To Jeff Johnston:
 
Your comments to Bob Martin, while watered down, seem to follow the standard
party line you would expect from an epidemiologist.
 
The main reason brain tissue testing is so widely used is simply because it
is the "accepted" method.  It is the accepted method because it is widely
used...  circular logic.  There have been equal, if not greater results with
other testing methods, yet they are not accepted.
 
I thought the reason for testing the animal was to determine if it could
have possibly infected the bite victim.  Therefore wouldn't it make sense
that if there were no virus in the saliva at the time of testing then there
was very likely none in the saliva at the time of the bite?
 
"The best strategy is to encourage the additional shedding studies needed to
convince public health officials that following a bite, a quarantine is
sufficient to rule out rabies."
 
We already have at least three studies, two of which were done by the same
people, in the same labs, under the same conditions as were the tests which
formed the basis for the quarantine in dogs.  How much more data do we need?
We already exceed the ammount of information that was available at the time
the quarantines for dogs and cats were set.  The problem is not one of lack
of data, but rather lack of acceptance of the data.
 
The best strategy is to rebel against automatic kill and test policies,
which are against the law in most states, and demand that public health
officials do a reasonable case by case risk assesment, as is recommended by
the Rabies Compendium.  The information and rules we already have are
adequate if only people would follow them.
[Posted in FML issue 1548]