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Why aren’t there more dogs at the doctor’s office?
- Buttons840 5y agoSomeone once said that dog's noses are the closest thing we have to Star Trek tricorders. In Star Trek a tricorder is a handheld sensor that can seemingly detect anything in any situation, and as a Star Trek fan this description has always stuck with me. Perhaps one day we'll master electronic noses, but until then, dogs seem under utilized. If anyone's looking for a high difficulty, high impact way of changing the world, look at electronic noses. Human smell is also under utilized. I had a friend with a severe peanut allergy who could enter a house and immediately tell if there were peanuts in the house. Presumably most people possess such senses, but have no reason to use them.
- amelius 5y agoIt's kind of strange that the first sensor that evolution built is the last sensor to be implemented in electronics (if ever).
- Angostura 5y agoChemistry and electronics are difficult bedfellows. The other senses can be emulated quite nicely in pure electronics
- bobthepanda 5y agoAlso, a lot of times we may not even know what to look for. The woman who could smell Parkinson's inspired a new path of diagnosis research: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/03/23/820274501/her-incredible-sense-of-smell-is-helping-scientists-find-new-ways-to-diagnose-di https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/03/23/8202745...
- nhoughto 5y agointeresting to think about the amount of 'information' that is present in an environment (like smells) that we aren't privy too and don't understand. Its easy to assume it doesn't exist and then be surprised when a trained dog knows someone is sick immediately. The information (in the form of chemicals etc) is there we just can't sense it via machine or otherwise, puts the idea of technological superiority into perspective.
- cwkoss 5y agoI'd imagine single-purpose electronic noses would be a much more tractable problem than general purpose ones. GCMS could be argued to be a generable purpose 'electronic nose' in many ways, but just isn't portable enough to throw on a smartphone.
- sidpatil 5y ago> I'd imagine single-purpose electronic noses would be a much more tractable problem than general purpose ones. We already have those, to a very limited extent: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_detector https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_detector
- mjevans 5y agoA 'mass spectrometer' might be fairly close to a technological nose. I've not seen many of them though, so I imagine they're rather inefficient compared to noses.
- dillondoyle 5y agoBut even if they are accurate and sensitive, how can we avoid the bias of humans? The one link I see repeated on Reddit (drugs) is a paper that iirc showed over 50% were human alerts https://health.ucdavis.edu/welcome/features/2010-2011/02/20110223_drug_dogs.html https://health.ucdavis.edu/welcome/features/2010-2011/02/201...
- yaur 5y agoMy aunt has a seeing eye dog that has led her in to traffic 0 times. My dogs reliably find game birds and ignore non-game birds in the same cover. The trick is to not put them into situation where pleasing their handler is at odds with the job they are tasked with.
- hellotomyrars 5y agoI think the primary issue with drug sniffing dogs is that the handlers aren’t inclined to care about the veracity of the result and would probably prefer the dog to trigger a positive result because it gives them a free pass on probable cause. The dog is likely rewarded regardless as well which is why you get high profile cases of dogs that alert 90+% of the time. They were literally trained to do it. The same thing can’t necessarily be said for cancer detection. There isn’t a strong motivation to skew the results by the handlers and presumably any positive response would entail further diagnostic testing. I suppose cynically you could apply the same logic so that medical providers can justify the use of more expensive diagnostic testing but I’d like to think it’s not quite that bad.
- codr7 5y agoNot sure I like where this is going, now I'm imagining dogs patrolling public areas and tagging random people for mandatory Covid quarantine. Not being able to smoke a joint before crossing a border without risking harassment was bad enough.
- slowmovintarget 5y agoThis is about using dogs to help with diagnosis. Anything the medical staff would learn from the dogs would still be covered under doctor-patient confidentiality. Training dogs to help could provide cheaper, more accurate tests that are less invasive and less painful for patients. This has nothing to do with "hassling" you. I'd be more concerned with the ethics of using dogs for COVID-19 detection given that dogs are susceptible to SARS-CoV-2 infection.
- codr7 5y ago
- kadoban 5y agoIf we can accurately pick out which people are contagious with Covid, should they not be forced to quarantine?
- mwint 5y agoNo, they shouldn’t at this point. Especially in areas where everyone who wants to is vaccinated. Government-forced quarantine was only valid - if ever - at the beginnings of a disease where little was know. It’s not valid when we know the disease poses minimal threat to the majority of the population, and only slightly above minimal to a minority.
- jedberg 5y ago> Especially in areas where everyone who wants to is vaccinated. Right now that is nowhere in the world, because kids under 5 still can't get vaccinated.
- ogwh 5y agoAllergies.
