Bill K. wrote:
>How this would work as a cure is that the anti-bodies for that specific
>disease created by normal vaccination would be passed to the new animal.
>There the anti-bodies could try to do their thing.
 
>What doesn't really make sense is how the presence of these anti-bodies
>would trigger the body to reproduce them.  If it works it would be from the
>presence of virus in the donor that get placed in the recipient.
 
The transfusion won't trigger antibody production; the original infection
will.  What the transfusion does is buy time for the animal to make enough
antibodies on it's own to recover.  While a vaccinated animal would have
it's own antibodies to fight the virus, the time it takes for an
unvaccinated ferret to produce enough to live is too long.  Also, once
vaccinated, an animal that has the 'template' built for the antibody
required (from vacccination) it can launch an immune response in roughly
half the time it would take for an unvaccinated animal to respond.
 
Personally I put my trust (and money) into the protection provided by a
normal vaccination procedure. =
 
-Ilena Ayala
Rabies Resources for Ferret Lovers are at.
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/ilena/rabies.htm
[Posted in FML issue 2034]