Reptile & Amphibian Forums

just got a call from the health dept as my mom was in the hospital last week due to bleeding ulcers and weel. one of the test they ran they found traces of salmnoella (sp) great all i need is for somthing else to happen. so now thay are wonder if it might be my reptiles. grrrrrrrrrrrr damn i do every thing i can to keep things vclean and sanitery. i bleach everything! she has NO contact with reptiles do everything in a sep room from cooking and food prep. sorry al but need to say somthing to people who understand. ty all
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1.0. okeetee corn arubiss
2.1. ball pythons. ET,STING and het pied Snickers.
0.0.1 lutistic rat snake Tag
1.0.0 Boxer BoBO with the angles
0.1.0 Boxer Jaycie
0.1.0 Pitty Willow
0.0.1 sever macaw Jerry Sparkplug
0.0.1 conure Jewel
1.0.0 cockatile Sam
1.3. skinkids
1.0 hardheaded hubby dosent like the scaled variety

I hope your mom is feeling better soon. I am sorry that you have to deal with such ignorance..

Sorry to hear your mother is ill - hope she is feeling better soon - on a brighter note - it's just as likely that she contracted the salmonella from something she ate, prepared or came in contact with as it could from your snakes.

Good luck!
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Tosha
JET Pythons

Some 17 year old kid at the fast food joint stuck the raw chicken on top of the lettuce, left it there overnight, then sold his poor mom a salad the next day - but somehow the snakes are at fault?

just got back from dr with my mom . she does nto have it just been exposed to it at some time in the recent past. well come to find out today that this same dr has had THREE cases in the past month!! soooooooooooo who knows how many have been exposed in this area latley. I AM GOINGTO START GROWING AND RAISING MY OWN FOOD!!!! LOL
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1.0. okeetee corn arubiss
2.1. ball pythons. ET,STING and het pied Snickers.
0.0.1 lutistic rat snake Tag
1.0.0 Boxer BoBO with the angles
0.1.0 Boxer Jaycie
0.1.0 Pitty Willow
0.0.1 sever macaw Jerry Sparkplug
0.0.1 conure Jewel
1.0.0 cockatile Sam
1.3. skinkids
1.0 hardheaded hubby dosent like the scaled variety

I had salmonella last year in august. They had learned of the salmonella outbreak in my community as early as may and didn't warn us until august. Well Once they learned that I had it, they instantly tried to blame my snake for it. I was smart, and volunteered to have frosty tested. I knew he'd come back with salmonella because well he's a reptile. They at first acted as if it was instantly his fault and tried very hard to blame me. I was called into the managers office several times during that issue. At one point they were attempting to tell me that if I kept him I would cease to have a job at that facility. I'm a cake decorator and work with food on a daily basis. Well once Frosty's lab work came back, yes he tested positive but not the same strain. Suddenly it became a series of apologies I got over and over. First from my bosses for ignorantly assuming before they got the facts, then from the board of health for releasing my information to my employer before they released it to me. Granted I had signed a release concerning myself and my own tests, but Frosty's tests were signed in as confidential unless written permission was granted from me first. Two or three weeks after the tests came back and I was already back to work, I got a call from someone who lives about 35 minutes away from me and about an hour away from my work telling me hey my doctors nurse told me that there is a rumor going around the medical community that the outbreak was caused by a cake decorator that didn't properly sanitize her hands after handling her snake. I was livid and extremely angry. Again my rights had been violated and I through myself a very large fit. I then told them I wanted a letter stating exactly what strain was found in the knife rack at work and exactly what strain my animal had. I then took that letter straight to my boss who then copied it and shortly after that, I received a letter from corporate that was an offical apology. Granted it wasn't much, but it did show that some people see snakes and just assume. I'm sorry your mom is sick but if it does come down to them accusing you and just assuming it's your snake, tell them in no uncertain terms, you can volunteer to collect a fecal for them to test at their board of health facility and prove either A it is, or B it's not the same strain.

Good luck hon, and I wish your Mom a speedy recovery!

I know recently Peter Pan peanut butter had to recall most, if not all of their peanut butter because they had leaky pipes in their packaging plant and alot of their peanut butter became contaminated with Salmonella serotype tennessee and people where getting sick all over the country. Hope everything is going well.
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0.1 Normal Cornsnake
1.0 Sumatran Short Tail Python
2.0 Ball Pythons (1 Pastel)

Salmonella is common in just about everything that lives or was alive at some point. It also has many different strains. Does your mother have any pets? Or comes in contact with any pets? I don't mean reptiles, but cats, dogs, birds, small mammals, etc. Heck, if she had eggs recently and didn't wash her hands after cracking open the eggs before she grabbed her toast, she could have contacted the salmonella from the egg shells.

If many of her doctor's patients are showing signs of salmonella, maybe his office is contaminated...or the lab is contaminating the samples.

It is maddening that people always blame reptiles for things when it is rare to contact anything from reptiles to start off, unless they are not cleaned up properly, and you don't wash your hands after handling reptiles. There is a much higher risk for people to come in contact with salmonella from cats and dogs, so many people let these animals lick them in the face, especially kids.
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PHLdyPayne