Okay, I do NOT know if any of the work used in the compilations referred
to was done in ferrets, but it is easy enough to think some of it might
given that they are used in research.
 
There is a new field of study, hormesis, which relates to Death Adder's
comments on low level toxin exposures but not to higher ones, so some of
what he mentioned could fit within this grouping while others may not.
If you open the September Issue of Scientific American (available in many
libraries and bookstores) -- the one with the brain on the cover -- to
page 28 (and to a related article earlier if interested in delving more)
you will see an article "Nietzsche's Toxicology" with the subtitle
"Whatever doesn't kill you might make you stronger".  Apparently, there
are now over a thousand studies on many compounds which indicate that
at very low levels rather than being poisonous a number of toxins can
actually force a body to become stronger.  There are, of course, gaps --
and in the beginning of anything gaps tend to be huge, but I just wanted
to point out that just because something is toxic at higher levels
doesn't mean that minor exposures automatically translate to being
dangerous for any life form.
 
It is a very different situation from an animal living with side stream
smoke and then improving when that smoke is gone.
 
Roger wrote:
>As an excuse for accepting unwanted smoke around me and my pets, this is
>pretty darn lame.  To me it seems more like an excellent reason to ban
>insecticides ALONG with smoking!  It's a pretty thin rationalization at
>best.  Even if our ferrets are already exposed to this many dangers, how
>does that justify exposing them to yet more?
 
Good point.
 
I can tell those who smoke in "different rooms" from where the ferrets
are that the smoke travels, and it and what it carries with it can travel
pretty widely, though less so if the smoking room is a closed room and
that room does not use the same furnace or a/c.  Please, do be careful.
 
Yes, public health issue costs aside, we do organize our country in such
a way that it is accepted that you can do this to yourselves, but doing
it to others is where the line needs to be recognized, just as people can
drink their livers into oblivion but getting into a car and driving it
into someone else is DWI and even vehicular manslaughter.  Most people
understand that (though they might not understand their levels of
impairment when drunk) except for some alcoholics whose ability to
understand why it is not fair to assault others is diminished by their
addiction being foremost in their minds, even before the survival and
health of others.  That said, we do have some regulation of recreational
drugs which can be seen in even medicinal use of marijuana being barred,
although it has been shown to reduce the nausea of those undergoing chemo
and it might sometimes help reduce ocular hypertension.  (Fortunately,
there is research, though, so the results could be safer in the long run
than inhaled smoke and might even result in some veterinary drugs at some
point.  Yes, some ferrets do go through chemo, and some do get glaucoma)
 
1. The ferret under discussion was sick with second hand smoke present
   and improved with the second hand smoke gone.
 
2. Low levels of toxins may not be dangerous (See article in 2nd
   paragraph.).
 
3. Possible exposures to other toxins is not an excuse for imposing the
   burden of second hand smoke which is a documented risk and is not a
   low level exposure situation.
[Posted in FML issue 4271]