As is typical for this time of year, the annual US rabies report has been published in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association (Ma et al, 2018).
Here are some highlights:
No, we haven’t changed to a cooking blog, I’m talking about bites of the canine variety. I can’t think of any specific data that would show it, but I wonder whether bites are more common around the holidays, with disrupted schedules and more visitors (and a potential midnight intruder in a red suit).
The rabies-related
I realize headline writers are trying to attract attention, and sometimes they don’t know much about the content. As a result, some headlines are quite over the top, and that can freak people out. Here are some examples from the past couple of days:
4 year old girl catches life-threatening infection by trying on shoes
Capnocytophaga questions keep coming in. I guess that’s good in some ways, because I usually get a lot of blank stares when I mention that bacterium. A recent article about the risks of Capnocytophaga and exposure to dog saliva includes some good information about the topic, but the statements below highlight some issues:
It’s important
Every couple of months there’s a news report about a person with infection caused by the dog-associated bacterium Capnocytophaga canimorsus. Most of these reports don’t get too much attention, but every once in a while they get picked up pretty widely, resulting in another round of questions about this strange bacterium. It’s a bit
Quick question: what species do you think accounts for the most human deaths in the US?
A recent paper in Wilderness & Environmental Medicine (Forrester et al, 2017. An update on fatalities due to venomous and nonvenomous animals in the United States, (2008-2015)) explored this topic, using a CDC database to study deaths
A dog attacks someone and is shot by police.
The sheriff’s investigator notifies the county health department, which says the dog needs to be tested for rabies.
The investigator then tells the owner that he has to remove the dog’s head or he’ll face a
If it wasn’t for the injured child, this would be a funny story.
There was a hearing in Hillsborough County, Florida about a proposed ordinance requiring dog trainers to be licensed. Not surprisingly, that didn’t go over well with all trainers. One of the main opponents was waiting in line to get into the
While waiting in line to check-in for a flight in Orlando, a JetBlue passenger was bitten by a dog. This raises lots of issues and questions, and for the bitten individual, she’s dealing with a pretty nasty bite and also the potential need for rabies post-exposure prophylaxis.
Yes, piranha bite response is a pretty niche topic. Nevertheless, it’s interesting (at least to me).
A recent paper in Pediatric Emergency Care (Berkowitz and Goldsmith. An unexpected fish bite. 2017) covers this topic. It starts off this way:
A 22-month-old boy presented to the pediatric emergency department with a missing right fourth
