO's importance. 'The CFO would be very much a transformation driver because businesses will still be about money or how money flows,' she said. COMINGS + GOINGS Packaging provider Sealed Air named Kristen Actis-Grande as its new chief financial officer, effective August 25. Actis-Grande joins from MSC Industrial Supply Co., where she worked as executive vice president and chief financial officer. named as its new chief financial officer, effective August 25. Actis-Grande joins from MSC Industrial Supply Co., where she worked as executive vice president and chief financial officer. Shipping solutions company Pitney Bowes appointed Paul Evans as EVP, chief financial officer and treasurer, effective July 29. Evans most recently worked as chief operating officer at America's Auto Auction Group, and is replacing Robert Gold. appointed as EVP, chief financial officer and treasurer, effective July 29. Evans most recently worked as chief operating officer at America's Auto Auction Group, and is replacing Robert Gold. Nuclear technology firm BWX Technologies promoted Mike Fitzgerald to its chief financial officer role. Fitzgerald, who had been interim CFO since May 12, was previously the vice president for finance and chief accounting officer at BWXT. STRATEGIES + ADVICE ChatGPT can give you prime advice on how to improve your strategy, but you need to use it the right way: Consult it like a cofounder, not a search engine. A highly motivated workforce can improve your productivity, but it needs the right incentives and recognition. Here are some tips to determine the best ways to motivate your team to perform its best. QUIZ Last week, a second company achieved a valuation of more than $4 trillion, though its current value is below that mark. Which company was it? A. Apple B. Amazon C. Google D. Microsoft See if you got the right answer here.
Medscape
an hour ago
- Medscape
Younger Adult CRC Still Rising: Time for That Colonoscopy?
This transcript has been edited for clarity. Welcome to Impact Factor , your weekly dose of commentary on a new medical study. I'm Dr F. Perry Wilson from the Yale School of Medicine. I am 45 years old. And I have been 45 years old for 8 months now. And I'm a doctor. A doctor who prides himself on being up to date on medical guidelines, practices, and evidence. And you know what I have not done yet? Not even made an attempt to do yet? Scheduled my screening colonoscopy. Let me be clear, this is not out of some high-minded concern for overdiagnosis or the issue of false positives in screening exams. This is pure, unadulterated, laziness. Or perhaps, if I'm being generous, I simply have too many other things going on in my life to take the 20 minutes to get this thing scheduled. I probably should, because the rate of colorectal cancer among people ages 45-49 has been going up steadily since at least the mid-90s and dramatically over the last few years. We need to figure out what's going on. We're going to dig into the rising incidence of so-called 'early onset' colon cancer in a minute, but let me point out that, in recognition of the changing demographics of the disease, the United States Preventive Services Task Force (yes, that same USPSTF that may soon be fired en masse by RFK Jr) changed their recommended starting screening age from 50 to 45 years of age in 2021. With a stroke of a pen, 45 million Americans were suddenly eligible for colon cancer screening, typically through colonoscopy or a fecal immunochemical test: that's the one you do at home that lets you know if there is microscopic blood in your stool. And now, 4 years later, we can look back and see the effect that change in screening criteria had. In fact, appearing this week in JAMA, we have a trio of papers looking at the issue of early-onset colorectal cancer from a few different angles: How to get younger people like me to screen, how much younger people like me are screening, and how much new colon cancer we are detecting. Let's start with the screening numbers. In Trends in Colorectal Cancer Screening in US Adults Aged 45 to 49 Years, Jessica Star at the American Cancer Society and colleagues used a nationally-representative health survey to look at screening across various age groups and over time. The primary results are here. You can see that screening is pretty rare among 40–44-year-olds and hasn't changed much over time. That seems right; guidelines currently suggest to start screening at 45, not 40. Moving into my age group, you see a dramatic increase from about 20% screening in 2019 and 2021 to 35% screening in 2023. This is about a 60% relative increase in baseline screening rates. It's not perfect, of course. People like me who haven't gotten around to screening yet are still in the majority, but it shows how guideline changes can move the needle on this stuff. Of course, it's worth noting that the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) mandates that insurers cover any