http://www.smartgroups.com/message/readmessage.cfm? gid=1423922&messageid=8160&startid=8161 Hi everybody, A lot of the post have mentioned separating the vaccines by 1-2 weeks "to prevent" reactions. Unfortunately that will not prevent reactions! It will just tell you which vaccine they are reacting too. Plus in a semi-recent article from the U of Georgia, both the rabies vaccine and the (Fervac-d) distemper had roughly the same reaction rate if giving together. or when they are giving by themself. The new Merial Purevax distemper vaccine has a lower reaction rate and a much lower rate of the severe reactions. I have not seen a severe reaction since changing to the Merial Purevax-distemper vaccine!! As far as pretreating to prevent a vaccine reaction, the owner can give liquid beneadryl roughly 30 minutes prior to the vaccine. However if the ferret has had a vaccine reaction previously then check to see which distemper vaccine was used. Obviously change to the Merial Purevax distemper if either Fervac-d or Galaxy-d was used previously. If it was just a mild reaction then merely changing to Purevax may solve the problem, but it would be a good thing to give Benadryl to be safe. However if it was a moderate to severe reaction then I use cortisone prior to the vaccine to prevent a reaction. No, the cortisone will not prevent a immune response to the vaccine, but it does prevent the vaccine allergic reaction. Remember dogs, cats, and even humans have vaccine reactions. Unfortunately ferrets do have a higher rate of vaccine reactions (roughly 5% in the U of Georgia article). Hope that helps, Jerry Murray, DVM [Posted in FML issue 4444]