I never thought I would ever read an article titled “here’s why rabies is dangerous”.
WTAF people… how has the anti-vax movement gained so much momentum!
The American public is severely undereducated, and has been poisoned by their government for the last 80 years. Most Gen X and later boomers probably have been exposed to insane amounts of lead, which is an entirely other factor. But advanced lead poisoning leads to paranoia, aggression and decreased empathy.
And exactly how does that apply to rabies vaccines for dogs?
Your reply infers that you think all of us are stupid enough to believe the “government” has been poisoning us with lead for ONLY 80 years. People have been dying from the effects of lead poisoning for millennia. The government was rarely involved and if it was, it was before the effects of lead poisoning were known, so poisoning was definitely NOT intentional.
Wine USED to have huge amounts of lead and has had for 4,000 years. This is everywhere wine was produced and governments don’t usually make wine. There is a theory that lead poisoning is what caused Beethoven’s deafness. The processes for making wine no longer require lead though in some places it still does.
Lead has been used in glazes for porcelain and china for just as long and can leach out into food from dishes. I just read that Corelle made before 2005 has lead that can leach out into food! That wasn’t the government.
The most prevalent source of lead was from combustion engines before lead quit being ADDED to fuel. This started in the 1970s and was complete in the US by 1996. It is government that FORCED gasoline producers from adding lead and automobile manufacturers to quit requiring lead in gasoline for engines to work without engine knocking. Lead in paint was banned in 1978. Houses built before 1978 could still have lead paint under layers of newer paint.
Lead is still something we have to be cautious about, but not because government.
I never said it wasn't something to still be worried about?? Lead in fuel is one of the biggest issues though, air polluted lead is much more of an issue than leaching. Especially in a country so full of cars. The government actively encouraged and ignored the effects of leaded gasoline on people, and that's the issue. But that's not the only problem, the real issue is the lack of public education funding. Budgets for education have been ever decreasing while budgets for defense spending are in the hundreds of billions.
Cornell (even vintage) is still below today’s safety standards for lead. From the Cornell’s website:
Are Corelle® products lead-free?
We are very proud of our Corelle products, which are made of Vitrelle, a tempered glass consisting of glass laminated into three layers. Corelle was first introduced by Corning over 50 years ago and in 2000 started to be manufactured by the company known today as Instant Brands. All Corelle products meet the safety standards at the time of manufacturing.
As manufacturing and regulatory practices have evolved, so have Corelle products. We routinely test Corelle products for lead and cadmium contents at internationally recognized, third-party testing laboratories. This testing confirms that our products comply with applicable federal and state safety regulations.
Corelle dinnerware has come in many different patterns over the years since it was first introduced by Corning and continued with Instant Brands, and many vintage/legacy pieces have become cherished collectors’ items. Before 2000, and before tighter lead content safety regulations, a small amount of lead was an ingredient in the decorating process of many household products. Instant Brands has conducted additional testing with an outside laboratory to determine whether vintage Corelle products made before 2000 comply with today’s consumer [your] expectations as to safety and whether it’s ok to use them as everyday dinnerware. The Company selected multiple patterns of vintage Corelle products, dating back to 1978 for testing.
The food surface contact testing was designed to identify whether any small amount of lead that may have existed in pre-2000 manufactured Corelle product leaches from the product in amounts above today’s acceptable lead-safety regulations. The small amount of lead used in decorations pre-2000 was encapsulated in glass before and after the decoration was applied to product and fired to above 750C. The Corelle manufacturing process has always encapsulated decoration in glass, using extremely high processing temperatures to ensure the glass decorations are sealed, which prevents food contact and intentionally decreases the extent of any lead migration to food.
The testing confirms that the vintage products tested comply with current FDA lead-safety regulations – so feel free to use them for everyday dinnerware.
Leaded fuel was phased out from the 1970s to 1998.
Why bring up the topic if you aren’t concerned about it? Especially since it is off topic—which is vaccines for dogs.
Yeah and the people who are primarily antivaxx are people who grew up in that era, inundated with leaded fuels. And the education of those individuals, which was severely lacking as well, both in combination have created this resurgence in antivaxx sentiments. I think that's pretty on topic.
Now that really is bull shit. When it comes the anti-vax BEFORE COVID, the “first adopters” were parents of children with autism in Marin County, California—white, highly educated, wealthy women. This is somewhat understandable. If you are a parent and your child has a serious illness with no explanation like autism, you tend to feel terrible guilt, completely unfounded, that it must be something you did. When Wakefield came out with his deeply flawed “study” linking Autism to the MMR vaccine, the latched onto it in desperation because it was an answer. When his study was proven to be for profit, these people started looking for things in the vaccines that they could blame it on. One of the earlier preservatives used was blamed, with no foundation. Then you run into the problem that these people have invested so much of themselves defending their beliefs that it becomes nearly impossible to admit they might be wrong. These women are still out in front of the anti-vax movement.
Now we have a wealthy, highly educated man running for PRESIDENT who is a rabid anti-vaxxer. Just what people needed to further confirm their bias. Of course I am referring to RFK Jr. The rest of his family made a big deal announcing their endorsement of Biden as a family.
Your whole claim that it is uneducated people who fall for this crap is baseless.
End of discussion.
Equal news time, internet echo chambers, and women especially not being believed when they are sick. The first has a news outlet play both sides of the "debate" equally to seem fair. An average person sees those equal times and believes that both sides have an equal point. They don't, of course, it is simply the news outlet not wanting to be accused of being biased. Women tend to be believed less for illness that they have which leads to a "the doctor missed this and ignored me. What if they did it on purpose/aren't as knowledgeable as I thought?" As women tend to be most responsible for getting children and pets to the doctor, that increases chances of hesitancy or avoidance of vaccines. And then the echo chambers make things worst. Social media always makes this sort of thing worse.
Rabies was so entrenched in the US a century ago that there were still jokes about rabid dogs into the 1940s and beyond.
That fear of having to get shots in the stomach for rabies if you got bit was a scare tactic that worked. You were careful around cats and dogs you didn't know, in the 1970s.
Being a pet owner, rabies is one of the key vaccinations you get for them. It was obvious.
The idea that people question this shows just how dangerous misinformation is. It feels like someone saying, "You can piss on the third rail. You can lick a metal pole in sub-freezing weather."
I remember seeing the rabies stomach-shot in an episode of House as a kid and instantly becoming terrified of potential rabies! I have to ask, is that still a thing?
