Why Did a Diphtheria Outbreak in Alaska Lead to the Nome Serum Run of 1925?

In 1925, an outbreak of diphtheria in the town of Nome, Alaska, raised fears that an epidemic could kill thousands if antitoxin medicine were not supplied to the isolated town. The lifesaving antitoxin needed to halt the epidemic was nearly 700 miles away in Nenana. Extreme winter conditions ruled out air travel, so decision-makers made a harrowing choice: Dog-sled relay teams would transport the medicine. What unfolded became known as the Nome Serum Run, a desperate mission to save lives—but one that exploited hundreds of dogs.

How Long Was the Serum Run to Nome?

Dog-sled teams hauled the serum across nearly 700 miles of unforgiving wilderness. Twenty teams, consisting of about 150 dogs, took turns navigating icy trails during gale-force winds and subzero temperatures in a relay lasting five and a half days. These dogs didn’t run the entire route—teams handed off the serum at intervals—but the journey took a steep toll on their bodies. Many sustained injuries, and some died.

Today, the Serum Run is often romanticized, focusing on Balto, the lead dog who ran the final 55 miles. Yet this narrative ignores the dogs’ suffering and their lack of agency in the grueling ordeal. Worse, the story is frequently co-opted by proponents of the Iditarod to lend a veneer of heroism to a modern-day event that subjects dogs to even greater suffering.

Comparing the 1925 Serum Run to Nome and the Iditarod

Unlike the Serum Run, which was a one-time response to a health emergency, the Iditarod is a nearly 1,000-mile dog-sled race held annually for entertainment, cash prizes, and bragging rights. Over the past 50 years, the event has killed more than 150 dogs, and those are just the reported deaths. Dogs in the Iditarod are forced to run about 100 miles per day for up to two weeks, with many enduring exhaustion, dehydration, stress fractures, and bleeding stomach ulcers. Some collapse from aspiration pneumonia, the leading cause of death on the trail, after inhaling their own vomit.

Iditarod rules offer dogs minimal rest—just 40 hours total are required over the entire race—and they’re prohibited from taking shelter except during veterinary checks. Their only comfort is a thin layer of straw laid on the snow.

When not racing, many dogs used for sledding are subjected to appalling conditions, chained outdoors in all weather extremes with no companionship or stimulation. Dogs are forced to live in a muddy stew of urine, feces, and sometimes rotting food on a 6-foot chain attached to dilapidated doghouses or plastic barrels. Dogs who aren’t fast runners or who simply can’t run for days on end are discarded like defective equipment. Dogs used for sledding have been shot, bludgeoned to death, and abandoned to starve, and their throats have been slit.

Dogs are highly social pack animals who suffer in isolation and crave and need companionship, praise, and play. They become excited when they’re around beloved human companions and get a rush of positive emotions when cuddled.

The quest to find “winners” leads to a cycle of continual breeding, even though Alaskan shelters are overwhelmed with dogs who desperately need homes.

Who Was Balto?

Balto, celebrated as the “hero” of the Serum Run, ran the final 55 miles of the relay and is memorialized with a statue in New York City. His story has been popularized in movies, but the sanitized version of events ignores the plight of the dogs who suffered and died during the Serum Run—and those who continue to be exploited in the Iditarod. Instead of glamorizing the exploitation of dogs, let’s honor these animals by protecting them from deadly and pointless races.

Help Dogs Like Those in the Nome Serum Run

While we can’t help the dogs who died in the Serum Run to Nome in 1925, we can help those like them exploited by mushers today just to score cash prizes and bragging rights in the deadly Iditarod. Please urge event sponsors to cut ties with this deadly race:

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