Andrea from Brazil asked about canine distemper:
>What kind of vaccine i need to use? Is it the modified live virus of
>chicken embryo tissue culture?  Am I right?
 
Yes to all the above.  Fervac-D is a modified live virus grown in chick
embryo culture.  I assume Galaxy-D is, too, but I haven't spoken with that
manufacturer so I'm not 100% certain.
 
>What about rabies vaccinations? Since they live indoors, is that really
>necessary?
 
Not absolutely, necessary.  Folks in North America vaccinate against rabies
in case there's a bite incident where having a vaccinated ferret may prevent
it from being destroyed.  A housebound ferret has an infinitesimally small
chance of ever being bitten by a rabid animal.  (It's not zero--there are
extremely rare cases of bats flying into people's homes and infecting them
or their pets, but you'd probably have a better chance of being hit by
lightening.) BTW, the rabies vaccine for ferrets is a *killed* virus
vaccine...NOT an attenuated live vaccine.
 
>Also, what is the technical name for canine distemper
 
It's mostly known simply as canine distemper.  That virus belongs to a
larger family of viruses called morbilliviruses, which include human measles
(rubeola), rinderpest (an infection of cattle and cloven-hooved animals),
and a few others.  A few years back there was an epidemic among seals off
the coast of France that turned out to be a morbillivirus, and last year a
new morbillivirus was reported in horses in Australia which killed a number
of horses and a few humans.  Distemper and other morbilliviruses belong to
the genus, Paramyxoviridae.  The virus is enveloped, contains a
single-stranded, nonsegmented, negative-sense RNA genome 15 to 16 kilobases
in length.
 
That should be enough technical info to lay on your vet, although, unless he
or she is a virologist, it won't provide the sort of information needed to
prevent your ferrets from getting distemper.  I'm sure there are suitable
canine distemper vaccines available in Brazil, although your vet may need to
research which one comes closest to Fervac or Galaxy is those aren't
available.
 
Sukie Crandall asked about the Science Times piece on the effect of
maternal- fetal environment on the ultimate health of the offspring:
 
>The hypothesis mentioned is that the fetal environment, including the
>maternal diet, might predispose offspring to some future illnesses or
>disorders.
 
One of my former posts referred to a study done on an island in Lake
Superior which showed that starvation can have a multigeneration effect on
the physical size of offspring among deer or moose.  The hormone
diethylstilbestrol (DES) is now known to increase the risk for reproductive
cancers in the daughters *and grand-daughters* of women who took it during
pregnancy.  Now, imagine a ferret breeder who breeds jills that have adrenal
tumors.  Having all those excess estrogens in the mother's bloodstream
*could* have a lasting effect on the offspring or predispose them to some
problem down the road.
 
So, there is certainly enough evidence to suggest that the offspring can be
affected by the pregnant mother's health and/or exposures to toxins,
hormones, stress, etc.  Having accepted the possibility of this theory,
there are also reasons for doubting whether anyone will ever be able to
predict the risk to offspring from a specific maternal exposure...at least
with any certainty.  Let's say we suspect that a hobby breeder in Antarctica
(that should be a safe example :) is suspected of breeding ferrets with more
lymophosarcoma than other ferrets.  In this case, the mother and the
offspring may be exposed to similar risk factors, such as a diet of penguin
food and six-month light-dark cycles.  Was the risk for lymphoma increased
among the offspring in utero or during a lifetime of the same exposure as
they grew up and grew older?  Tough question.
 
There are also situations in which the mother's external environment has
less to do with the health of the offspring than does the environment
*inside* the womb.  You could find numerous examples of identical
(monozygotic) human twins in which one twin is healthier or more robust than
the other due to intrauterine competition for nutrients.  In that case, you
know the genetics aren't affecting the outcome because they have the same
genes.  The effect is more pronounced in animals that have large litters.
Maybe the runt of the litter has more health problems or dies at an early
age.  Is that because the mother was exposed to something during pregnancy
or because the runt's siblings stole his/her nutrients as a fetus?
 
Finally, it's *really* hard research to study risk factors for fetuses while
they're still in the womb.  Having not read the Science Times piece yet, I
will go out on a limb and assume that researchers haven't cataloged all of
the possible environmental assaults that jeopardize the health of a fetus.
Putting together that catalog itself involves fiddling with the fetus'
environment by sampling amniotic fluid, performing ultrasound or magnetic
resonance imaging or whatever.  So, the researchers may change the outcome
by their observations.
 
I'm not saying the idea is flawed or impossible to study, just that it's
very difficult to study.  I expect that any exposure that has a profound or
multi-generational effect (as with DES) will be discovered first.  More
subtle health effects or effects that happen sometimes but not others will
be more difficult to prove.  I also don't think this is bad news or cause
for pessimism.  Look at the health of an entire species over time and it
should be self- evident that animals have always gone through occasional
stress or crisis (drought, starvation, loss of habitat, etc.) and it doesn't
always result in extinction...except for big asteroids maybe.  There must be
ways of rebounding from the sort of health problems that result when a
pregnant female is under some external stress or exposure.  Albeit, some of
those natural checks and balances don't apply in breeding situations
controlled by humans.
 
BTW, Sukie--have you gotten any of the email messages I've sent to you?
Every one has bounced back and I have no idea if they eventually got to you.
 
--Jeff Johnston ([log in to unmask])
[Posted in FML issue 1711]