- jjcon 5y agoAnswer: Dogs kill 25 thousand people a year - they are not safe and people are allergic. Edit: It isn’t rabies that makes them unsafe - just in the USA about 4.5 million Americans are attacked by dogs every year resulting in thousands of hospitalizations. https://www.wemjournal.org/article/S1080-6032(09)70079-1/fulltext https://www.wemjournal.org/article/S1080-6032(09)70079-1/ful...
- Etheryte 5y agoThis is highly misleading without context. Humans kill roughly 475,000 humans every year [0]. Should we avoid having humans at the doctor's office? [0] https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/the-animals-that-kill-most-humans.html https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/the-animals-that-kill-mo...
- patall 5y agoWhat is so misleading about that number? That's 8 times 9/11, every year! Your comment is whataboutism.
- tick_tock_tick 5y agoWhat kind of take is this? You need to interact with humans.....
- jjcon 5y agoSo if something kills less than 475k people we should consider it safe? What kind of reasoning is that?
- petee 5y agoI think thats a fantastic idea +1
- themgt 5y agoWell, the chance that your doctor would intentionally murder you is likely higher than the chance your doctor would be using a rabid feral dog from a 3rd world country, which are responsible for nearly all of the "kill 25 thousand people a year" you cited.
- kayodelycaon 5y agoLong story short, dogs aren’t reliable enough to be medical devices. The whole “police dog” comparison is completely misleading. Drugs dogs are hilariously unreliable and are explicitly used by some departments solely to create probable cause. And with SAR dogs, they don’t need to be reliable at tracking as long as they are better than humans.
- Ariarule 5y agoThe article gives _good_ sensitivity and specificity numbers for dogs, under appropriate conditions.
- sidewndr46 5y agoOn the contrary, they are 100% reliable. They always detect drugs when they are present. They also detect drugs when they aren't present. But hey, probable cause is just a pesky constitutional law concept anyways.
- mmh0000 5y agoHere, have some free citations. This is something which I believe everyone should be aware of: "Drugs dogs are hilariously unreliable and are explicitly used by some departments solely to create probable cause."[0][1][2] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_v._Harris https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_v._Harris [1] https://www.utahcriminallaw.net/drug-sniffer-dog-false-positive/ https://www.utahcriminallaw.net/drug-sniffer-dog-false-posit... [2] https://www.smh.com.au/environment/conservation/sniffer-dogs-get-it-wrong-four-out-of-five-times-20111211-1oprv.html https://www.smh.com.au/environment/conservation/sniffer-dogs...
- anadem 5y agoA new study shows that ants are as effective as dogs at detecting cancer, and can be trained to do so in as little as 30 minutes [0] That doesn't explain dogs' absence, but one day it might. [0] https://www.healthcarepackaging.com/quick-hits/article/22118369/ants-can-be-trained-to-detect-cancer https://www.healthcarepackaging.com/quick-hits/article/22118...
- bell-cot 5y agoA better title: Why Aren't There More Dogs in Medical Labs, Sniffing & Screening Samples? Quick answer: What major stakeholder or gatekeeper would favor that situation? Beyond obvious regulatory issues, dogs sniffing samples is not patent-able, high-tech, high-status, nor high-profit.
- summm 5y agoWho would profit? Dog nutters. Currently they go to great lengths to introduce dogs everywhere, they even fake ESA doctor's letters to illicitly profit from service animal laws. Surely they would fake studies or write overly positive articles about studies.
- renewiltord 5y agoIf it worked, you’d get a specific training method approved and you’d be the Certified Cancer Dog authority and the health authorities would only allow a CCD in offices. You could also lobby for periodic CCD evaluations. It is totally monetizable if it worked. In fact, I’d buy the tech off you if you could demonstrate it. I can do the other parts and I have access to capital. If the technique is generalizable, I could build a billion dollar company out of this.
- aaron695 5y ago
- cameronh90 5y agoRelated: When your house/office/data centre/whatever has an intermittent bad smell, what's a good way to find the source? I have a dog, but I'm not sure how to train it to locate smells I find objectionable.
- WalterBright 5y ago> what's a good way to find the source? Binary search. I use computer algorithms in many non-computing tasks.
- cameronh90 5y agoDoesn't work too well when your comparison function is faulty, in particular olfactory fatigue.
- WalterBright 5y agoLinear search works much worse with olfactory fatigue.
- summm 5y agoIf you already have a dog, there's a good chance it's responsible for the smell in the first place...
- pvaldes 5y agoRat poison will be the source in many cases
- soufron 5y agoBecause it would be a dogtor office...
- _eht 5y agofather... is that you?
- summm 5y agoBecause they are unhygienic, they trigger allergies and fears, they carry a certain risk to attack humans, and above all, they are very unreliable.
- briandear 5y agoAre dogs unreliable? My highly trained Malinois is more reliable than most people.
