There is currently ONE vaccines which is specifically for ferrets:
Purevax CD Vaccine for ferrets
(It is also used for a number of zoo animals.)
That HAS had extensive testing for effectiveness in ferrets, length
of effect of at least one year, and safety. Of course, an allergic
reaction can happen with anything, but the rate is low.
But Galaxy-D is often used. The thing to check for is to make sure they
don't change how they manufacture the Galaxy-D. Since they don't sell
it specifically as a ferret vaccine if they change manufacture to using
ferret cell lines then it could pose a risk.
Personally, I doubt they would carelessly endanger the income they have
from it being used for ferrets.
Galaxy-D was tested for 21 days in a small sample of male kits, but
it's predecessor, Fromme-D was far more extensively tested in ferrets.
Many use Galaxy-D and we have in a pinch; it is important to just
remember what has not been tested in it and to remember to make sure
the production isn't altered.
Before there were any vaccines specifically for ferrets the ways to
find safe vaccines that could not cause Canine Distemper in ferrets was
to find ones with killed virus which had not been grown in ferret cell
lines. Effectiveness was usually still unknown then (except for some
which way back then were tested in ferrets first -- to make sure they
didn't kill a bunch -- before being tested in dogs)
Forgive typos and if I make a stupid one fix it in your head because i
have had 3 hours of sleep.
Sukie (not a vet)
Recommended ferret health links:
http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/ferrethealth/http://ferrethealth.org/archive/http://www.afip.org/ferrets/index.htmlhttp://www.miamiferret.org/fhc/http://www.ferretcongress.org/http://www.trifl.org/index.shtmlhttp://homepage.mac.com/sukie/sukiesferretlinks.html
[Posted in FML 5757]
