[Moderator's note: The shelter's response appears in the next post. BIG] The 2 people this information is from will not go on record, but one is a well known and well liked vet who specializes in ferrets, and the other is a well known pathologist who specializes in ferrets. A group of us were sitting around Friday evening, having a few beers and talking. One vet who was attending brought up the subject of distemper and whether or not yearly vaccination was really needed for any species. As the comments on that topic faded, I turned to the vet mentioned above, and asked if he had heard about the distemper outbreak in Washington, and given that the ferrets had been vaccinated, asked could we really trust any of the vaccines out on the market. He suggested I should talk with the pathologist (who was sitting next to me) because he knew the full story better than anyone else there. And so, what I was told was that "the ferret's vet" had sent in necropsy samples thinking she had come upon a 'hot' strain of mycoplasmosis. The pathologist immediately recognized it was distemper, and got back to her with that information. At that point, "the ferret's vet" claimed she didn't believe it because the ferrets had been vaccinated. Things went back and forth for a while, and finally the pathologist wanted to get additional samples, as well as any remaining vials of vaccine from the lot, for more testing, and told "the ferret's vet" that they should write a paper on this. At that point "the ferret's vet" said they couldn't do that, and admitted the ferrets had not been vaccinated. New intakes had not been vaccinated in the shelter at all, and most of the ones that had been in the shelter for over a year were not up to date on vaccinations. The ones that got really sick and died were the ones with unknown vaccination history who had not received any vaccinations since coming into the shelter or ones that were way past due for boosters. So, there was no report filed with Merial, because the vaccine was not the problem. Now, the vet who is well known and liked happens to like to push "the ferret's vet's" buttons at times, because she will often start to say stupid things. When he heard about the outbreak, he called her to get more information. By questioning some of her claims, she started to make contradicting comments, and eventually admitted to him the ferrets had not been vaccinated. Both the vet and the pathologist stressed that they did not know what "the shelter operator" did or did not know about the vaccination situation, since their conversations were just with "the ferret's vet". Both are hoping that "the ferret's vet" will come clean, and admit to what really happened up there, as many people are likely to feel that if so many vaccinated ferrets can die from distemper, there is really no reason to vaccinate. Anyway, we may never know the complete truth about the outbreak, but it appears it was not due to ineffective vaccine, but lack of proper vaccination protocols. Still, a very sad situation, regardless. TheTruthForFerrets Doing What's Right For Ferrets! [Posted in FML 7098]