Our vet has recommended, for a number of years, that our little beastie,
Walter, Jr., receive feline distemper vaccinations.  So far, the little
fellow has suffered no ill effects from the treatment.  Does anyone out
there have any information concerning possible ill effects of this
treatment and/or its benefits.
 
[The thing to remember is that the most common vaccine for distemper for cats
and dogs is often raised in ferret-cell cultures.  If you vaccinate your
ferret with this, the "almost dead" virus says "hey, I remember these cells!"
and voila - the virus reactivates and gives your ferret a real case of
distemper rather than only activating the immune system for the virus.
Canine distemper is 100% fatal within days to ferrets.  The symptoms
are so unmistakeable and so quick that ferrets are often used to
confirm a diagnosis of distemper in a dog (analogous to the now-obsolete
"rabbit-test" for pregnancy).  Therefore, it is crucial to make sure that
the vet is using a different version of the vaccine.  The vaccine our
vet uses is raised in eggs I think.  The same considerations (w.r.t
source of vaccine) also apply to rabies vaccines.
 
Our vet recommends both feline and canine distemper shots.  There doesn't
appear to be much evidence of feline distemper in ferrets (a few cases
are mentioned in our Vet journal extract), but there wasn't any mention
of ill effects of the vaccine.
 
My understanding is that the risk of distemper to ferrets is such that,
provided that you're using the safer version of the vaccine, the risk of
adverse reaction is considerably lower than the risk of acquiring distemper.
In contrast, our vet believes the opposite for rabies, and generally recommends
that his patients are not vaccinated for rabies.]
 
Len and Linda Bliss
Boone, NC
 
BITNET: blissl@ecsvax or blisslb@appstate
 
[Remember, I'm *not* on BITNET - your item bounced off of ecsvax because
ferret-list is too long for BITNET.  Somehow this got sent to me.  Either
the router was *real* smart, the SA on ecsvax rerouted or you did.]
                                                                          
[Posted in FML 0048]