Among other disappointing SCOTUS announcements today: Supreme Court Rejects Lawsuit Alleging Roundup Weedkiller Caused Cancer. In a previous life, I worked in the same college as a cancer researcher who developed twenty years of conclusive research that Roundup causes cancer in dogs by studying Scottish terriers. Scotties, it turns out, tend to be susceptible to bladder cancer, and thus make good candidates for related research when cancer is present. For several years, I got to witness a veritable army of Scottie dogs dressed in bowties and plaid jovially trotting in and out of our veterinary research hospital to seed her research during their cancer treatments in West Lafayette.

What I learned during that time is that a great deal of veterinary research is about looking for health patterns across species. While not all carcinogens act identically across species, most known cancer-causing agents affect both dogs and people in similar ways. Because dogs share our homes and have similar biological responses to toxins, scientists track canine cancers as an early-warning system for human health risks and to research viable interventions to treat them.

In any case, while I don’t know the ins and outs of the specific laws in play here, this is a disappointing outcome when it comes to the science.