Bob C. wrote:
 
>So what does it mean to the ferret owner?  To me, especially regarding to
>topic of rabies, nothing.  Being closely or distantly related to skunks
>doesn't influence your ability to contract rabies at all... But from what I
>understand of the controversy, the problem is not that ferrets are closely
>related to skunks, but that rabies studies are incomplete (no flaming me
>here, I understand what testing has and hasn't been done on all the
>domesticates.  I'm just pointing out the argument).
 
Bob, in one key area of the above argument you are wrong, in my opinion.
Not in your science, not at all, but in your understanding of how career
gov't officials in various Fish&Game agencies, health departments and local
gov'ts think - hint, it ain't at ALL very scientific, and it gets
progressively more voodooish as you get further down the gov't "food chain",
into county and city politics.  At the Federal levels (CDC, USDA, etc)
arguments such as yours may find an ear educated enough to listen - but what
about the Plano, TX city council?
 
It seems clear that career bureaucrats and politicians lacking technical
qualifications in genetics or other life sciences are saying "ferrets are
like skunks and skunks are notorious for rabies so lets foam at the mouth
over ferrets".  We already know that a fert's reaction to rabies is vastly
different from that of skunks, the ferts die far faster, and if in fact they
are in separate families (or such is suspected) we may have a far easier
time convincing these mowrons to judge ferrets on their own "merits".
 
Would it be possible to explain to the authors of this study that,
unbeknownst to them, they've written something that could affect the lives
and even legal status of hundreds of thousands of people's pets, and get
them to write a more plain-English commentary regarding the relationship and
it's possible effects on rabies policy?  Who knows, they might find it
intriguing and may even be shocked enough at the Kodo and similar disasters
to want to take a role?  They're good scientists, they might be shocked at
the bad science displayed in Michigan and elsewhere.
 
-------------------
For a wild true story of crooked cops, stolen guns, perjury, fraud
and false criminal charges, see http://www.infinex.com/~jmarch
[Posted in FML issue 2047]