To Mary and her Modern ferrets:
 
> If a ferret has a reaction to a vaccine and receives epinephrine
>and/or Benedryl, is that vaccination still effective?  Is the ferret
>protected?
 
        Yes - epinephrine and antihistamines have no effect on the ferret
mounting an immune response.  Actually, the immune response takes several days,
whereas the epinephrine is gone in 15 mins. and the anithistamines in several
hours.  Things that will prevent a good response include steroids (which
inhibit the immune system), and a fever at the time of vaccination.  There are
others, but those are the main two.
 
>Also, a friend's ferret just had a reaction to Fervac-D. The ferret had only
>had Fromm-D before. Since people vaccinate their ferrets before the previous
>vaccine actually "wears off" (that is, vaccination may last 14 mos, but
>ferret is revaccinated at 11 mos--esp. true of show circuit ferrets) can the
>presence of the two differently formulated vaccines in the ferret at the same
>time be causing a problem? Or is the "vaccine" actually long since gone from
>the ferret, leaving only the antibodies?
 
        No, the usual problem is that the ferret is making antibodies against
some other part of the vaccine besides the virus - usually some protein.  Many
vaccines contain similar protein materials in the carrier - acutally, only a
very small fraction of the vaccine is virus - and this is what the ferret
reacts to.  Once is reacts once, each time it comes in contact with that
protein again, it will react again.
 
--
Bruce Williams, DVM, DACVP              Department of Veterinary Pathology
[log in to unmask]               Armed Forces Institute of Pathology
[log in to unmask]             Washington, D.C.  20306-6000
(202) 782-2600/2602
[Posted in FML issue 1162]