Hello people.
 
This is not a flame but merely something to make everyone on the list stop
and think.
 
FerretMom <[log in to unmask]> wrote
>"With all respect to Dr. Williams, I think this is a bit too radical.
>ADV has existed in the ferret community for *many* years.  Dr. Brown's
>testing in the 1980's found that 10% (50) of 500 ferrets tested positive
>for ADV, yet only 2 ferrets went on to develop signs of the disease.  That
>works out to 0.4% of ferrets developing signs of ADV."
 
This is almost exactly what people said when HIV was first brought to the
public eye.  Only a few people (relatively speaking) showed clinical signs.
Many more were infected, went untested and unannounced, and the disease was
spread all around the globe in record time.  We all know how prevalent HIV
is now.  I'm sure we'd all like to keep ADV from getting to the same point.
 
As to how fast ADV is spreading, until everyone tests their ferrets (and
reports the findings!), we have no way of knowing how fast and far the
disease is spreading.  I, for one, will be testing all 11 of my ferrets as
a baseline and for my own peace of mind, not to mention the peace of mind
of anyone my ferrets may come in contact with.
 
Anastasia Kidd
Plainfield, NJ
alt. email: [log in to unmask]
[Posted in FML issue 2953]