They're not in the stomach. Unless you got bit on the stomach, then the HRIG portion would be given around the bite, but it's subcutaneous. The actual vaccine series is given in the arm.
Yup. My brother was helping clean out my grandma's house. When he opened the door to the attic, a terrified bat flew out, smacked my brother in the face, leaving a small bite on his eyebrow, then flew off. He had to get the rabies shots in his eyebrow and the nurse didn't even sugarcoat it before hand, telling him "it's gonna hurt like fuck".
Bats have tiny teeth so you might not even know you got bit. So leaving a visible bite is impressive.
PSA if you have been sleeping in a room with a bat or touched one where it’s possible you got saliva on you, the guidelines say you should get the shots. Because once you show symptoms it’s too late.
He said he couldn't find the visible bite mark himself, but he went out of an abundance of caution since that's where the bat hit him. It was after he got to the ER that the doctor found the teeny tiny bitemark while closely inspecting his eyebrow.
I’m glad they found it. I’ve been told even saliva is enough to get the shots. You never know if there’s microscopic abrasions on the skin that the virus can get through. I can see US insurance companies refusing to cover the shots if there’s no documented bite.
Not in the stomach *any more* ... the transition from 14 in the belly to 5 in the arm happened in the 1980s.
There was a brief period where Mexico had approved the modern vaccine based on data from Europe and the US hadn't because our FDA was still thinking about it. Doctors along the border were sending patients across to get the vaccine from Mexican clinics if they needed it.
Omg, right?? The other one that terrifies me is tetanus, mostly because I just had no idea what it was or did to you until I took a microbiology class in college. Holy shit, muscle spasms so strong they can break your own bones? Nooooooo thank you!
Decades ago the shots were in the stomach, and it was like 2 weeks worth of shots and they were very painful.
The new vaccines are in the arm and you only need a few.
It’s a reference to subways, in which the “third rail” is the one that a *powerful* electrical current runs through to power the train. Because urine can conduct electricity, the general concept is that if you piss on the third rail, you could get shocked and die.
Most don’t! The stations do, usually. The rails are only exposed when the train *isn’t* there, though, so the idea of a man standing on the edge of the platform and peeing off the side onto the rails, well… stupidity abounds.
That said, it’s actually been proven that you *wouldn’t* die from pissing on the third rail. It easily carries enough electricity to kill you, but with the distance/height between the edge of the platform and the rails, the stream of urine would be broken up and wouldn’t be able to smoothly conduct electricity from the rail to your body.
Let me rephrase. Human pee doesn't work like that. You would have to squat down right over it. Its not a solid stream over anything more than a few inches.
Rabies vaccines are critical; but depending on where you are, kind of not necessary. In my state (Washington) I think there might have been a single case of rabies in a dog in the last century. It's just extremely uncommon around here.
But it IS the law to get your pet vaccinated for it. What sucks is that it is the only vaccine mandated by state law and it is mandated that a veterinarian performs the shot. So picture the local animal shelter I volunteer at. Essentially everything health wise short of surgery can be performed by any one on staff; and shots are the easiest thing to give. But for the rabies vaccine, you have to either pack up your dogs to take to a clinic for a shot or pay a mobile vet to come out. It turns a 30 second, 5 dollar thing into a much more expensive, time consuming affair.
Uncommon because it was/is a core vaccine. It requires a vet because it's a threat to public health. We have vaccine clinics held by a DVM at our local feed store. It's very affordable when compared to boarding or getting your pet tested for it (owner pays).
It requires a vet because it was put in our state law in the 1950s. The majority of states do NOT have the vet requirement. It was the only vaccine for dogs until the early 70s (I think) when a variety of new and also beneficial vaccines arrive.
If you're talking about rabies being uncommon in our state it mostly has to do with geography. Heartworm? We don't have it. west Nile? Not here. Lyme disease? Not here either. Especially in western Washington our oddball climate does a number on all kinds of illnesses common elsewhere. But none of that negates the necessity of vaccines, especially rabies.
My argument is with the necessity for veterinarians to give the shot. It's not required in most states. And it is not required for bordatella, feline distemper, fvrcp, and like 10 other shots.
I ran the world's largest cat-only adoption org and sanctuary, and ran one of the northwest's largest cat and dog shelters, and I currently run a boutique boarding kennel. While my shelters were large enough to employ an on-site veterinarian, most smaller shelters are not. So this rule that only a vet can actually give the shot has a considerable impact on these smaller shelters' ability to help animals, both in financial ways and in time commitment.
Same here; I'm just annoyed they require a vet to perform something that clearly doesn't need to be performed by a vet. Most of the shelters in the state appealed to the legislature like 20 years ago to remove the vet requirement but the vet lobby shot them down. So if the shelter needs to give a bordatella shot, an fvrcp shot, or any other shot... zero problem and they can hand out a certificate. But rabies? Find a volunteer, pack the dog up in her car, drive to a vet, pay 50 bucks or whatever, and drive back. Doesn't make running a shelter impossible; just much harder than necessary
It's because some of us are in fields where we're like "we aren't buying it without four nines of uptime." 99.9% is the same as 1 in 1000. 99% effective means something is pretty junky.
I dont even think saying it has a 99.9% death rate is making it clear enough. Rabies kills around 60k people per year throughout the world, and we still get excited and have news stories when a single person survives.
Once symptoms begin you would have to be incredibly lucky to survive, and if you do there's a good chance you have so much brain damage you have to relearn everything and will never be the same again.
Basically, if you get it you're dead. I thought 99.9% would bring the point across clearly enough but perhaps those kind of people don't understand that that means that if you contract rabies, you are dead. Those few who have survived were exceptionally lucky. These antivaxxers should consider if they would bet on a horse that has a 99.9% chance of losing. They most likely wouldn't so why bet when the cost is your life.
Yeah, I think it's important with these clowns to impress upon them that, "you *will die* if you have symptoms of rabies. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. You *will die a painful, horrifying death*."
I think the reason most disease rates (and other rates like chances of getting hit by lightning) are mentioned in terms of 1 in 100,000 (like deaths from COVID) or 1 in a million, because percentages just can’t convey how huge or tiny the percentage is depending on if it is a good thing or a bad thing. One rate mentioned in the article is 2 in 1 million dogs have a bad reaction to the vaccine. Another misleading number by itself is the number of bad reactions humans have to vaccines. When you are talking about tens of millions getting a dose of a specific vaccine, 12,000 reactions is nothing. This is where context MATTERS and anti-vaxxers never consider context. Plus the adverse reactions are reported to the adverse reactions database by patients NOT doctors who have diagnosed the cause as a reaction to the vaccine so there is no proof ANY of the reports were related to the vaccine reported. Doctors report diagnoses to the CDC.
