>From: Ferreter <[log in to unmask]>
I hope that you will allow me to respond to the absurd accusations
thrown at me by Ferreter. Please be assured that I have no intention of
engaging in a public dispute with her on this forum; that would not be
appropriate.
>After years of trying to work with vets to build up a rapport with vets
>over treatment of ferrets for various illnesses it all could be
>threatened because three people - Eric and Ruth Corbett, and Cliff Bull -
>have taken in on themselves to judge that treatments are wrong and have
>contacted vets to threaten action against them. None are vets,
>none have responded to any requests from any individual or welfare
>organisation for evidence of their concern, yet they feel THEY are
>the appropriate people to contact YOUR vets about YOUR ferrets.
As is well known, the active inredient in Frontline is a pesticide called
fipronil. The situation with Frontrine/fipronil is a little different
between the USA and the UK, in that here in the UK Frontline can only be
prescribed by a vet, whereas in the USA I believe that it can be bought
over the counter. Although it is not licensed for use on ferrets in
either country, it is licensed here in the UK for the treatment of fleas
and ticks on dogs and cats. Fipronil works by blocking the action of the
neurotransmitter gamma-amino-butyric acid (GABA), present in both
vertebrate and invertebrate central nervous systems.
Last summer Ferreter began claiming that Frontline drops were safe
and affective with introduced into the ear canal to treat ear mites,
and claimed that much work had been done to prove the safety and
effectiveness of this treatment. Upon investigation this claim turned
out to be quite untrue. Later she also appealed to the authority of the
British Small Animal Veterinary Association (BSAVA) Manual of Exotic Pets
as her justification for this treatment, a claim which also proved to be
unfounded when we checked with the author of that text. Ferreter has
been made aware of of these facts, and many others, but has deliberately
chosen to try and suppress any proper debate on this subject both in the
pages of the National Ferret Welfare Society Newsletter, of which she is
the editor, in Ferrets First magazine, and even in the various ferret
forums on which she is so vociferous.
The bottom line, as the author of the chapter on ferrets in the BSAVA
manual has already said, is that there is no need to risk the potentially
ototoxic effects of introducing Frontline drops into your ferret's ears
to treat ear mites when there are perfectly good, clinically established
treatments for that condition already available. Any vet who does so
must have good clinical reasons for making that choice, for instance, a
conviction that the existing treatments are likely to be ineffective in
a particular case, otherwise that vet would be in apparent breach of the
cascade of prescribing as specified by their regulatory body, the Royal
College of Veterinary Surgeons (RCVS). All vets in the UK are obliged
by law to conform to the guidelines laid down by the RCVS.
Ferreter has consistently claimed that many UK vets routinely use
Frontline to treat ear mites, and are quite happy to recommend its use.
Yet every time I have asked her for the name of even one vet who holds
this opinion she has refused to divulge it. The 'threatening letter' she
refers to must be the one I wrote to her own vet simply asking whether he
supported this unconventional and potentially hazardous use of Frontline
as a routine treatment for ear mites in ferrets, as she had intimated
that he did on several occasions.
Ferreter asserts that ferret health care is at risk in the UK. If that
is so, then that it's her and her friends who are responsible for that
state of affairs. One glance at the pages of the NFWS Newsletter, in
which veterinary advice is routinely disemminated by individuals without
any veterinary qualifications makes that quite apparent.
Eric Corbett
[Posted in FML issue 4388]
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