Trish commented on ferrets who contracted when given an intranasal vaccine
for canine kennel cough.  And added:
 
>Based on this incident, I would **never** allow any of my ferrets (or the
>shelter ferrets) to be given Intranasal Vaccinations for any disease!!!  It
>is just too risky.
 
The fault in this instance was the vet and not the vaccine.  Each infectious
organism has its own peculiarities and is adapted to infect certain species.
Vaccines are adapted to fit those individual differences.  The vaccine for
kennel cough may work in dogs but not in ferrets.  That does not mean that
an intranasal vaccine for ferret distemper won't work as well or better than
the current injectable form.  It may be safer or it may not work as all.  No
one knows yet although United Vaccines is looking into it.  Humans have been
vaccinated for decades with a vaccine that works in a mucous membrane.  The
oral polio vaccine works in the gut, where polio enters the body.  I'll bet
most people on the FML are too young to have ever heard of a person coming
down with polio (it still does occur very rarely).  Obviously, mucosal
vaccines *can* work since polio is almost nonexistent now.
 
Since Fervac-D is adapted to grow in chicken eggs, it's likely that a
chicken given the vaccine would become infected with distemper.  I don't
know if distemper causes illness in chickens, but it would still be
infected, but for the sake of argument, say your family chickens come down
with distemper.  This is no reason to claim that Fervac-D causes distemper
in all animals.  Don't shoot the messenger.  The *route* of administration
is not necessarily flawed because several ferrets nearly died after
receiving the wrong vaccine.  Whether intranasal vaccines will be better
than injectable vaccines for ferrets isn't known yet.  That form of delivery
needs to be tested and stand or fall on its own merits but all intranasal
vaccines are not necessarily bad.
 
--Jeff Johnston
[Posted in FML issue 1622]