No, people don't get Canine Distemper.  It's just that the way that folks
who become violent change with brain damage from OTHER causes.  (The two
I saw personally were a young friend in his 30s with a smoking-related
lung malignancy that metastasized to his brain, and another with stroke
related damage, and we also heard the stories when that happened to a
relative by marriage in the last days of his Alzheimers and strokes.) I
think my wording was pretty clear, but not as clear as it should have
been.  What I was saying was that the behavioral changes that poor dog
had from canine distemper affecting her brain were heart-breaking and
similar to those I have personally seen in some people with brain damage
from other causes.  Canine Distemper is a truly horrid disease, one of
the very worst.
 
Mary wrote:
>There's no voodoo.  It's no scheme.  The reason certain diseases are not
>rampant is *because of* vaccinations.  If you stop vaccinating, you give
>the disease an "in."
 
Exactly!  Once enough of the vulnerable population is vaccinated the
disease doesn't have the inroads it needs to proliferate.  Some vaccines
need boosters, of course, but still they work.  Consider lock jaw (for
which a booster after bad injury or a ten year booster is advised).
When is the last time you heard of someone dying in agony from that?
The chances are that you simply haven't.  Consider smallpox and polio.
Smallpox was once rampant, and I remember kids with polio so I'm glad
that ones my age were around the right age to get vaccinated in time
(though I sure hated getting the shots as a kid).  People my age in my
area used to have friends in school with braces and a few older ones in
the neighborhood with shrunken limbs from polio.  My girl scout troop
used to put on skits in a ward with a good number of polio patients when
I was a child, and visit with the boy in the iron lung, and many of us
would make gifts of homemade toys for them.  It can harder to notice what
is NOT around, esp.  if you are lucky enough to not be in an age group
where a disease was not pretty often seen.  What diseases HAD been common
are now, in many locations, barely encountered, so things like child
death and disfigurement are more rare these days.  That's why folks don't
notice that vaccines WORK; they simply don't know what it is like to be
without them.  It's the same with ferrets and other animal companions as
with humans.  If you haven't seen the tragedies you don't know what you
are so lucky to be missing.
 
Lisa wrote:
>You are much more likely to hear of someone having a reaction to the
>CDV shot than not having a problem.  Most won't post "I had all my
>ferrets into the vet this year and did not have any reactions!"  I
>know that since 1993, I have vaccinated over 1,000 ferrets (most with
>the series of 2 shots) and I average about 2 reactions a year to the
>vaccine.  And yes, I use Fervac-D.
 
LOL!  Boy, is that exactly right!  And a few people repeatedly talk
about the same reaction for years as if it just happened instead of
letting folks know it's the same case.  We haven't had a reaction in
our crew in at least 7 years Steve and I guess.
 
You know, there are probably very much over 15,000 ferrets represented
on the FML; does that also help bring the rate into perspective?  Take
precautions, but unless there is health reason to not vaccinate do think
about how terrible and avoidable these illnesses are.
[Posted in FML issue 4619]