From:
Sukie Crandall
Date: 2007-12-06 18:40:51 UTC
Subject: [ferrethealth] OT: chips in pets and humans unsafe says article
To: ferrethealth@yahoogroups.com
Remember that rodents are NOT closely related to dogs, cats, or ferrets.
They are taxonomically far more closely related to us primates (which
is why they are useful for so many human health study and also likely
to be one important reason why there are so very many zoonotic
diseases humans and rodents share, compared to ferrets, cats, or dogs.
Notice that article goes into the rodent studies but NOT the ones in
dogs. The numbers in rodents are important to know for a possible
human health threat (such as possible future microchipping of troops)
but can't be treated as if it applies definitely for humans. The
rodent numbers apply even less for ferrets, cats, or dogs.
Similarly, when seeing any studies that happen in bats, shrews, flying
"lemurs", and other animals more closely related to humans remember
the taxonomy. There has been one in an Egyptian fruit bat under
study, for instance. That one was a leiomyosarcoma.
Here is a case in a dog:
http://www.vetpathology.org/cgi/content/full/43/4/545
another in a dog 2 years before that one above:
Vet J. 2004 Sep;168(2):188-90.
Liposarcoma at the site of an implanted microchip in a dog.
Aside from the two dogs, and the one bat the other studies mentioned
at PubMed were all in rodents.
Fibrosarcomas have happened in ferrets for a reason shared with other
members of carnivora, but the numbers are small:
http://ferrethealth.org/archive/SG16198
BEGIN QUOTE
Sorry to hear about the loss of your pet.
Can ferrets get sarcomas after an injection?
Yes, Very, Very rarely they can. I had a case report
of a vaccine injection site sarcoma in a pet ferret
published in JAVMA (213:955) back in 1998. Since
then I have not seen one. There was a second paper
published from the vets at the U of Georgia also
describing vaccine site sarcomas in pet ferrets.
Ferrets can also get fibrosarcomas that have nothing
to do with a vaccine or injection.
In cats there has been a lot of research on this very topic.
Some cats are genetically prone to sarcomas after an injection
(vaccines and several other products) produces inflammation
under the skin. The inflammation eventually leads to tumor formation.
Researchers at Colorado State's vet school also produced a sarcoma
with just the needle going thru the cat's skin without an injection.
The needle brought a small amount of hair under the skin which
caused the inflammation. This same problem has also been
documented in some lab animals (rodents).
Unfortunately there is no way of knowing for sure if his tumor
was produced by previous injections (ie vaccines, antibiotics,
SQ fluids, melatonin implant) or if it was a fibrosarcoma that had
nothing to do with an injection without a lot of specific testing.
Again sorry to hear about your loss,
Jerry Murray, DVM
END QUOTE
Sukie (not a vet)
Recommended ferret health links:
http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/ferrethealth/
http://ferrethealth.org/archive/
http://www.afip.org/ferrets/index.html
http://www.miamiferret.org/fhc/
http://www.ferretcongress.org/
http://www.trifl.org/index.shtml
http://homepage.mac.com/sukie/sukiesferretlinks.html
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