Interesting "My Turn" feature this week in Newsweek about a man who paid over $11,000 in vet bills for his cat Fritz's cancer treatment.

The author, Frederich R. Lynch, a university professor, asks, "How far down the road of high-tech vet care would our pets want us to take them?" Lynch's cat developed a rare cancer associated with a vaccine and the best option in terms of a cure was amputation. Lynch went for the amputation at a cost about about $4,000. However, some later complications followed, and before he knew it, Lynch was looking at a bill for $11,000.

Lynch questions the ethics of spending this kind of money on a cat when there are humans with far greater needs, acknowledging that this cat is not a person.

Kobi, the Labrador retriever trained to smell cancer, died of complications from the chemotherapy treatments he was undergoing for lymphoma. Kobi was diagnosed with cancer in February, only three weeks before his death. One of the first dogs to be trained to detect cancer through smell, he became famous this month when the Pine Street Foundation research study findings were published in the March issue of Integrative Cancer Therapies.

Scientific evidence indicates that a dog's extraordinary ability to detect scent can distinguish people with both early and late stage lung and breast cancers from healthy controls. The clinical implications of a dog's keen ability of smell first came to light in the case report of a dog alerting its owner to the presence of a melanoma by constantly sniffing the skin lesion. Subsequent studies published in major medical journals confirmed the ability of trained dogs to detect both melanomas and bladder cancers.

The study Kobi was involved in, led by Michael McCulloch of the Pine Street Foundation in San Anselmo, California, was the first to test whether dogs could detect cancers only by sniffing the exhaled breath of cancer patients. When detecting samples of lung cancer, the dogs had a 99 percent accuracy rate, and when looking for breast cancer, the success rate was 88 percent. Dogs are called man's best friend. In the field of cancer research, Kobi made an exceptionally good friend, and the contribution he made in showing the world the profound ability of dogs to aid in the health and welfare of man only proves the title is well deserved. Goodbye Kobi, and thank you.