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 spongiform 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?

The thing is, I read the disease originally came from an 'African rat' (no idea exactly what that might be). So since it's an exotic disease... geez, this doesn't bode well for us...
But they have to realize reptiles are a LOT less likely to spread diseases to humans... don't they?

: But (newspeople) have to realize reptiles are a LOT less likely to spread diseases to humans... don't they?

I wouldn't count on it. Even if they do, rarity increases news value. Remember the old adage that "dog bites man" is not news, while "man bites dog" is news. Especially if a Kennedy is involved. 8-)

Have you seen the files on the CDC web site about diseases commonly passed from dogs and cats to humans? Scarey but not news. 8-(

Paul Hollander

By 'they' I meant the people making the laws to ban importation. I doubt they really care that much, though. I'm way past expecting the media to get anything right, even Animal Planet is sensationalistically against reptiles as pet. Blerg.

I agree with your opinion concerning animal planet. I find they are often biased and/or air ill informed material about reptiles and amphibians. The Animal cops shows (besides being depressing in general) often depict reptile rescues with the reptile ending up in worse conditions than before it was rescued. I saw them take a young healthy alligator and toss it in a tank with no heat source. They evaluated its condidtion as being poor. Gee I wonder why??