From:
"Sukie Crandall"
Date: 2008-12-19 17:05:51 UTC
Subject: [ferrethealth] Re: Lethal, Hot Strain of ECE
To: ferrethealth@yahoogroups.com
Okay, I have heard that some people may be leery
of posting for fear of being "blamed", so here are
some essential points.
1. There is NO blame in a mutation of an illness
having begun or first been noticed in any place,
whether shelter or breeder, or wherever. You didn't
create this. It began on its own.
2. There is NO way for the early places with a new
contagious illness to know that they are definitely
dealing with a contagious illness because nothing
is known, yet.
3. Many illness shed BEFORE a ferret shows symptoms
(and some, like ECE, can continue shedding after the
symptoms are gone for a long number of months). So,
a ferret can seem completely healthy for a gathering
and show symptoms afterward, but have infected others.
4. No one who held a gathering of any type is to blame
for all the reasons above and due to lack of control over
the choices of others.
There IS a moral obligation to save the lives of other
ferrets by reporting, though.
Now, I know that there are those who worry about others
getting nasty if they feel implicated. Sadly, that is a real
fear because there are some people who get their backs
up too easily instead of realizing how absolutely essential
full revelation is.
So, here are some things that may help:
AVOID NAMES PUBLICLY if you think you may know where it
came from. Hey, you might be right or you might be wrong...
Use the state instead of specific location. If you don't want
to say that the source of your own exposure may have been
a shelter or breeder just say "a location with a large number
of ferrets"
I do think that people should feel free to mention gatherings,
but again the type of gathering may be best to say, such as
"One of my ferrets, who already had compromised health,
and I went to a large gathering to teach people about ferrets
in the month of... Two weeks later the first of my ferrets to
fall ill did so with the following symptoms..."
How does that sound?
In tracing past illnesses there have been problems with people
not wanting to report because they were afraid that they or
someone else might be exposed to abuse. If anyone reading
this is someone who would jump down the throat of a person,
PLEASE, control yourself! You can always politely follow-up, and
that is more informative and more fair.
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