>From:    De Fretten-Ark <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: marshall ferrets
>let me introduce myself.  my name is Hans and i'm the president of a
>ferretclub from Belgium called "De Fretten-Ark", witch means as much as
>"The Ferret-Arch".  I have a Question for all of you ferretlovers.  What is
>your uppinion about selling ferrets to laboratories.  in an article I read
>that Marshall farms does this all the time.  and if they really do so, what
>are American ferretclubs doing to prevent these terrible things to
>happen.please send me your info to [log in to unmask] .
 
Yes, it is true that Marshall Farms breeds ferrets and other animals for
lab use.  Some of the ferrets used in the labs are eventually adopted out
to good homes, and some of them are killed in the course of the lab work,
and that is a fact, too.  It is also a fact that Marshall Farms advertises
in professional journals that they breed animals for lab use, and the
availability of their animals.  All of that is true -- but it's not the
whole truth.
 
The issue of medical and scientific testing on animals isn't as cut and
dried as some people would like to make it.  It is complex and complicated.
 
Remember, every vaccine and medicine used to treat ferret ailments and
illnesses were developed in labs where those vaccines and medicines were
tested on ferrets to discover their safety and efficacy -- without those
lab tests, there would be no safe vaccines to protect our ferrets from
rabies and distemper.  Would you eliminate the manufacture and use of such
vaccines to eliminate such lab testing?  As new illnesses are discovered
(like ECE) lab experimentation is needed to find out which medicines would
be effective in safely treating the illness without also harming the
patients.  Would it be better to stop experiments to develop new and better
treatments for existing diseases of our ferrets?  Personally, I hope that
wouldn't be the case.
 
Yes, ferrets are also used in the testing of human procedures and
medicines, too.  Ferrets have been used to teach medical students how to
safely intubate tiny premature human infants to give them a better chance
of surviving those critical early days outside of the womb.  Would the
world be a better place if such experimentation had been eliminated and
those tiny, struggling infants been allowed to suffocate?  Ferrets have
also been used to test flu vaccines.  Many people have forgotten the 1919
influenza pandemic which killed millions.  A repeat of such a flu pandemic
has been prevented (so far) partly because the contributions made by
ferrets and other lab animals have resulted in effective vaccines and
treatments for the flu.
 
Like most other rational people, I am against unnecessary animal
experimentation.  But, I also know that the issue isn't as simple as some
would like to make it.  There is no easy solution to the issue.  For a lot
of reasons (some of them valid, and many of them not so valid) people have
made Marshall Farms a whipping boy for every issue they can think of.  But,
sometimes we should all pause long remember where our ferrets would be
without vaccines for distemper and rabies, without the medicines that make
it possible to provide a better quality of life and sometimes even a cure
for ferrets suffering from illnesses.
 
FSG
[Posted in FML issue 2778]