Sniffy The Rat

My Rat Connection.

Some of you might be saying "what's the deal with the rat connection?"  Well you may recall that part of my treatment is a monoclonal antibody called Rituximab which is derived from rat serum. After my last post I remembered that I do in fact have a connection to rats.

As a lawyer I once represented a famous one: Sniffy the Rat. I know what some of you may be thinking about lawyers representing rats. So stop it, right now!

Around 1990 an "artist" was planning to publicly execute a rat named Sniffy by dropping a large rock onto him whilst he was fixed to a canvas, thereby creating "art."

I was retained by an animal rights group to attempt to lay an anticipatory criminal charge against the artist to stop him from killing Sniffy.   For some reason I was met with a lot of resistance from the local Crown counsel in this process.

Here's some background:

I was not successful in convincing Crown counsel to lay a criminal charge as they did not take this situation seriously. However a great deal of publicity was generated. from this impending event.  So much so, that on the day of the proposed execution, a large crowded gathered chasing the artist , who was forced to take refuge in a hotel, thwarting the execution. Ultimately Sniffy was saved!

Here's a clip documenting the whole event.

So why am I telling you about this interesting piece of history? Well, could it be that I am not having any allergic or negative reaction to the Ritiximab (derived from rat serum) because that community remembers how I helped save one of their own?  Rats are clever, as we all know. Maybe it's just karma?  Either way I am very grateful to the rats for saving my life!