Judith Sanders asked about Rabdomun for rabies vaccination:
 
>I need to know ASAP if this vaccine is recognised as effective by MD
>authorities.  <...snip...> My question is not whether the vaccine
>will adequately protect the ferret against rabies, but if some ignorant and
>malicious person should provoke one of these ferrets into biting, will I
>have legal grounds to resist a demand that the ferret be killed for rabies
>testing?
 
I looked up Rabdomun in the Rabies Compendium put out by CDC.  It is
approved for use in dogs, cats, sheep and cattle.  A sister vaccine is
called Rabdomun 1, which is only approved in dogs and cats.  So, neither
product is approved for ferrets and likely neither has been tested on
ferrets.
 
I don't know if anyone has "legal grounds" to resist surrendering their
ferrets for rabies testing following a bite incident.  Vaccination with
Imrab-3 (the only approved vaccine for ferrets, so far) gives you
*scientific grounds* to argue for a quarantine and observation rather than
killing/testing.  In instances of public health, officials have broad
authority.  For example, a person who has the new multiple-drug-resistant
tuberculosis who refuses to treat him/herself properly can be taken into
custody and force-treated (for up to two years!) against his/her will.
(This has happened already.)
 
Any public health official who is sufficiently misinformed or swayed by the
expectations of a fearful public can do whatever they want to your ferrets
and you have virtually no legal grounds to stop it even if your ferret has
been vaccinated and never been outside.  For those reasons, we all need to
continue to educate the public health officials because we are forced to
rely on reason rather than on law.  In situations where reason doesn't work,
such as the Calif.  F&G or the Susan Jenkins' of this world, we must work to
discredit their biases and misinformation with fact.
 
Mark Zmyewski asked why his ferrets still have diarrhea after being treated
for coccidia.
 
I've spoken with a number of vets and with other infectious disease folks
(my area of research) and there is some suspicion that coccidia may be an
opportunistic infection that works much like Staph infections of the skin in
humans--give it the right environment, and it causes problems, but normally
the body has no problem with it.  Coccidia has been found in ferrets with GI
blockages, ECE, and other disorders.  It may be the coccidia is secondary to
another infection or some other sort of stressor, which seems to be
supported by the fact that you've treated for the coccidia and still have
problems.  The vets may want to chime in on this, as I am a cell biologist
and ID epidemiologist and not a vet.  My own inclination with my ferrets is
that if my vet finds coccidia, I may treat it, but I will always suspect and
look for something else that may be allowing the coccidia to proliferate.
 
Carol Alexander suggested to Michael Warner that he should determine whether
the maggots he saw in his ferrets' cage were actually tapeworm segments.
That's possible, as ferrets can get tapeworms and the proglottids are
roughly the size of a grain of rice (or a maggot).  However, proglottids
don't move like fly larvae and they have a distinctive shape.  Most
encyclopedias should have pictures for those interested.
 
M Taylor's post on fruit sugar versus "junk food" sugar (sucrose) deserves
some clarification.
 
First, sucrose (cane or beet sugar) is no longer the #1 sugar used in the
United States.  High-fructose corn sugar has taken over...just read the food
labels.  Second, there's really not much difference between grape sugar
(fructose) and sucrose.  Sucrose consists of fructose and glucose in a
single molecule.  Herbivore and omnivores (like humans) can digest double
sugars in a heartbeat.  The source of the sugar makes little difference.
Even starches don't take long to break down into sugar.  Diabetics used to
be advised to eat a lot of starches, such as pasta, because it was thought
that the body took more time to break down starches into their component
sugars.  In reality, it takes a few more minutes, but far less time than had
been previously thought.  Our bodies are quite efficient at breaking down
sucrose and starches.  However, you don't want to feed too many simple
sugars to the bacteria that freeload in your mouth.  That's true of your
ferrets, too.  Too many sweets, especially sticky sweets such as raisins,
can lead to cavities.  Unlike humans, ferrets may not get as much nutrition
out of starches.  I've seen studies indicating that ferrets digest starches
even less efficienctly than other carnivores, such as cats.  They may
produce less of the enzymes used in digesting starches (amylase) or ferret
amylase may be less efficient.  Whatever the case, a high-starch diet for
ferrets will be less nutritious than it would be for us, and probably
produce more digestive problems (gas, loose stools).  I'm willing to bet
that ferrets *can* digest single- and double-sugars pretty easily, but the
other, less-digestible matter in fruit could upset their tummies and the
sugar would increase the chance of cavities.
 
--Jeff Johnston, ([log in to unmask])
[Posted in FML issue 1716]