- summm 5y agoUnreliable for use as medical sensors, at least that's what the study says. About your general sentiment: I am sorry that you feel you don't have reliable humans in your life.
- awillen 5y agoHave you seen a highly trained Malinois? Even if you're surrounded by highly reliable humans, they're probably not as reliable as the dog.
- chupchap 5y agoIt doesn't matter how well trained a dog is, a lot of people are scared of dogs.
- Sophistifunk 5y agoA lot of people are scared of needles, too. And yet we still inject people all the time.
- trentgreene 5y agoBecause there are medications that "must" be administered intravenously or in the muscle. There's no test that can only be performed via canine.
- pvaldes 5y agoIn part because this. Nobody wants to deal with this people if avoidable https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_Dog_affair https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_Dog_affair If you keep a dog in a lab you became a target for cruelty animal groups that will see your demise as an opportunity to spread their stance. And in part because dogs made difficult to keep the clean space that is expected in this places.
- paxys 5y agoThere are a lot of far-fetched claims made in the article that don't pass the smell test (heh). For example, in the article: > there is evidence that dogs can quickly and accurately detect COVID-19 infection In the linked source: > but researchers say large-scale studies are needed before the approach is scaled up. I imagine it is similar for every other diagnosis they tout. Small scale tests under ideal conditions very rarely survive real world application.
- summm 5y agoSo the article is mostly wishful thinking by a dog-loving journalist? Who would have thought.
- Spooky23 5y agoA: Getting stuff approved requires VC or drug patent level revenues to study, and nobody will fund rigorous study of the capability of dogs and the protocols needed to utilize them appropriately.
- engineer_22 5y ago"OK sir, we've got your blood work, and we'd now like you to stop by the dog-detection office for a sniff test. That'll help us eliminate some of the possibilities"
- danielheath 5y agoWe'll send your blood to the Lab(rador), and if you could get your CAT and PET scans done before your next visit we can go from there.
- analog31 5y agoDetecting disease with dogs would seem to be an O(N) process: To detect N diseases, we need N dogs in the clinic. Is this really feasible?
- cromd 5y agoIf there were a machine that could only detect one disease, I don’t think that automatically precludes it from being cost effective. I could see a dermatologist buying a cheap pen-sized device that solely detects skin cancer, at least.
- drewzero1 5y agoMaybe, but dogs (or any animal, really) require constant care in a way that machines don't, and need space and staff for boarding, exercise, veterinary care, etc. (Unless somebody is working toward a cheap pen-sized dog...)
- analog31 5y agoFor better or worse, we already manage large numbers of cattle and chickens. For the most part we don't feel bad for them. Treating dogs in a similar fashion would probably not be socially acceptable. What does the use of diagnostic dogs look like at scale?
- ryathal 5y agoIt depends on the accuracy and speed. If a dog can detect cancer in a stool sample with 90% accuracy, and the dog can go through 1k+ samples a day, then that sounds like a good deal. The value proposition is in high volume and low invasive tests that can reduce the need for slower or more invasive tests. If we could screen everyone for colon cancer from a stool sample with a trained dog, then we could reduce the recommended frequency for a colonoscopy and still catch as much or more cancer. There is a lot of money saved if the average person without colon cancer only needs 1-2 colonoscopies in a lifetime instead of 4-5.
- cromd 5y agoSeeing some comments about the reliability of dogs, it’s good to keep in mind that traditional medical tests can also be quite unreliable. This link [1] explains how mammograms can have a “positive predictive value” (% alarms that are correct) of under 10% for many age groups. Maybe that’s what you want in a screening test to catch most of the bad stuff. And maybe dogs could be incorporated as one component of several. Though, maybe similar to the sense of “unreliable” is that performance could vary a lot from dog to dog, or over time, in a way that might not be true for other tests. But Im not sure if that’s worth worrying about if the aggregate performance is quantified and comparable to other methods. [1] https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/409356 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/40935...
- hooby 5y agoI would assume the two main reasons are lack of access to this sort of dog training, as well as the impracticality of having a dog at a doctors office.
- frereubu 5y agoThe title question can be answered with one sentence in the article itself: "As with all preliminary scientific findings, there is still a need for large-scale, reproducible studies before researchers make broad claims regarding the usefulness of dogs in diagnostics work."
- amir734jj 5y agoBecause some people (including myself) have animal phobia. I have been bitten by stray dog at the age of 5. I am almost 30 and still can't overcome my phobia. Upon seeing a dog or any other animal my flight instinct takes over.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- Maursault 5y agoIf medicine used dogs, wouldn't every doctor's office need x different dogs trained in detecting x different diseases? Also, there are ethical considerations in employing living creatures that can not possibly be fairly compensated. Development and use of an artificial nose would be superior, because only one (system) would be required, compared to i don't know how many dogs.