WSU Discovery with Asian Vultures Leads to Drug Ban

PULLMAN, Wash. — In an effort to save its dwindling Asian vulture populations, India has announced it will ban veterinary use of the drug diclofenac. 

Lindsay Oaks of the Washington State University College of Veterinary Medicine and The Peregrine Fund discovered that the drug used as an anti-inflammatory in cattle was highly toxic to the vultures when they ate carcasses of treated animals. 

“It is certainly welcome news,” said Oaks, “and is a crucial step that has to be taken for these vulture populations to recover.”

Asian vulture populations have fallen more then 95 percent in recent years.  India has ordered drug companies to stop making and marketing the widely used drug within three months. 

Conservation groups lobbied for diclofenac to be replaced by alternative drugs that do not pose a similar threat to vultures.

“We’re talking about regions where the skies used to literally be filled with the number of Asian vultures, where now there are just a handful of mating pairs. It has truly been devastating,” said Oaks, who said he hoped that neighboring countries such as Pakistan and Nepal would consider similar bans. 

India’s announcement was published in the prestigious scientific journal Nature, which carried the first scientific report of Oaks’ discovery in 2004.