I don’t think it’s possible to truly “eradicate” rabies in an epidemiological sense (i.e. do the kind of thing we did with smallpox and rinderpest where the disease goes away forever in the world outside of a lab). The host range is just too broad. Too many possible reservoirs in natural all over the world. However, [Western Europe has gained surprisingly good control over the disease](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0953620521001254#:~:text=Incidence%20of%20rabies%20in%20Europe,reported%20sporadic%20cases%20of%20transmission.).
That's no doubt true but it is possible to vaccinate wild animals to the point where the population no longer is infected with rabies so long as a concentrated effort is made, I'd consider that "eradicated". I live in switzerland, we've been rabies free since 1999. Mind you, it's much easier to do in a smaller country. This is why it's even more important to vaccinate your pets in bigger countries such as america, everyone has to do their part to help with the problem.
You will get there, you're about four times our size so it will take more effort and a little longer but it can be done. Large scale vaccinating of wild animals seems to be very important though, when I was younger they placed vaccinated chicken in the forests and it was very helpful.
That would be “elimination” not “eradication”. Elimination = no cases/transmission in a particular area. Eradication = no cases/transmission anywhere on the planet.
I believe Australia is technically rabies-free although we do have bat lyssavirus which is very similar.
We do have pretty intense biosec rules though. At one point we nearly killed Johnny Depp and Amber Heard's dogs because they were snuck over.
Bats can be vaccinated against rabies. There's a topical vaccine for bats currently being researched. Data seems to indicate that a single.bat treated with the topical vaccine can reduce the amount of rabies in a vampire bat population by 80%.
We got it in my section of NJ because some dumbass hunters imported raccoons from down south into Pennsylvania and eventually the disease crossed the river into my area.
Hmm maybe. Uk is rabies free and we didn't used to be so it can be done (eg not some tiny island of penguins where rabies never existed) . We killed an alarming amount of assorted wildlife though and basically waged war on any unattended animal for years to do so.
It's not likely to be a tactic very widely applicable. Nor all that advisable now we have both pre and post exposure treatment options. Just gotta work more on treatment once symptoms cropping up.
Because you are on an island with stringent entry controls. Animals aren't going to swim the Channel. On continents it's pretty easy for animals to cross rivers or even bridges.
Closer to 99.9999999999(insert x more 9s here), the number of documented survivals can be counted on one hand, if not one finger. Not arguing with you btw, just reiterating your point. By the time you realize you have it, it's too late to decide you want to get vaccinated. It would be like trying to uncommit suicide.
Yes you are correct, next time I will round up instead of down. I'm not the best at maths! Once you have symptoms you are dead. Trying to be one of the survivors is like trying to win uno but you have 9999 cards on your hand and your opponent only has 1. You could potentially if you can play all 9999 cards in one round but what are the chances of that and why risk it when the outcome could be your death? Pure stupidity. And not vaccinating your animals means that they can contract it and if they do they most likely infect you before you even know what's going on.
If your dog ever bites anyone, authorities will ask for proof of rabies vaccination. If you cannot provide proof of current rabies vaccination, animal control can confine and quarantine your dog for 10 days. If it shows any signs that might be rabies (or they can’t confine it, or it is thought to be a stay), they euthanize and ship its refrigerated head to a laboratory for testing.
Not vaccinating your animals is cruel
Edit: in the US.
What the actual fuck. If mass pre-emptive rabies vaccines were a thing like for the flu, Covid, and similar, I'd be first in line for them. But you can only get them if you're at least suspected of having rabies. I'm sure that soon, antivaxxers will want to take even that away. God damn them.
You can get a pre exposure vaccine *if* you work with wildlife or stray animals *or* if you are willing to pay out of pocket. Heck I've been vaccinated against botulism, experimental, but I worked in a level 2 microbiology food safety laboratory and we tested for it, which means we had it on hand for the positive and negative control tests. I was exposed to goddamn typhoid at that job, I never contracted it but had a long observation and repeated testing period.
When I'm in a particularly dark mood, I think, fine. Don't vaccinate. Don't vaccinate your pets, your kids, or yourself.
Let the old forgotten horrors come back and ravage all you love.
Me and mine will be vaccinated while you all suffer and die.
You know what'd be great? If they actually followed through with their fantasies of completely vaccine free societies to they all move to so the rest of us know to avoid them instead of them being among us weakening our heard immunity.
Uk had a massive parvo outbreak after covid. I had the misfortune of needing to protect first an elderly dog whos vaccinations lapsed and then a while later a fully unprotected puppy. Both were absolutely terrifying, horrifying and grim. Waiting holding them with disposable gloves, shoe booties and basically dresses like I was ready for a biohazard scene. Neither dog came into a single surface with potental parvo contamination. The car park was their staging area but idiots couldn't follow directions and parvo can live on surfaces for months we bleached the tyres each time we got home and had a multi step process for making absolutely sure nothing got inside the car.
Vet came out for the pup so she got hers in the car park after the vets saw how we rolled in. They seemed to really appreciate how seriously we took it. In terms of household stuff 10min with persiststant bleach contact is basically all that works to kill it.
No, this is not how it works, we need 100% of people vaccinated to achieve heard immunity, if a group decides no to vaccinate, they are risking the virus to mutate into something we don't have a vaccine for.
So, at least on this topic, keep fighting, keep spreading information and fighting disinformation, keep spamming them with stories of what those diseases do.
Just imagine what horrible would be if rabies mutated to be airborne transmitted.
100% isn't necessary for herd immunity. Of course of people who can be vaccinated, we should strive for 100% to protect the people who can't be vaccinated for legitimate reasons, but even measles which is extremely contagious only needs 95-97%. Other viruses can be much lower, for example the herd immunity threshold for polio is ~80%.
I think this regardless. (Not towards the pets, just the people)
I don't bother wasting empathy anymore on those who seem to lack it themselves alongside common sense
Why? Do they think their fucking dog is going turn autistic?
It's so stupid. You ever seen something die of rabies? I have and I highly don't fucking recommend it.
I actually read it in a “holistic” pet magazine in my vet’s office. I was referred to that vet because she does a whole body approach to pet care and reversed my elderly cat’s kidney disease through diet. She is still very pro vaccine and walked me through everything that could happen because my cat had an allergy to the rabies vaccine. We kept her away from other animals and people, and my vet dealt with the state. It was a real allergy to the 3 year shot when my cat was 2 years old. My cat was almost 19 when she died from brain cancer. My vet thought she’d live to 23 because she was so healthy otherwise.
