The actual rate of reactions is low; remember that this forum has as many
members as a small town.  I goes to over 2,500 addresses, and that a
number of these have had ferrets for many years (for instance, 23 years
in our case) and many represent shelters which see dozens to sometimes
hundreds of ferrets in a year or three.  Also, people who were freaked
out tend to speak up repeatedly about whatever freaked them -- normal
human response.
 
I am curious about your friend's ferret who died.  Although anaphylatic
reactions always have the ability to be fatal deaths almost never occur
because more people know enough to stay at the vet's for a while
afterward and vets know how to treat them.  (That is just like deaths
from allergy shots almost never happening -- as opposed to the same type
of reaction from stings -- because of people staying at the allergist
offices afterward.  I do know of a human death -- an incredibly tragic
one -- which happened at a college clinic when an unthinking staff member
who was not an allergist told a dizzy shot recipient to lie down and
sleep instead of getting her anithistamines, steroids and epi ready and
getting the allergist out for her.) What happened with that ferret to
cause death to actually occur?
 
I've seen a lot of things in 53 years of life and 23 with ferrets, and
that includes some terrible things.  Luckily, I have never personally
seen Canine Distemper in a ferret though I have heard the weeping about
such cases every year in recent years.  Nor have I seen rabies in a
ferret.  I HAVE see rabies in one type of wildlife I once worked with,
and I HAVE had a housemate's newly adopted dog come down with CD
(apparently acquired at the shelter).  CD and rabies are HORRIBLE.  You
are hearing that from someone who has had a ferret with JL, nursed a
ferret through the current mystery illness for a number of weeks, and
much, much more.  Those things pale compared to what CD or rabies can
do to an individual.
 
Rabies is hard to acquire but many states require vax and without them
there is not protection from destruction if anyone claims that your
ferret bit him or her.  CD is far more easy to acquire (being able to
be brought in on shoes, etc.).
 
What WOULD be very good would be if there would be studies which showed
that some of the vax can last multiple years and still be effective,
and just how many years.  In ferrets those study results are lacking
and they can NOT be accurately extrapolated from other animals.
[Posted in FML issue 4547]