Posted on 06/13/2003 9:14:19 AM PDT by dufekin
OK, it's nearly summer, and it's been really wet, so we're getting our annual fix of stories about how there will be more mosquitoes carrying West Nile virus this year.
This comes at a time when we're still fighting the spread of SARS and we're still wary that some of those palsied cattle in Canada might spread mad cow disease our way.
Now comes the latest pestilence, which erupted over the weekend and was previously unknown in our part of the world: dozens of people in Wisconsin, Illinois and Indiana have contracted an affliction called ``monkeypox virus.''
Health officials say the people caught the monkeypox virus from prairie dogs, which, it seems, are the trendy pet of the month. They are being traded openly at ``pet swap meets.''
The prairie dogs, in turn, allegedly got infected at a suburban Chicago pet shop called Phil's Pocket Pets, where they came in contact with a Gambian giant rat. One person caught the monkeypox virus from a sick rabbit, which also got it from Phil's prairie dogs, who got it from the Gambian giant rat.
As yet, no actual monkeys have been implicated.
To recap: A giant rat from Africa gave the monkeypox virus to the prairie dogs, who gave it to the rabbit and the humans, most of whom live in states next door to where the cows are mad. The monkeys, meanwhile, are in a snit because they're being blamed for all this when the real culprits seem to be the rats, the rabbits and the prairie dogs -- not to mention Pocket-Pet Phil and his gerbil-brained clientele, some of who appear believe that prairie dogs and giant Gambian wharf rats would make swell household pets.
Phil's Pocket Pets? Somebody should force Phil and his customers to live the rest of their days with prairie dogs in their pants pockets. Let the sharp-fanged little herbivores burrow around in there until ol' Phil and his pals beg for mercy. (With luck, Phil, maybe the prairie dogs just ``store them up for the winter,'' like the squirrels.)
Meanwhile, the rest of us are left to fend off one more creepy disease-of-the-week, even if we've never lusted after a prairie dog, or a giant Gambian wharf rat, or even a stupid rabbit.
Now, I've been doing this long enough to know what happens at this point: My telephone message box and my e-mail list will light up with nastygrams from snotty pet pedants who will say something like, ``For your information, Mr. Addis, it's not a `giant Gambian wharf rat,' but a `Gambian giant pouched rat,' and if you weren't so stupid you'd know that they're really sweet, intelligent, loving pets if they get the proper care and treatment and nurturing and blah-blah-blah-blah-blah.''
To which my response is: Save your breath, Miss Hug-a-Bunny. If I get a case of monkeypox virus from your prairie dog or your giant Gambian wharf rat, my antidote is gonna be a fat lawsuit filed by a species known as My Giant Monkeypox Lawyer.
I can assure you, he is not cuddly, no matter what sort of care and feeding and nurturing he gets. He earned his nickname the hard way. No amount of penicillin can stop him.
The world is full of cute little puppies and kittens who are far friendlier than prairie dogs or giant Gambian wharf rats, and are far less likely to infect the rest of us with rare, subtropical swamp-fever diseases. If unconditional love from furry creatures is what you crave, get one of those instead.
Like they say, it's a jungle out there. But please, people, let's leave its inhabitants out there where they belong, and not in a wire cage in your rumpus room.
=========================================================
Wednesday, I sank my sharp rodent's teeth into the subculture of animal lovers whose lust for exotic pets has brought monkeypox virus into a hemisphere where it had never before occurred.
As of the moment, there are 54 suspected cases in four states, and federal health officials are recommending smallpox vaccinations for anybody, especially children and pregnant women, who might have been exposed to pet prairie dogs or Gambian giant pouch rats.
This is not a matter of great concern for the exotic-pet folks. I predicted that they'd react in anger, and asked them to save their breath. Well, they just couldn't resist.
One, Kristen S., said in a blistering e-mail that because dogs can transmit rabies and cats can transmit cat-scratch fever, they're no better than Gambian giant pouch rats that transmit monkeypox virus.
My guess is that if Kristen caught cat-scratch fever -- a relatively benign bacterial infection -- and then caught monkeypox virus, which is a nasty cousin to smallpox, she'd understand the difference. She could use her recuperation period to set about a study of statistical risk factors, focusing on the percentage of domestic cats and dogs in the Western Hemisphere that actually transmit rabies or cat-scratch fever, as opposed to the percentage of Gambian giant pouch rats that have been imported carrying monkeypox virus.
Kristen closed her message with that ever-so-original command, ``Get a life.'' I have one, Kristen. We all do. However, a lot of us would prefer not to have it shortened in a glorious outburst of hot, running pustules and 104-degree fevers.
My favorite e-mail, though, was from Gary T., who wrote:
"I suppose you thought your article about the small pet owners pushing a pox was humorous. Outbreaks of disease have been with us since forever, this one is just another sign of our pestilent and careless times -- it has nothing to do with small pet owners.
"Slamming people who love small animals, and citing their enthusiasm as the root cause of this new visitation upon us is ignorant of you. Instead, you should be blaming the inspection officials in Africa, and in this country, who allowed an infected animal to be transported here."
That brief missive is just packed with issues that deserve responses. Here are three:
1. Gary should be careful invoking the word "ignorant" while defending the premise that because our society already has diseases, one more previously unknown pox thrown into the mix is of little concern. Or the premise that an outbreak of disease among small-pet owners has "nothing to do with small-pet owners."
2. Blaming customs inspectors in Africa and the United States for the monkeypox virus is like blaming the Border Patrol for our influx of marijuana, cocaine and illegal immigrants. It's like blaming the cops for the crime. Then again, it's a ``sign of our times'' that there must be somebody -- somebody else, that is -- we can pin the blame on.
3. The vigorous defense of ``people who love small animals'' carries the implied argument that people who do not keep animals in little wire cages do not love animals as much as people who do keep animals in little wire cages. And that's just not true.
Actually, most everybody loves small animals. Who doesn't like to watch a chipmunk scurrying through an oak tree, or a squirrel and a blackbird squawking at one another over the backyard fence?
I'm sure Kristen and Gary are fine human beings and I wouldn't want to be harsh with them. I'd just like them to answer, honestly, if they think that the furry little guy in the wire cage in the basement is happier there than he would be out in the woods.
Some answer this question by noting that out in the woods, the furry little guy faces the perils of predators and harsh weather and other threats, but is ``safe'' in his little wire cage in his proud owner's basement.
Well, a guy in an 8-by-8-foot concrete cell in Leavenworth is ``safe'' from drunken drivers and stray bullets and overturned buses and mudslides and tornadoes and bad clams and all sorts of other threats that the rest of us face. But just ask him where he'd be happier.
I'm willing to accept whatever answer he gives as representative of what we'd hear from the furry little creature in the wire cage.
After all, as another reader put it, "when they get loose, why do you suppose we say they've 'escaped'?"
Poll (Freep)!
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