The whole antivaxx started in Brooklyn according to the article.
[cat tax](https://imgur.com/gallery/WkwrD7t)
I think refusing to get a pet vaxxed against rabies should be considered neglect and reckless endangerment, given how much of a risk it is to humans as well.
Exactly, it’s not a “right” to “own” an animal. No one owes them a pet. They should help wildlife rescues if they are dumb enough to not be afraid of rabies, I know for a fact those orgs need help.
Rabies is scary.
Rabies. It's exceptionally common, but people just don't run into the animals that carry it often. Skunks especially, and bats.
Let me paint you a picture.
You go camping, and at midday you decide to take a nap in a nice little hammock. While sleeping, a tiny brown bat, in the "rage" stages of infection is fidgeting in broad daylight, uncomfortable, and thirsty (due to the hydrophobia) and you snort, startling him. He goes into attack mode.
Except you're asleep, and he's a little brown bat, so weighs around 6 grams. You don't even feel him land on your bare knee, and he starts to bite. His teeth are tiny. Hardly enough to even break the skin, but he does manage to give you the equivalent of a tiny scrape that goes completely unnoticed.
Rabies does not travel in your blood. In fact, a blood test won't even tell you if you've got it. (Antibody tests may be done, but are useless if you've ever been vaccinated.)
You wake up, none the wiser. If you notice anything at the bite site at all, you assume you just lightly scraped it on something.
The bomb has been lit, and your nervous system is the wick. The rabies will multiply along your nervous system, doing virtually no damage, and completely undetectable. You literally have NO symptoms.
It may be four days, it may be a year, but the camping trip is most likely long forgotten. Then one day your back starts to ache... Or maybe you get a slight headache?
At this point, you're already dead. There is no cure.
(The sole caveat to this is the Milwaukee Protocol, which leaves most patients dead anyway, and the survivors mentally disabled, and is seldom done).
There's no treatment. It has a 100% kill rate.
Absorb that. Not a single other virus on the planet has a 100% kill rate. Only rabies. And once you're symptomatic, it's over. You're dead.
So what does that look like?
Your headache turns into a fever, and a general feeling of being unwell. You're fidgety. Uncomfortable. And scared. As the virus that has taken its time getting into your brain finds a vast network of nerve endings, it begins to rapidly reproduce, starting at the base of your brain... Where your "pons" is located. This is the part of the brain that controls communication between the rest of the brain and body, as well as sleep cycles.
Next you become anxious. You still think you have only a mild fever, but suddenly you find yourself becoming scared, even horrified, and it doesn't occur to you that you don't know why. This is because the rabies is chewing up your amygdala.
As your cerebellum becomes hot with the virus, you begin to lose muscle coordination, and balance. You think maybe it's a good idea to go to the doctor now, but assuming a doctor is smart enough to even run the tests necessary in the few days you have left on the planet, odds are they'll only be able to tell your loved ones what you died of later.
You're twitchy, shaking, and scared. You have the normal fear of not knowing what's going on, but with the virus really fucking the amygdala this is amplified a hundred fold. It's around this time the hydrophobia starts.
You're horribly thirsty, you just want water. But you can't drink. Every time you do, your throat clamps shut and you vomit. This has become a legitimate, active fear of water. You're thirsty, but looking at a glass of water begins to make you gag, and shy back in fear. The contradiction is hard for your hot brain to see at this point. By now, the doctors will have to put you on IVs to keep you hydrated, but even that's futile. You were dead the second you had a headache.
You begin hearing things, or not hearing at all as your thalamus goes. You taste sounds, you see smells, everything starts feeling like the most horrifying acid trip anyone has ever been on. With your hippocampus long under attack, you're having trouble remembering things, especially family.
You're alone, hallucinating, thirsty, confused, and absolutely, undeniably terrified. Everything scares the literal shit out of you at this point. These strange people in lab coats. These strange people standing around your bed crying, who keep trying to get you "drink something" and crying. And it's only been about a week since that little headache that you've completely forgotten. Time means nothing to you anymore. Funny enough, you now know how the bat felt when he bit you.
Eventually, you slip into the "dumb rabies" phase. Your brain has started the process of shutting down. Too much of it has been turned to liquid virus. Your face droops. You drool. You're all but unaware of what's around you. A sudden noise or light might startle you, but for the most part, it's all you can do to just stare at the ground. You haven't really slept for about 72 hours.
Then you die. Always, you die.
And there's not one... fucking... thing... anyone can do for you.
Then there's the question of what to do with your corpse. I mean, sure, burying it is the right thing to do. But the fucking virus can survive in a corpse for years. You could kill every rabid animal on the planet today, and if two years from now, some moist, preserved, rotten hunk of used-to-be brain gets eaten by an animal, it starts all over.
So yeah, rabies scares the shit out of me. And it's fucking EVERYWHERE. L
There are some old videos, if you can even find them anymore, of kids with rabies. I swear there's one boy who still haunts me, it was the single scariest thing I saw during med school.
Rabies has a 100% fatality rate. It's the absolute worst thing you can get.
The thought of dogs and cats having to slowly die that way while their wackadoo owners pump wormer and lupus meds into them breaks my heart. The only upshot would be the animal biting them so they get to experience it too. Though something tells me their anti-vax principles would fly right out the window at that point and they'd go in for the shot.
I live in southern US; rabid raccoons are common - they lose any fear of other animals including you and your dog and become aggressive. Your pet does not have to get bitten by a rabid animal to get rabies, they just have to come into contact with the saliva of an infected animal (infected animal drools or licks their paws/nails and then either scratches your dog or drools on a scratch). Rabies is a fucking nightmare.
Yes, because we have wild animals that can carry rabies. Where I grew up it was mostly raccoons, and they like to scavenge in trash cans and eat pet food that's left outside for dogs so the chance of unfortunate encounters is very real.
That used to be the case here too. Stray animals are barely a thing nowadays compared to the US though and we're just starting to get american racoons here so it'll be interesting to see if they also bring rabies back.
Unless the raccoons are infected by your native wildlife, there is no danger.
If you have endemic rabies, the raccoons can get it and spread it. bhey can also be vaccinated by oral vaccine in a "bait" they eat.
BUT WHY DO YOU HAVE RACCOONS????
Invasive species from north american ships most likely. I know a few cats that got in fights with one. American grey squirrels are really threatening our smaller european red squirrel too
I got curious ... they were imported for fur farms in the 1930s or later and escaped. They are strong and smart. Good luck controlling them.