screening test recommended by the USPSTF. Paying for screening also increases screening. One concern people had about the change in guidelines was that all this new screening in younger people would crowd out screening in older people. The data, fortunately, doesn't show this. Screening rates were high and stable in the over 50 crowd over the past 5 years. If you're a believer in screening, you probably want to know how to improve rates among younger people like me. In another article in this week's JAMA , researchers led by Artin Galoosian at UCLA report out results from a randomized trial that tried four different strategies to increase the screening rate in people aged 45-49. A bit more than 20,000 individuals were randomized. A quarter of them were invited, via an online patient portal, to use the fecal immunochemical test (FIT) for screening. Another quarter were invited to do a screening colonoscopy. A quarter were invited to do either; they could choose which they preferred. And, finally, a quarter were simply mailed a FIT. Of the people invited to do FIT testing, 18% got some kind of screening, mostly colonoscopy. Of those invited to colonoscopy, 15% were screened. Of those given the choice between the two, 18% picked one or the other. But in those who just had the test show up in the mail, 28% completed screening. This is pretty powerful data. It confirms a fundamental principle of behavioral economics: People will do something if you make it easy for them. Anecdotally, if I opened the mail tomorrow and a FIT test was in there, I'm pretty sure I would do it. Since that isn't standard of care (yet), I need to call my PCP (who I haven't seen in like 5 years) and go through the rigamarole. But I'll do it. I will. I think. Now, I opened this commentary by mentioning that all of this research is driven by the simple observation that colorectal cancer rates are increasing in young people. A third paper in JAMA this week, Colorectal Cancer Incidence in US Adults After Recommendations for Earlier Screening, from Elizabeth Schafer and colleagues at the American Cancer Society, tracks those rates for us from 2006 on using the SEER database. There are some really interesting findings here. Let me start with this picture, the rate of any colon cancer diagnosis in individuals aged 45-49. You see a steady uptick, about 1% per year from 2006 on, and then a dramatic increase (about 12%) in the past few years. That's a scary graph. But I'll de-scare it a bit for you. Here is the graph for local colorectal cancer over that time period. These are early cancers that have not yet spread. It looks very similar. In fact, according to the paper, nearly all of that accelerated increase in the past few years is driven by early, local cancers. That is a strong signal that it is the increased screening that is leading to increased diagnosis, as opposed to some new environmental or other exposure. And, since early cancers are more treatable, we can potentially argue that this increase is actually a good thing. Better to detect now than later. But the rise in [colorectal cancer] in young people is not all due to screening. Here is the graph showing the rate of colorectal cancer with distant metastases over time. You see a steady increase — no big inflection that we can attribute to more screening. Nor would you expect there to be, as screening is really optimized to catch early cancers, not metastatic ones. Bottom line: If you hear headlines about a startling rise in colorectal cancer in young people, realize that there is nuance here. Yes, there has been a dramatic rise in the last few years, mostly because we are catching early cancers through screening. But there has also been a slower rise over a much longer time period. Over decades. Which leaves the question of… why? Why is colon cancer affecting younger and younger people over time? What has changed in our lives during the past 30 years? There is no smoking gun, but there are an awful lot of possibilities. I think the obesity epidemic is a big one here, and it will be interesting to see if these curves flatten in the GLP-1 era. But there are other possibilities: microbiome changes, ultraprocessed foods, even microplastics. It will take a bit more detailed epidemiology to get to the bottom of the increased risk in younger people. But, given the data, well, I should probably call my PCP and get that damn colonoscopy scheduled.
Washington Post
an hour ago
- Washington Post
What to know about Legionnaires' disease, which has sickened dozens in New York City
An outbreak of Legionnaires' disease in New York City has killed two people and sickened 58 since late July. City health officials link the Central Harlem outbreak to cooling towers , structures containing water and a fan that are used to cool buildings. They said 11 of these towers initially tested positive for a type of bacteria that causes Legionnaires' disease , but the problem has been remedied.
