Years ago it was thought that it MIGHT be possible to diagnose lympho with blood tests. Last I read on this topic: this was studied by the idea's originator (Susan Brown) and others, with the conclusion that blood tests do NOT accurately and reliably diagnose lympho. A systemic infection can look pretty much the same. To clearly diagnose lympho you need to pull a node and biopsy it. Sometimes a needle aaspiration of a node is enough but that has a higher chance of giving a false negative result. DON'T LOSE HOPE OF IT NOT BEING LYMPHO ONLY BECAUSE OF A BLOOD TEST. Now, it may be that there's some NEW way to diagnose lympho with a blood test, but each case I've heard of so far has been that same old disproved hypothesis which can be in indication for further testing rather than a conclusion in and of itself. If I'm wrong, then mea culpa, but instead of giving up hope it would probably pay to check. (BTW, there have been some survivors with chemo treatments such as the Jeglum Protocol.) Noticed some people letting ferrets have styrofoam without supervision. We've never had a blockage get to the point of needing surgery, but twice thought it might reach that point: once was styrofoam and once was sponge "rubber". Dog foods also tend to lack enough taurine; not good. BTW, we personally have never encountered a problem with onion or with garlic for ferrets though we avoid those for individuals with active helicobacter or signs of ulceration. Have run into a source of pet-food quality freeze dried crickets for herps. Plan to order some and try them on the ferrets as a snack. Should be about like crab biscuits are for humans I would imagine. About the MF stuff: ANYONE can call up old issues from the archives and read all the complaints (many recently printed here), the accusations (ditto), the fantasies in a few cases (such as the Soylent Green thing -- stopped reading when it became obvious post was a repeat so don't know if some of these made it to the post), and even the things which were done right by this company and in relation to this company. There are breeders whose conditions are certainly better, and ones whose conditions are way worse. That there are better and worse might (or might not --since surveys of AT-HOME pets found no great differences, but a few small private breeders have reported some long-lived lines through the years) be true with the critters, too. Let's put this to bed if it's just going to be a re-hash, okay. If there is NEW info on either side of the issue then that certainly belongs here. The new poster didn't know this is something which has been hashed and re-hashed to puree maybe four times every year for too many years, but most of us know, so let's get on to things we can do something about. (BTW, there ARE several groups working to get some actual improvements, both with specific breeders or with all breeders. Those folks work hard and their efforts should not risk being undermined by peoples' venting.) [Posted in FML issue 2329]