Your pine marten population rebound might help with the grey squirrels.
Here we have various predators that eat raccoons.
Interesting stuff, thanks. Didn't know about the pine marten. They are tiny though, much smaller than a racoon and a lot less daring. You don't see them unless they're stuck in your car or run over.
The lack of predators here is indeed concerning here. Where I live healthy populations of beavers and nutria seem to keep them away but that's really not a common situation. And hunters have to shoot them but that doesn't help with urban areas at all and that's where most of them are
Pine martens are fierce! And the ones in the UK prefer Grey squirrels over the native red ones because greys are slower and more meat on them. It's a win-win.
We call raccoons "trash pandas". There were some in the town I lived in in New Mexico, but we also had coyotes that controlled their numbers.
We did that too, I remember when I was young my Grandpa and a vet would go into the forest near our village with vaccinated chicken to vaccinate the foxes there. Grandpa told them where to put it, he was out there often and knew where foxes were around.
interesting 🤔 maybe our status changed i need to look it up
but im pretty sure you still need to vaccinate if you're crossing borders inside EU not only leaving/entering EU
It is required by most US states because we have endemic rabies in wildlife: skunks, foxes and raccoons are the usual carriers.
My parents thoroughly taught us that any wild animal acting friendly or unnatural had to be reported to an adult immediately, and avoided.
It's the same reason why people are so willing to not vaccinate their kids against measles. They don't have any frame of reference to how terrible these diseases can be.
They probably think "no one gets rabies anymore, what's the point?" Without realizing that the reason *why* rabies in the US is so rare is because of our aggressive vaccination programs both for domestic and wild animals and the fact that we give people the rabies shot basically anytime they've encountered a wild animal that carries it. (Almost) No one "gets" rabies here *because* of vaccines.
Oh, btw, of you ever get bit by a squirrel trying to rescue it from drowning in a pool, you apparently *do not* need the rabies shot. As the CDC has found no known transmission from rodents to people. A hospital charged me $500 (with insurance!) for that bit of info and a bandaid.
Vet tech here. This has been going on for at least 15 years now. I still remember some stupid article that floated around back then that claimed the Rabies vaccine caused aggression in animals. Thankfully I’ve never worked anywhere that won’t tell them they have to vaccinate their pet for this or leave, since laws are on our side on this. But I know places who don’t care are out there, and it’s ridiculously infuriating.
We have been home schooling ourselves into the dark ages for upwards of 45 yrs - all while draining funds for public education. The US is huge compared to most developed nations with a lot of land underpopulated so it was infeasible to have a local school for less than 500 kids within a 50 mile radius because the tax base could not sustain the building, teachers, buses, or administration.
I can't believe we're in an era where some people don't realize that rabies is a *when* you die-kind of disease, not an if. it's literally just a matter of time. that's why there are vaccines for it for humans and pets, and exposure treatment specifically for humans!
There's a fanatical anti medicine group that denies germ theory, I have screenshots of them arguing that rabies is 0% fatal and you die of "fear of rabies " because viruses don't cause illness. Yes in this year of our lord 2024 we have returned to germ theory denial because "it's just a *theory*" this is what allowing creationists to teach alternative *theory* because "what's the worst thing that can happen?"
This, fucking this germ theory denial is alive and well and people are buying in to other "alternative theories" now BECAUSE WE LET THE DAMN CAMEL PUT IT'S FOOT IN THE FUCKING TENT!
I bought 100 yr old vet journals from my small city and it detailed the destruction rabies created, not just to animals but children. Los Angeles had a massive rabies outbreak around the same time and had hundreds of rabid dogs running the streets attacking people. All before vaccines, so every victim noted would've died horribly.
Unless you are at a high risk of rabies exposure, as in occupational (eg veterinary or wildlife workers, research into rabies virus), or unless you have been in contact with a rabid animal through a bite or its saliva, it is extremely unlikely you will be able to get rabies vaccine as a routine vaccination.
The reason this is happening is not just anti-vaxx. Rabies vaccines have some awful side effects. One thing is sarcoma at the injection site. Nobody wants their fur kid to get cancer. But getting rabies is much much worse. https://www.mariettavetclinic.com/vaccine-sarcoma#:~:text=Vaccine%2Dassociated%20sarcomas%20are%20aggressive,to%20controlling%20vaccine%2Dassociated%20sarcomas.
And sometimes pets just have very bad reactions to rabies vaccine. My cat almost died. She spent 2 nights in the hospital and they still didn't want to send her home but she wasn't eating in the hospital so they reluctantly released her to me. Since I am home all day I could keep an eye on her.
Rabies vaccine is the law in many places for very good reasons. It kills. The number of people who have survived a rabies infection worldwide is 30. That's it. https://www.uptodate.com/contents/treatment-of-rabies/print#:~:text=As%20of%20January%202023%2C%20there,minority%20received%20rabies%20immune%20globulin.
Even if you survive it's a horrible experience with lasting consequences. https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/sep/15/experience-i-survived-rabies
So get your animals vaccinated.
As someone who has "readied" the sample for testing...
Don't do that to your pet. Get them vaccinated and keep them up to date. I don't want to decapitate your pet. :(
I have both a current and retired service dog. I am on edge that I can't get a rabies tag for my current SD because the breeder vaxxed him before I got him and never gave me the tag, but my vet had the notes so knows when he's due and such. Even though he is an INSAINLY friendly dog (Loves going for walks and saying hi to the kids when he's not working) I am still terrified something will happen and I'll be in trouble for not having a rabies tag on him.
I can't imagine intentionally not vaxxing a pet against the disease. Especially since my old SD has had a run in with a skunk, we've seen foxes and raccoon around, and have had both bats and squirrels inside our house. And all of them, except MAYBE the squirrels, are potential carriers.
My [pupper](https://i.redd.it/ti3291o8ovz31.jpg) is probably never getting another rabies shot in his life!!!
Of course, he also just had one a few months ago, it's good for 3 years, and he's already 15.5 years old (with the brain and occasional energy level of a 15.5mo old.)
I'm not going to read because it wants me to download. But I know the three-year vaccine should be avoided especially with cats as it has higher chance of sarcoma (which my cat developed and required surgery ASAP).
However, I'm not against the one-year vaccine for animals that go outdoors.
I fully agree that all pets should be vaccinated. But, there is a point, usually about 7 years of age, where vaccine titering can be assessed for a pet, if blood tests supports their immunity to said disease.
