Sukie,
 
>>Chronic disorders that may be triggered by foodborne pathogens are
>>
>>arthritis
>>inflammatory bowel disease
>>kidney failure
>>Guillain-BarrE syndrome
>>autoimmune disorders
>>Further research is needed to explain the link.
 
>(i.e. note that those are hypothetical but that there is suggestive
>data.)
 
As someone who actually had Guillain-Barre, I find your scare tactics to
try to convince people not to feed raw to be intellectually dishonest.
Yes, there is a risk that specific rare foodborne pathogens can cause
problems and these problems can be severe.  Ferrets have digestive
systems that are more geared towards killing off the pathogens than
humans do.  Campylobacter *may* be one of the causes of GBS, however,
not everyone who ingests Campylobacter comes down with GBS.  The actual
causation of GBS is not known.
 
Please note the "Further research is needed to explain the link."
What that means, in real words, is that some scientists think that
there *may possibly* be a link between these things but no one has been
able to prove this yet.  Guillain-Barre is a horribly debilitating,
paralytic condition.  For you to suggest to people that, by feeding
their ferrets raw, they could cause their ferrets to become quadripoligic
(even if just for a short period of time) in order to try to convince
them of your way of thinking is disingenious.  Guillain-Barre occurs
in 0.001% - 0.002% of the human population.  I can't find figures for
the rarity of occurances in ferrets.
 
On a less disease-specific track, it's much more likely for the ferret
to get a bad case of diarrhea when exposed to the bacteria than anything
else.  The CDC states that in 2004, there were about 15,000
laboratory-diagnosed cases in humans of infections in the US (estimated
total population of 293,655,404, so a 0.005% chance) from Salmonella,
Camphlobacter, Shigella, Cryptosporidium, Yersinia, Vibrio, Listeria,
and Cyclospora combined.  Of those 15,000 cases, 239 were shown to be
foodborne.  You can do the math for that.  I don't feel like typing
that many 0s.
 
--
What are they going to do, stupid me to death?
[Posted in FML issue 5159]