Hi everyone,
 
   I came across this article on rec.pets, and I found it quite interesting.
I thought you folks might be interested in this too.  If this research
can be verified, it might be useful ammunition in ferret legalization
battles too.
 
   I tried mailing the author of this post, (Allyn Weaks) to ask
permission, but I didn't get a response, so I decided to post it
anyway.  The entire (unedited) article follows.
 
Charlie Cook
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From: [log in to unmask] (Allyn Weaks)
Newsgroups: rec.pets
Subject: Ferret bite double standard  (was: Re: Ferret gene pools, etc)
Followup-To: rec.pets
Date: Wed, 23 Mar 1994 18:32:24 -0800
Organization: University of Washington
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References: <[log in to unmask]> <[log in to unmask]>
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NNTP-Posting-Host: psaltery.chem.washington.edu
 
In article <[log in to unmask]>, [log in to unmask] (Ash
(K.A. Rice)) wrote:
 
> I had said:
> >>For an related article on pets injuring kids, you should read:
> >>
> >> Paisley, John W.  and Lauer, Brian A. "Severe facial injuries to infants
> >> due to unprovoked attacks by pet ferrets" . by John W. Paisley and
> >> Brian A. Lauer.  The Journal of the American Medical Association
> >> April 1 1988, v259, n13, p2005(2).
 
I don't dispute the truth of this; no animal is always perfectly behaved,
especially if not properly trained and socialized, and not all parents are
fit to be parents.  So far read only the abstract (which seems reasonably
explicit), but I find the double standards involved in the conclusion
interesting:
 
         Three infants were attacked by pet ferrets and sustained
         severe facial injuries.  Two of the children had their ears
         bitten off and required reconstructive surgery.  The attacks
         were unprovoked.  Two of the children were asleep in their
         cribs when they were bitten.  Although ferrets are
         increasingly popular pets, we believe that they are not
         suitable pets for families with small children.  Physicians
         should be aware that ferrets may unpredictably injure infants
         and that no effective rabies vaccine for ferrets is yet
         available.  [No longer true, of course, not to mention that
         ferrets don't get rabies, which was known before 1988. aw]
 
Paisley and Lauer are so highly concerned by three injured infants that
they recommend that ferrets are unsuitable pets for people with small
children.  But in my search of Medline, this was one of only two articles I
could find at all for FERRET .and. BITE in 1966-current.  The other is a
1993 letter (no abstract) about a non-fatal 'Recurrent Mycobacterium bovis
infection following a ferret bite' to a middle-aged man.
 
In only the last 5 years (1988-current), CAT .and. BITE finds 43 articles,
many of them going into the disease related complications which can result
(cat-scratch fever, etc.)  For DOG .and. BITE you get 103 articles, and if
you narrow that down to DOG .and. BITE .and. INFANT, you get 14 articles,
one of which from CDC shows 109 dog-bite _deaths_ of children under ten for
the years 1979-1988, for which the recommendation is not that dogs are
unsuitable with young children, but that more responsible dog ownership,
education, and stronger animal control laws are needed.  And that
 
        "Parents and physicians should be aware that infants
         left alone with a dog may be at risk of death."
 
Author:         Sacks-J-J.  Sattin-R-W.  Bonzo-S-E.
Author Affil.:  Unintentional Injury Section, Centers for Disease Control,
                Atlanta, Ga 30333.
Title:          Dog bite-related fatalities from 1979 through 1988.
Source:         JAMA.  1989 Sep 15.  262(11).  P 1489-92.
 
 
Not to mention the numbers of infants maimed and killed by abusive parents
and babysitters.
 
All in all, I'd tend to conclude that ferrets make pretty safe pets: zero
documented fatalities in almost 30 years from either injury or disease, and
only four incidents of any sort, three of which were presumably due to
careless parents (unless perhaps the full article explains how a ferocious
ferret bludgeoned its way past the parents and broke down the door into the
baby's room in order to chew on its ear?).
 
Interestingly, I've not yet found any mention of non-disease fatalities due
to cats (urban legend of cat suffocates baby.)
 
By the way, for those looking for ferret and other pet health info, Medline
and PsychInfo are good places to hunt if you have access and aren't
squeamish. Medline includes abstracts from veternary journals; PsychInfo
has neurophys studies.
--
Allyn Weaks
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[Posted in FML issue 0786]