From:
Sukie Crandall
Date: 2009-02-11 18:02:55 UTC
Subject: [ferrethealth] for those who wonder about a new news story and claims about an oil
To: fhl <ferrethealth@yahoogroups.com>, ferret-l@LISTSERV.FERRETMAILINGLIST.ORG
Google Alerts is bringing up a site called PetSkinDoctor so I decided
to look it up.
Dave and Joanna Long are not vets, nor are they MDs as far as I can
find.
They have an emu farm: Longview Farm.
So, if you want Emu Oil (or maybe emu meat as well for all I know)
that could be a source for you though there are plenty of alternative
places to get it, but take the health care statements with a boulder
of salt and use your ferret vet for the info and treatment guidance
you need rather than people with insufficient information who happen
to use "doctor" in a website name.
(It was not an easy thing to track since they do not (so far?) have
their backgrounds on the website, so I had to search for related
articles and on their names which led to a series of articles with
overlaps, finally getting to their emu farm info. I had to do it
because some of the things I saw in news articles could have led some
people to think this might be an option other than treatment for
ferret adrenal disease, for diabetes in cats. It is NOT any of those
things (though I suspect it may make the dry and thin skin some ferret
get with adrenal disease feel better as can some other oils). Emu oil/
fat has its good points (including as a possible anti-inflammatory)
just as certain other oils/fats do, but nothing is a cure-all and some
of the things in the news articles I read sounded like "snake
oil" (forgive the bad almost-pun). People who want to try emu oil can
get products through pet stores and on-line ferret product stores (for
example, the ferret product, Vivify), from health foods stores and
some groceries or pharmacies, even from general mega-merchants like
amazon.com.)
Some far more accurate sources of info than the news articles I saw
today trying to learn about that website (but accept them with their
own limitations such as species used, study designs, comparative
results to other approaches, etc.):
http://www.springerlink.com/content/3830n157u2145526/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10622168
http://www.springerlink.com/content/x3347wn276641714/
and you can find others by using PubMed and Google Scholar.
Notice that you will want to be comfortable with your source since
comparative studies have found emu oils to vary considerably.
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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