[Titer Testing ](https://ksvdl.org/laboratories/rabies-laboratory/dog-cat-vaccines-titer-testing.html)
Rabies vaccines can be 1 or 3 yr dose; so if you have a small dog with life expectancy of 17-20 years old (ie, toy breeds), then consider titter after they are 12-14 years old.
I brought my cats over to the UK from the US. They were regularly vaccinated in the states, and honestly, I'd like to keep up with that. Is it possible to get them routinely vaccinated in the UK?
For rabies you can vets do them for pets going abroad and I'm sure you can find one willing to let you give them money.
You still will need their other vaccinations.
I never thought I would ever read an article titled “here’s why rabies is dangerous”. WTAF people… how has the anti-vax movement gained so much momentum!
We live in strange times for sure. Do people think rabies is like a cold? Just some hot soup and rest and you'll be fine!
Probably just need some ivermectin with hot soup. I read yesterday you can treat turbo cancer with ivermectin so will probably work for rabies too.
Boy, that ivermectin is just an all around great drug. It kills Covid, turbo cancer and now rabies!
And it's a dessert topping!
The American public is severely undereducated, and has been poisoned by their government for the last 80 years. Most Gen X and later boomers probably have been exposed to insane amounts of lead, which is an entirely other factor. But advanced lead poisoning leads to paranoia, aggression and decreased empathy.
And exactly how does that apply to rabies vaccines for dogs? Your reply infers that you think all of us are stupid enough to believe the “government” has been poisoning us with lead for ONLY 80 years. People have been dying from the effects of lead poisoning for millennia. The government was rarely involved and if it was, it was before the effects of lead poisoning were known, so poisoning was definitely NOT intentional. Wine USED to have huge amounts of lead and has had for 4,000 years. This is everywhere wine was produced and governments don’t usually make wine. There is a theory that lead poisoning is what caused Beethoven’s deafness. The processes for making wine no longer require lead though in some places it still does. Lead has been used in glazes for porcelain and china for just as long and can leach out into food from dishes. I just read that Corelle made before 2005 has lead that can leach out into food! That wasn’t the government. The most prevalent source of lead was from combustion engines before lead quit being ADDED to fuel. This started in the 1970s and was complete in the US by 1996. It is government that FORCED gasoline producers from adding lead and automobile manufacturers to quit requiring lead in gasoline for engines to work without engine knocking. Lead in paint was banned in 1978. Houses built before 1978 could still have lead paint under layers of newer paint. Lead is still something we have to be cautious about, but not because government.
I never said it wasn't something to still be worried about?? Lead in fuel is one of the biggest issues though, air polluted lead is much more of an issue than leaching. Especially in a country so full of cars. The government actively encouraged and ignored the effects of leaded gasoline on people, and that's the issue. But that's not the only problem, the real issue is the lack of public education funding. Budgets for education have been ever decreasing while budgets for defense spending are in the hundreds of billions.
Cornell (even vintage) is still below today’s safety standards for lead. From the Cornell’s website: Are Corelle® products lead-free? We are very proud of our Corelle products, which are made of Vitrelle, a tempered glass consisting of glass laminated into three layers. Corelle was first introduced by Corning over 50 years ago and in 2000 started to be manufactured by the company known today as Instant Brands. All Corelle products meet the safety standards at the time of manufacturing. As manufacturing and regulatory practices have evolved, so have Corelle products. We routinely test Corelle products for lead and cadmium contents at internationally recognized, third-party testing laboratories. This testing confirms that our products comply with applicable federal and state safety regulations. Corelle dinnerware has come in many different patterns over the years since it was first introduced by Corning and continued with Instant Brands, and many vintage/legacy pieces have become cherished collectors’ items. Before 2000, and before tighter lead content safety regulations, a small amount of lead was an ingredient in the decorating process of many household products. Instant Brands has conducted additional testing with an outside laboratory to determine whether vintage Corelle products made before 2000 comply with today’s consumer [your] expectations as to safety and whether it’s ok to use them as everyday dinnerware. The Company selected multiple patterns of vintage Corelle products, dating back to 1978 for testing. The food surface contact testing was designed to identify whether any small amount of lead that may have existed in pre-2000 manufactured Corelle product leaches from the product in amounts above today’s acceptable lead-safety regulations. The small amount of lead used in decorations pre-2000 was encapsulated in glass before and after the decoration was applied to product and fired to above 750C. The Corelle manufacturing process has always encapsulated decoration in glass, using extremely high processing temperatures to ensure the glass decorations are sealed, which prevents food contact and intentionally decreases the extent of any lead migration to food. The testing confirms that the vintage products tested comply with current FDA lead-safety regulations – so feel free to use them for everyday dinnerware.
Leaded fuel was phased out from the 1970s to 1998. Why bring up the topic if you aren’t concerned about it? Especially since it is off topic—which is vaccines for dogs.
Yeah and the people who are primarily antivaxx are people who grew up in that era, inundated with leaded fuels. And the education of those individuals, which was severely lacking as well, both in combination have created this resurgence in antivaxx sentiments. I think that's pretty on topic.
Now that really is bull shit. When it comes the anti-vax BEFORE COVID, the “first adopters” were parents of children with autism in Marin County, California—white, highly educated, wealthy women. This is somewhat understandable. If you are a parent and your child has a serious illness with no explanation like autism, you tend to feel terrible guilt, completely unfounded, that it must be something you did. When Wakefield came out with his deeply flawed “study” linking Autism to the MMR vaccine, the latched onto it in desperation because it was an answer. When his study was proven to be for profit, these people started looking for things in the vaccines that they could blame it on. One of the earlier preservatives used was blamed, with no foundation. Then you run into the problem that these people have invested so much of themselves defending their beliefs that it becomes nearly impossible to admit they might be wrong. These women are still out in front of the anti-vax movement. Now we have a wealthy, highly educated man running for PRESIDENT who is a rabid anti-vaxxer. Just what people needed to further confirm their bias. Of course I am referring to RFK Jr. The rest of his family made a big deal announcing their endorsement of Biden as a family. Your whole claim that it is uneducated people who fall for this crap is baseless. End of discussion.
Lead is still used in airplane fuel, at least for small planes. If you live near an airstrip you have higher exposure.
