OH, gads, not only am I low on sleep but my spell-checker has begun
supplying words again now and then when I misspell or put in a word it
doesn't know.  I HATE that.  NO folks, I wasn't drunk during some of the
recent discussions!  :-) We never did find why it was doing those
substitutions last time -- it's just stopped after one of the general
clean-ups.  (Got to fix this new printer, too, a mechanical switch in the
drawers fails so it thinks they are out of paper -- just had the second
drawer go but filled it to the top every few sheet so that I could print
out things for the NYC lawyer and the court action there.)
 
The AD article was GREAT!  (Yes, the person needed a bit of taxonomy, but
medically it was fascinating.) The verification of more of the vertical
(parent to child) than the horizontal (among others) spread was exciting,
the verification that positive animals of either gender should never be
bred, the info on specific cleaning needs and control methods are
incredibly useful for everyone to know before reacting, and the number of
ferrets which tested positive but never broke with disease even more
startling than I'd expected.  Note his sentence: "In spite of this number
of positives ... I have not seen any clinically affected ferrets since
1991..."  The numbers tested were very large (in the three figures and the
total percentages POSITIVE for years 1990 through 1997 were : among those
tested for the first time 10% (131 individuals total, with 38 or them being
from 1990 or 1991 -- but I do NOT know how many of the '90 or '91 ones
actually showed any symptoms, just how many tested positive so I probably
missed something and just can't find it); there is some numerical
information on later follow-up tests, too.  For those who don't know: the
tests have a lot of false positives, especially the United Test which is
currently the ONLY one some people have been able to find.  IF YOU KNOW
WHERE TO GET THE MORE SPECIFIC TESTS PLEASE POST THAT ON THE FML -- several
people have expressed a need for same but been unable to find the tests and
I can NOT be counted upon right now to pass info along with my life so
complicated.  To top that off it may well be that some animals have AD
(also called ADV) but live a normal life anyway.  That said, when it takes
off it's a very nasty disease.  Not only does the immune system find itself
unable to fight it once it takes off, but the immune system's actions
themselves create deposits in multiple organs which are what causes the
symptoms and finally death -- not the sort of disease where one would want
to try an immune system strengthener.  This also means that future vaccines
could be very possibly ruled out.  Oh, and there are a number of known
strains, though no one knows how many of them a ferret can get.  Read the
article folks!!!!!  Mary did us all a very large favor by telling about it.
VETS, this by a vet for vets.  To repeat Mary's suggestion:
http://www1.btwebworld.com/beechhouse/ferrets.htm
Learned a lot; including that some places may find that breeding of exposed
animals and taking ferrets to shows might not be in some places future for
a longer time than I'd expected unless the more specific tests can be found
for their use to define if they are seeing only false positives, or unless
more is learned to reassure enough people.
 
Sukie
[Posted in FML issue 2868]