RodentPro- Zoonotic disease warning

WebSlave,
I entirely agree with you-- in fact I mentioned to the health dept. people that anyone who has a career with animals is (or at least should be) well aware that many many zoonotic diseases exist. I remember an entire section of my wildlife biology class on it.

Anyone who works with animals should indeed use universal precautions and also be educated about the possibility. That is why I attempted to make clear that I really was not upset that the problem occurred in the first place. My problem is that I do not feel RP acted responsibly by not telling anyone about this. How do they know I don't have a pregnant woman caring for our rodent colony? (I don't, but they didn't call to check is my point.)

Also, I wanted to check in as the OP and tell you that I have not heard anything today about whether or not we received the diseased rodents. Our last shipment was right in the time zone where we certainly could have-- I did call the epidemiologist and leave a message. I will update here with whatever new info I get.

Regarding frozen rodents-- from what I understand it is a very reduced risk. My concerns were as follows:
1. Do you keep your frozen snake food in your human food freezer? I don't now, but I did in college. I think some particulate feces on the outside of the rodent bag coming in contact with your ice cream is not a great idea. I hope people are more careful than this anyway, but still.
2. Dropping a mouse or feces on the floor accidentally when thawing, and then a child puts their hand in that spot. Then said hand goes into the mouth. I am unclear on whether or not the virus could live in through this scenario, but since I do not know it can't happen it is safer to assume it could.

There are other possible scenarios I can think of where frozen may potentially be a problem-- this is why I felt that the community as a whole deserved to know. It is not my intention to blow it out of proportion- and I think being rational and thinking things through is always a good idea. However, people deserve the opportunity to decide what they feel comfortable with personally. I am attempting to give them that option.

Sorry to double post-- I didn't see a way to edit.

Wraith-- I am not sure who all the CDC is trying to track down- I am not privy to that info. However, anyone who purchased rodents at shows does not have a paper trail tied to them. There is no way the CDC could track those folks down if they wanted to. See my comments above regarding frozen.

My concern is that it appears that some people here seem to not realize that EVERY animal is going to have pathogens associated with it

Yes, and as I said, so do human animals. I keep lots of lizards and a few birds, and they have never made me sick in spite of having immune system issues, but last year, my biggest lupus episode was caused because a care worker who helps me with my mother brought what was a mild to moderate airborne stomach virus to my house. I have never gotten sick from an animal that I know of because I am very careful and mindful of personal hygiene and very hyper aware of what might end up in my air space, but being around people seems like a bigger threat, to me.

However, RP should have informed their customers that they had a known zoonotic virus at their facility, should have included a fact sheet about the disease with that disclosure, and should have assured people that they were doing what they needed to do to eradicate the disease, IMO. That is how I would have handled the situation if that was my facility.

Originally Posted by WebSlave

Seriously, does anyone here think that working with ANY live animals"IN ANY WAY,SHAPE OR FORM"[/font]does NOT expose you to zoonotic organisms?

I have never ever been exposed to any zoonotic organisms by any of my imaginary LIVE animals!!!

So how does this affect everyone's thinking about government regulation? Some will thank the stars there's a CDC checking up on things like this. Others will say the government should keep its hands off private business and let the marketplace separate the good and bad. It's an interesting, thought provoking situation, no?

Originally Posted by rtdunham

So how does this affect everyone's thinking about government regulation? Some will thank the stars there's a CDC checking up on things like this. Others will say the government should keep its hands off private business and let the marketplace separate the good and bad. It's an interesting, thought provoking situation, no?

An excellent idea for one of the discussion forums. Perhaps you could start a thread there.

Failure to prevent, Failure to inform, both issues that are telling in and of themselves.

Disease does not pop in out of thin air, it must have a vector. In this case it was more than likely a wild mouse infected with the virus that gained access to the mouse racks, and either urinated on the captive mice or left droppings that transmitted the disease.

The transmission of this virus to captive populations of mice was a preventable event, in my own home there are three doors between my mice and outside, four if you count the storm door at the main entryway.

I take every practical precaution available to me to prevent illness in my colony, I do so because it matters to me. I have a fairly good relationship with our vet and have my rodents checked twice a year for health, all toll this increases my cost slightly but not to the point where breeding my own is more expensive than Rodent Pro which does not take similar precautions (obviously).

It is their lack of foresight and lack of concern for customer safety and security that gives me reason to not trust the company as a whole.

While Rodent Pro does not sell live directly to the public with the intention of those animals becoming pets, they do sell to companies that resell to pet shops that do. Mice often end up in close proximity to childrens faces, and ultimately children do not always A) do as they are told B) wash their hands prior to jamming them in their mouths of the mouths of others.

A small unnecessary risk is and always will be UNNECESSARY. When that small risk comes to fruition and a child is lost, or a mother, or ... what then? Do we explain to that childs mother that her daughter was just part of what was considered a small risk?

If that is your stance, I feel you are wrong.

My stance is to deny them my business, deny them my recommendation as a good company, and as is my prerogative to inform those whom ask why I feel the way I do.

Maurice Pudlo

Here is a direct link to the Facebook conversation regarding Rodent Pro, I messed up the last one sorry.

http://m.facebook.com/groups/2666899...=bookmark&_rdr

Maurice Pudlo

Recently I received an e-mail from the Illinois Falconers' Association, and I'll be sure to talk to him about where he got his info from. Here's the e-mail :

"It has been brought to our attention that the Board of Animal Health
identified a serious Lymphocytic Choriomeningitis outbreak in southern
Indiana at "RodentPro". As we are aware that some falconers purchase mice,
quail and chicks for their hawks from this facility, we are alerting you of
what we have learned.

Lymphocytic Choriomeningitis known as LCM or LCMV is a rodent-born viral
disease that affects nearly five percent of the mice population. Humans
exposed to the viral disease can become quite ill.

We encourage you to check out the following three links (below) to learn
more. At this time, the information found on these two links is the extent
of what we know. If you have purchased any animals from RodentPro, we
encourage you to read the information on the following links and use your
own judgement and discretion regarding how best to proceed.

http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/foru...d.php?t=334751

http://www.farmworldonline.com/news/...p?newsid=14991

http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvrd/spb/mnpages/dispages/lcmv.htm"

It is impossible to insure that absolutely no mouse urine/feces etc make it into your facility. The bedding, feed, and other materials could bring in small amounts without anyone being able to notice. The humans that work in the facility could have been asymptomatic carriers that picked the disease up at home or in there day to day lives and brought it in unknowingly. To me the fact that this disease found its way into their colonies(or any colony of this magnitude) was more or less inevitable.

The big issue to me is that once they were alerted of its existence they did not halt sales, inform those who had recently purchased from them, and made available the information on their website for those who purchased from them at shows etc. If the problem had been handled in that regard or some similar fashion I would have no problems at this point what so ever.