From:
Sukie Crandall
Date: 2002-03-06 16:00:00 UTC
Subject: When too many, too young get sick; clumps, viral precursors
(Off-site post test and setting up for a further search test)
--
-
There are several things to recall when too many, too young get sick.
One is that statistical aberrations DO occur, and then realize that
clumps aren't even an aberration. Clumps do happen. Over 20 years we
have had some times when there were long streaks of health and have
had others when there were long streaks of illness.
Secondly, some diseases just plain DO clump. Contagious diseases are
obvious that way, as are later problems that partly reflect damage
from contagious illnesses that all shared. Lymphoma clumps. There
has even been some research showing that there appears to be a
triggering precursor virus, but the actual virus has not been found
(which is no small undertaking). In two decades we have had two
lymphoma clumps with later animals getting sick within two years of
the earlier ones. Apparently, we are in our second one now. For more
of the years that we have had ferrets we have NOT had ferrets with
lympho, but when we have they have clumped.
Does anyone have any news on the study to see if adrenal clumps are
true clumps? I heard last year or the year before that one was
on-going but have lost that e-mail with details, and don't recall who
was studying it or where. One of the hypotheses that exist is that
there may be a precursor virus which acts in conjunction with other
factors to cause adrenal growths. Also, has anyone heard anything
more about that isolated pocket of adrenal growths in Australia? I
believe that a vet is following those or that a club is interacting
with a researcher to see if the long-term spread pattern meshes with
a possible viral component.