Reptile & Amphibian Forums

As usual exotic pets take the fall for improper hygene and quarantine methods on the part of people. I'm refering to the few recent cases of monkeypox documented here in th U.S. and where the blame is being placed The species to species spread of diseases is dangerous and complicated but by no means limited to exotics. Example: Sheep in Europe have long spread a disease called scrapies among themselves. After slaughter the infected sheep remains were recycled into cattle feed. This practice was very common in Europe until recently. The disease "jumped species" and is now present in beef cattle and is known as bovine spongifor encephalopathy or mad cow.
This article takes a very negative stance in regards to exotics making very broad claims. As for the article's claim that prairy dogs carry plague-It's the fleas that spread the disease as we all should know. Prairy dog towns can and in rare cases do contain plague but rarely do they come into contact with people. And since fleas spread the disease between species anyway the host is inconsequential.

So now read what CNN.com had to say:

http://www.cnn.com/2003/HEALTH/06/10/monkeypox.diseases.ap/index.html

Now as usual I'm sure we'll all be seeing that familiar legislation we love so much. Thanx for reading.
Oh P.S. see the snake in the graphic?

I wonder how many people each year catch e. coli from improperly handled red meat, or salmonela just from improperly handled chicken....I'd be willing to bet it's far more than the handful of SARS cases or monkeypox......so perhaps we should ban red meat and chicken??
Northshore Reptile Show

Read the text in one of the threads below and adapt/dissmeniate as you see fit.

Cheers
BGF
Venom & Toxin Database

"There are no good counts of how many exotic animals are sold, but they're immensely popular, says Richard Farinato, director of the Humane Society of America's captive wildlife program. Some 800,000 iguanas alone are imported for the pet trade."

Richard Farinato is a pr!ck who spews his drivel like gospel. If we got 800K iguanas and untold numbers of snakes, where is public epidemic of disease? Where is the problem here?