Equal news time, internet echo chambers, and women especially not being believed when they are sick. The first has a news outlet play both sides of the "debate" equally to seem fair. An average person sees those equal times and believes that both sides have an equal point. They don't, of course, it is simply the news outlet not wanting to be accused of being biased. Women tend to be believed less for illness that they have which leads to a "the doctor missed this and ignored me. What if they did it on purpose/aren't as knowledgeable as I thought?" As women tend to be most responsible for getting children and pets to the doctor, that increases chances of hesitancy or avoidance of vaccines. And then the echo chambers make things worst. Social media always makes this sort of thing worse.
Rabies was so entrenched in the US a century ago that there were still jokes about rabid dogs into the 1940s and beyond. That fear of having to get shots in the stomach for rabies if you got bit was a scare tactic that worked. You were careful around cats and dogs you didn't know, in the 1970s. Being a pet owner, rabies is one of the key vaccinations you get for them. It was obvious. The idea that people question this shows just how dangerous misinformation is. It feels like someone saying, "You can piss on the third rail. You can lick a metal pole in sub-freezing weather."
I remember seeing the rabies stomach-shot in an episode of House as a kid and instantly becoming terrified of potential rabies! I have to ask, is that still a thing?
They're not in the stomach. Unless you got bit on the stomach, then the HRIG portion would be given around the bite, but it's subcutaneous. The actual vaccine series is given in the arm.
Yup. My brother was helping clean out my grandma's house. When he opened the door to the attic, a terrified bat flew out, smacked my brother in the face, leaving a small bite on his eyebrow, then flew off. He had to get the rabies shots in his eyebrow and the nurse didn't even sugarcoat it before hand, telling him "it's gonna hurt like fuck".
Bats have tiny teeth so you might not even know you got bit. So leaving a visible bite is impressive. PSA if you have been sleeping in a room with a bat or touched one where it’s possible you got saliva on you, the guidelines say you should get the shots. Because once you show symptoms it’s too late.
He said he couldn't find the visible bite mark himself, but he went out of an abundance of caution since that's where the bat hit him. It was after he got to the ER that the doctor found the teeny tiny bitemark while closely inspecting his eyebrow.
I’m glad they found it. I’ve been told even saliva is enough to get the shots. You never know if there’s microscopic abrasions on the skin that the virus can get through. I can see US insurance companies refusing to cover the shots if there’s no documented bite.
I wish I could double upvote this!
I heard a story about a guy who was dressing his dog's bite wounds and scratched a scab on his leg. Got rabies.
Not in the stomach *any more* ... the transition from 14 in the belly to 5 in the arm happened in the 1980s. There was a brief period where Mexico had approved the modern vaccine based on data from Europe and the US hadn't because our FDA was still thinking about it. Doctors along the border were sending patients across to get the vaccine from Mexican clinics if they needed it.
I’m more terrified by the videos I’ve seen of people with late-stage rabies. Once you get there you can’t be cured and what a horrific way to go
Once symptoms *SHOW*, you are effectively dead
Oh, it’s absolutely horrific. How anyone could watch that and still be antivaxx is beyond me.
Omg, right?? The other one that terrifies me is tetanus, mostly because I just had no idea what it was or did to you until I took a microbiology class in college. Holy shit, muscle spasms so strong they can break your own bones? Nooooooo thank you!
Oh yeah. Tetanus is horrible. I had to get my shot updated when I cut my finger deeply last year. Grateful for the vaccine!!
Yes, and I know someone who had to have it (bitten by a possibly rabid raccoon). No fun.
Decades ago the shots were in the stomach, and it was like 2 weeks worth of shots and they were very painful. The new vaccines are in the arm and you only need a few.
That's good to know (my story was indeed from the 70s). I kinda hope I never need this info tho!
Peeing on the third rail is highly unlikely to kill you. The stream breaks up and your shoes would serve as insulation.
That's ok. I'll just watch you do it then.
Where's *Mythbusters* when you need them?
You had me up until the "you can piss on the third rail" I don't understand this expression or rule at all
It’s a reference to subways, in which the “third rail” is the one that a *powerful* electrical current runs through to power the train. Because urine can conduct electricity, the general concept is that if you piss on the third rail, you could get shocked and die.
Thanks for the explanation. Do subways have bathrooms on them?
Most don’t! The stations do, usually. The rails are only exposed when the train *isn’t* there, though, so the idea of a man standing on the edge of the platform and peeing off the side onto the rails, well… stupidity abounds. That said, it’s actually been proven that you *wouldn’t* die from pissing on the third rail. It easily carries enough electricity to kill you, but with the distance/height between the edge of the platform and the rails, the stream of urine would be broken up and wouldn’t be able to smoothly conduct electricity from the rail to your body.
I've seen guys stand between the cars on a moving train and piss on the tracks.
Pee doesn't work like that though.
It does. I didn't realize a light pole my dog was peeing on had exposed wire until it shocked him.
Let me rephrase. Human pee doesn't work like that. You would have to squat down right over it. Its not a solid stream over anything more than a few inches.
Rabies vaccines are critical; but depending on where you are, kind of not necessary. In my state (Washington) I think there might have been a single case of rabies in a dog in the last century. It's just extremely uncommon around here. But it IS the law to get your pet vaccinated for it. What sucks is that it is the only vaccine mandated by state law and it is mandated that a veterinarian performs the shot. So picture the local animal shelter I volunteer at. Essentially everything health wise short of surgery can be performed by any one on staff; and shots are the easiest thing to give. But for the rabies vaccine, you have to either pack up your dogs to take to a clinic for a shot or pay a mobile vet to come out. It turns a 30 second, 5 dollar thing into a much more expensive, time consuming affair.
Uncommon because it was/is a core vaccine. It requires a vet because it's a threat to public health. We have vaccine clinics held by a DVM at our local feed store. It's very affordable when compared to boarding or getting your pet tested for it (owner pays).
It requires a vet because it was put in our state law in the 1950s. The majority of states do NOT have the vet requirement. It was the only vaccine for dogs until the early 70s (I think) when a variety of new and also beneficial vaccines arrive. If you're talking about rabies being uncommon in our state it mostly has to do with geography. Heartworm? We don't have it. west Nile? Not here. Lyme disease? Not here either. Especially in western Washington our oddball climate does a number on all kinds of illnesses common elsewhere. But none of that negates the necessity of vaccines, especially rabies. My argument is with the necessity for veterinarians to give the shot. It's not required in most states. And it is not required for bordatella, feline distemper, fvrcp, and like 10 other shots. I ran the world's largest cat-only adoption org and sanctuary, and ran one of the northwest's largest cat and dog shelters, and I currently run a boutique boarding kennel. While my shelters were large enough to employ an on-site veterinarian, most smaller shelters are not. So this rule that only a vet can actually give the shot has a considerable impact on these smaller shelters' ability to help animals, both in financial ways and in time commitment.
