Heartworm could easily be prevented without using preventatives in alot
of cases.  Don't take your ferrets outside during peak mosquito time,
etc.  My post was on using Proheart6 as a preventative, not as a means
to deal with a HW positive ferret.  I still stand by my opinion that I
would NEVER use Proheart6 as a preventative in any animal.  Obviously
the FDA seems to think that there is a problem with reactions and deaths
that Proheart6 has been responsible for.  Yes, a ferret is not a dog,
but considering the multitude of health problems ferrets are known for,
I am not going to inject 6 months of POISON into a ferret, or any other
animal.  People are so quick to inject everything for anything and there
can be consequences for being overprotective.  For every HW positive
animal or distemper animal that you will hear the sad story on there
are many many many more animals that were damaged by preventatives or
vaccines.  I would bet that almost every person on this list has an
animal that was affected by "doing the right thing" in protecting them,
whether you want to admit it or not.  It's a choice on what risks YOU are
willing to accept.  I see too many flames/criticism to people that have
chosen a different choice on what they feel are acceptable risks.  And
BTW, a vaccine reaction can go alot deeper than just that.  The damage
may not show up right away.  So remember that the next time someone posts
they are not going to vaccinate an animal that has had a reaction,or not
vaccinate yearly anymore because the duration of immunity appears to be
much much longer than a year, maybe they are deciding what risks they
think are acceptable.
 
And on the same subject, I saw mention to the NJ distemper incident a few
years back that said that some ferrets had not been properly vaccinated.
I don't recall ever seeing a followup anywhere on that.  Last I heard Dr.
Williams was doing some tests to see if it was vaccine failure, failure
to vaccinate, or a new distemper strain?  If there is actual evidence of
what happened I would like to see it.  If what was recently posted
regarding that was conjecture, I would like that clarified.
 
~Amy~
[Posted in FML issue 4629]