Posted on 04/23/2005 1:50:06 PM PDT by Mongeaux
BOYERTOWN, Pa. - A pet raccoon taken to an elementary school for show-and-tell later tested positive for rabies and some students in the class are being advised to get tested.
Boyertown School District officials said Friday that they told parents of a sixth-grade class at the Washington Elementary School to contact the state Department of Health if their child had contact with the raccoon taken to the class on April 8.
Thomas J. Blocher, acting district superintendent, said two pet raccoons were taken into a classroom by a student's parents, and that one died last week and tested positive for rabies.
A half-dozen children at most touched one of the raccoons, Blocher said. None of the students was bitten or scratched.
Richard McGarvey, a health department spokesman, said it was likely the dead raccoon was rabid at the time it was in the classroom.
The district is now consulting with its insurance carrier to develop guidelines about taking animals to school.
"We really didn't have any guidelines," Blocher said. "We're going to come up with a working policy. We don't want to ban everything, but we want to be reasonable with the different needs of the children."
(Excerpt) Read more at centredaily.com ...
LOL Best laugh of the day. Question though. If none of the kids were bitten or scratched is it still possible for them to get rabies?
Old Yeller bump.
"Foamy?" LOL! "Moronic City Folk" Bump.
I had to shoot two rabid racoons last week. Why anyone would want one of these varmints as a pet is beyond me.
At first "Foamy" was a little unsettled by the classroom,
but after tearing down a chalk board and destroying a couple
of desks, he soon was frolicing with the screaming chilren.
Boyertown hardly qualifies as a city. It's pretty well out in the pumpkin patch.
A raccoon? That's one of the last things I would expect to see in Show and Tell. Well, I hope none of the kids have rabies.
Reminds me of the time one of my fifth-graders tried to bring his caged pet skunk to school. The parents swore that the skunk had been descented. Unfortunately, the skunk did what skunks usually do when they feel threatened. Very bad air quality in the hallway that day . . .
No. You have to have saliva or blood shared to get rabies. It's usually due to bat bites for humans, more than anything, but rabies amongst animal mammals happens all day long.
"Rabies is caused by a virus that is present in the saliva of infected animals, and it is usually transmitted by bites. All warm-blooded animals are susceptible to rabies, and some may serve as natural reservoirs of the virus.
Rabies is found in all of the United States, except Hawaii, and in many other countries around the world, including Canada and Mexico. The disease may be absent from large areas for many years and then reappear suddenly or gradually by invasion from bordering countries or by the introduction of an infected animal."
Close the borders, now! ;)
http://www.medceu.com/tests/rabies.htm
OK, then. "Moronic Inbred Country Bumpkin" bump. ;)
My favorite show and tell story: A five year old is asked on Valentine's Day to tell what love is. His reply: Love is when your mommy and daddy are in the bedroom doing something that is very very important and you can't go in there.
When everybody is crazy, you don't need rabies to explain their behavior....
Hee hee. And I agree with you on not understanding why people want to make domestic animals out of raccoons. They can tear up your house in short order.
"He was soon frolicking with the screaming children." Sick sense of humor Tet68,but never the less quite humorous!2 Pts.
"Foamy"
It's nice to see that kids still have show and tell.I will always remember it as a great break from the tedium of class.In elementary i remember a kid bringing in a small snake that turned out to be poisonous,but no one was hurt.
This week, a rabid
raccoon, and I hear next week
he's bringing Courtney . . .
ROFL! Racoons are dangerous and why somebody would let their kids keep them....somebody should evaluate the parents.
They DO make nice hats, though.
All silliness aside; the two I had to shoot last week were so mangy their pelts weren't worth squat. It's a darn shame I had to do it, but they were totally in La-La Land, and out in the middle of a hot, sunny day. They were moving slowly and were very disoriented. After looking them over, DH said I done good. ;)
I sure didn't want them biting my dogs who would've walked right up to them and said, "Hi, Friend! Wanna play?" I definately keep my dogs' rabies shots up to date. We also have a lot of Brown Bats in our area, which are great for mosquito control, but do end up in the house from time to time, too. (I catch them live inside a bath towel and release them outside when possible.)
Of course this school class over-reacted a tad, but with rabies, it's best to err on the safe side. We had a young girl from the Madison area actually survive a case of rabies this past year. She's one in a million, because it is usually fatal.
http://vetmedicine.about.com/b/a/128619.htm
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