In some ways, it doesn’t surprise me because it’s happened many times before. However, you’d think that, at some point, things would start to improve.
Apparently not.
The US CDC is reporting yet another outbreak of salmonellosis associated with contact with feeder mice, that is, mice produced commercially to feed to pet reptiles. Sadly
The fact that Salmonella and reptiles go together is old news. I often get questions about testing reptiles to see if they are Salmonella carriers and I tell people not to bother since even with a negative result, I’d consider the animal to be positive. A recent study in the Journal of Zoo and Wildlife
When bacteria containing NDM-1 (New Delhi metallobetalactamase 1) were first identified a few years ago, I talked about it during presentations as something bad that’s coming our way. NDM-1 is an enzyme that gives the bacteria that possesses it resistance to a huge range of antibiotics, to the point that few or no viable treatment
Plague cases tend to get a lot of press. The fact that this disease killed a large percentage of the human population in a few different pandemics (albeit centuries ago for the most part) probably plays a role in that. Despite the impression by some that it’s just a historical disease, plague is alive and
It seems like whenever a hit TV show or movie features an animal, there’s concern about the "101 Dalmatians effect," whereby there’s a mad rush to get the animal for a pet. When 101 Dalmatians was a hit movie, there was a huge spike in sales of this rather unusual breed – a
A report about the health risks in children associated with nontraditional pets was recently published in Pediatrics, the official journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics. The report also discusses diseases associated with animals in public settings such as petting zoos and pet stores. Although contact with pets and animals can be beneficial
A case of pneumonic tularemia was recently reported in New York City.
Tularemia is a disease caused by the bacterium Francisella tularensis. It causes different signs of illness depending on how the bacteria enter the body. If the bacteria are inhaled, it tends to cause pneumonia (pneumonic tularemia). If the bacteria get in
