"At the moment, I am not completely sure of the CDC's position on this, or if they even have anything written down." According to the 1996 Compendium of Animal Rabies Control under the section MANAGEMENT OF ANIMALS THAT BITE HUMANS: "Management of animals other than dogs and cats depends on the species, the circumstances of the bite,and the epidemiology of rabies in the area." In addition Charles Rupprecht has repeatedly stated that risk assesment is the first step in dealing with a bite incident and that there are cases when risk assesment will eliminate the need for any action against the biting animal. I hear the cry go up throughout the ferret community every time there is a bite incident that we all need to contribute more towards the completion of the domestic shedding studies. (Let me take a minute here to put on an asbestos suit before continuing) Anyone who understands how studies such as this are actually funded knows that the contributions of individuals are insignificant to the actual funding efforts. In a conversation I had with Dr. Briggs (in charge of the study) she told me that we, as a ferret community, could actually raise more funds faster by turing our efforts towards lobbying the organizations who fund major scientific research projects to fund this one. Public Health loves to throw out the line that "ferret owners and clubs need to work harder to fund further studies". It makes us look like we're the ones not working hard enough when they are taking shortcuts in doing their jobs. Collecting funds on a personal level is the slowest and least efficient method. I propose that the ferret community direct serious lobbying efforts towards the funding organizations and use the individual contributions we collect for copying and distribution of the educational materials we already have concerning rabies and shedding (which BTW already exceeds the ammount of data used to establish the quarantine for dogs). As a final question let me ask "what makes us think that they will accept new data when they already have two european studies and one domestic which they don't?" [Posted in FML issue 1600]