*IF* Pseudomonas turns out to be be seen in ferrets with sepsis (in case
the NW ones are unusual) it would pay to see if Pseudomonas ITSELF has a
worse variant springing up, or if this year's very wet weather in so many
areas caused a major bloom of it (which IS possible given what I read of
the conditions it likes) so it is more common this year than it usually
is -- hence more risk of exposures and exposures at higher levels.
 
Are more cases in other animals (rabbits, humans, etc.) being seen?  I
wonder if any infectious disease specialists in the areas with such cases
can answer that.
 
I just heard from one vet who I asked those questions today that more
Pseudomonas is being seen in the Netherlands this year (Later heard from
a second vet saying something similar but without time frame.), and that
some vets have seen more of it in general (not just in ferrets) this year
in parts of the U.S., so maybe it is not the ferrets themselves but that
this is year with a large Pseudomonas bloom or a more infective strain of
Pseudomonas though the former seems more likely to me personally.
 
I guess it would be important to run actual numbers by region to see if
there is a real difference instead of people just being more aware, but
this may be a possibility for consideration.
 
Maybe with global warming and the ways it changes weather patterns and
levels of precipitation this is something which will be seen more in some
areas.  I've seen a number of articles on which flora do better and
produce more pollen under such conditions (including ragweed,
unfortunately, which loves global warming conditions) but not one on
which microbes may be more likely to take off with increased extremes
except for ones which have vector animals which thrive in those extremes
(like more mosquitoes in some areas), but there must be some journal
articles and I suspect there could be more coming.
 
Ah... Hypotheses...
[Posted in FML issue 4292]