Eric, there are those little matters in a more than one location of quote
alterations, quote mis-attributions, excessively long quotes snarfed
without author's or list owner's permission to another forum, etc.
(Ironically, one of the alterations of what has been said even feeds
right back to exactly why I have to regularly point out that I am not a
vet and happened in the exact same days as that discussion here.)  Oh,
and yes, BIG has seen some of this stuff as of today.
 
Beyond that, I am personally done with the topic of Frontline for now.
it has been going in circles for years.  As a friend recently privately
mentioned there is such a thing as "battering a deceased equine" (from
memory so that may be a quote or may be a paraphrase), and that is what
has happened with this topic.  There is so much already in the FML and
FHL Archives that I trust list members to have no problem at all reading
about the topic, making a re-hash unneeded.  Folks can use what their
own vets and what the vet members have said in such archives.
---
 
Salmonella is an interesting topic in ferrets.  They almost never get it.
When they do get it, though, it can be a whopper of an infection, and
can even be rapidly fatal for the ferrets.  The section in _Biology and
Diseases of the Ferret_ has come up in past discussions on it.
 
The degree to which a disease is likely be carried varies with the amount
of tendency of the species to become infected.  More importantly, the
degree to which the disease is likely to be SHED IN AN INFECTIOUS FORM IN
SIGNIFICANT AMOUNTS varies with how likely it is to be caught and how
likely it is to grow well enough in a given species.  So, the risk
factors vary.  Since the report doesn't sound like it was designed to be
just a list of anything that can get salmonella, but instead a report of
those animals with a significantly high shed infectious disease rate I
find it doubtful that ferrets should be on there, but I could be wrong.
 
I think a lot of what happens is that too many people still think that
ferrets are rodents so when they encounter a report about rodents they
toss in a ferret photo on the newspaper page.  Now, I can't tell a
minivan from an SUV and don't care that I can't to be honest, but I just
can not see how anyone could confuse a ferret and a rodent.  It seems
so strange to me at a gut level for anyone to not notice particulars of
animals.  Still, I know there are going to be a lot more people out there
who can name vehicles than can tell a mustelid from a rodent.  I find
that sad.
 
Time has been short so while I have run into some news reports (which
differed among themselves) I have not read the actual report, so take the
above as supposition about what perhaps happened or possible cumulative
effects and nothing more.
 
--Sukie (not a vet, and not the originator of some altered or created
things attributed to me, either, and...)
[Posted in FML issue 4872]