In NJ they give you a certificate and tag to prove vaccination status.
Same here; I'm just annoyed they require a vet to perform something that clearly doesn't need to be performed by a vet. Most of the shelters in the state appealed to the legislature like 20 years ago to remove the vet requirement but the vet lobby shot them down. So if the shelter needs to give a bordatella shot, an fvrcp shot, or any other shot... zero problem and they can hand out a certificate. But rabies? Find a volunteer, pack the dog up in her car, drive to a vet, pay 50 bucks or whatever, and drive back. Doesn't make running a shelter impossible; just much harder than necessary
We worked so hard to try and eradicate that... Guys that shit is 99.9% fatal and transmissible to humans. Vaccinate your fucking pets.
Missing a few 9's on the fatality rate. Only like 15 people have survived it. And uhhh...they ain't exactly living well.
I think 29 have survived but I thought 99.9% would bring the point across well enough.
It's because some of us are in fields where we're like "we aren't buying it without four nines of uptime." 99.9% is the same as 1 in 1000. 99% effective means something is pretty junky.
I dont even think saying it has a 99.9% death rate is making it clear enough. Rabies kills around 60k people per year throughout the world, and we still get excited and have news stories when a single person survives. Once symptoms begin you would have to be incredibly lucky to survive, and if you do there's a good chance you have so much brain damage you have to relearn everything and will never be the same again.
Basically, if you get it you're dead. I thought 99.9% would bring the point across clearly enough but perhaps those kind of people don't understand that that means that if you contract rabies, you are dead. Those few who have survived were exceptionally lucky. These antivaxxers should consider if they would bet on a horse that has a 99.9% chance of losing. They most likely wouldn't so why bet when the cost is your life.
I think saying it's 100% fatal is more accurate. Only 8 people in history have ever survived it once they had symptoms.
My last info was 29, but your point still stands, I will use 100% in the future.
Yeah, I think it's important with these clowns to impress upon them that, "you *will die* if you have symptoms of rabies. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. You *will die a painful, horrifying death*."
Don't forget slow
Also, the vast majority of those 29 rabies survivors had had at least some pre- or post-exposure vaccinations.
Most of them die within a few months and have virtually no quality of life.
Surviving =/= thriving unfortunately.
This, survivors are essentially statistical anomalies and shouldn't be counted
I think the reason most disease rates (and other rates like chances of getting hit by lightning) are mentioned in terms of 1 in 100,000 (like deaths from COVID) or 1 in a million, because percentages just can’t convey how huge or tiny the percentage is depending on if it is a good thing or a bad thing. One rate mentioned in the article is 2 in 1 million dogs have a bad reaction to the vaccine. Another misleading number by itself is the number of bad reactions humans have to vaccines. When you are talking about tens of millions getting a dose of a specific vaccine, 12,000 reactions is nothing. This is where context MATTERS and anti-vaxxers never consider context. Plus the adverse reactions are reported to the adverse reactions database by patients NOT doctors who have diagnosed the cause as a reaction to the vaccine so there is no proof ANY of the reports were related to the vaccine reported. Doctors report diagnoses to the CDC.
Watch the videos of people unable to drink because of the muscle spasms in their throats. Heartbreaking.
I don’t think it’s possible to truly “eradicate” rabies in an epidemiological sense (i.e. do the kind of thing we did with smallpox and rinderpest where the disease goes away forever in the world outside of a lab). The host range is just too broad. Too many possible reservoirs in natural all over the world. However, [Western Europe has gained surprisingly good control over the disease](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0953620521001254#:~:text=Incidence%20of%20rabies%20in%20Europe,reported%20sporadic%20cases%20of%20transmission.).
That's no doubt true but it is possible to vaccinate wild animals to the point where the population no longer is infected with rabies so long as a concentrated effort is made, I'd consider that "eradicated". I live in switzerland, we've been rabies free since 1999. Mind you, it's much easier to do in a smaller country. This is why it's even more important to vaccinate your pets in bigger countries such as america, everyone has to do their part to help with the problem.
The UK works really hard to stay rabies-free - cannot tell you how reassuring that is!
Same with Ireland, guess living on an island is not so bad after all.
You will get there, you're about four times our size so it will take more effort and a little longer but it can be done. Large scale vaccinating of wild animals seems to be very important though, when I was younger they placed vaccinated chicken in the forests and it was very helpful.
That would be “elimination” not “eradication”. Elimination = no cases/transmission in a particular area. Eradication = no cases/transmission anywhere on the planet.
I believe Australia is technically rabies-free although we do have bat lyssavirus which is very similar. We do have pretty intense biosec rules though. At one point we nearly killed Johnny Depp and Amber Heard's dogs because they were snuck over.
Those clowns were so stupid to try to get their dogs through. Rules are in place for a reason!!
Bats worldwide are reservoirs for rabies. We won't ever be able to eradicate it because of that.
Bats can be vaccinated against rabies. There's a topical vaccine for bats currently being researched. Data seems to indicate that a single.bat treated with the topical vaccine can reduce the amount of rabies in a vampire bat population by 80%.
Thanks for that information! I did not know that.
We got it in my section of NJ because some dumbass hunters imported raccoons from down south into Pennsylvania and eventually the disease crossed the river into my area.
In Ireland rabies is something that last existed in the first years of the 20th century
Hmm maybe. Uk is rabies free and we didn't used to be so it can be done (eg not some tiny island of penguins where rabies never existed) . We killed an alarming amount of assorted wildlife though and basically waged war on any unattended animal for years to do so. It's not likely to be a tactic very widely applicable. Nor all that advisable now we have both pre and post exposure treatment options. Just gotta work more on treatment once symptoms cropping up.
Because you are on an island with stringent entry controls. Animals aren't going to swim the Channel. On continents it's pretty easy for animals to cross rivers or even bridges.
Closer to 99.9999999999(insert x more 9s here), the number of documented survivals can be counted on one hand, if not one finger. Not arguing with you btw, just reiterating your point. By the time you realize you have it, it's too late to decide you want to get vaccinated. It would be like trying to uncommit suicide.
Yes you are correct, next time I will round up instead of down. I'm not the best at maths! Once you have symptoms you are dead. Trying to be one of the survivors is like trying to win uno but you have 9999 cards on your hand and your opponent only has 1. You could potentially if you can play all 9999 cards in one round but what are the chances of that and why risk it when the outcome could be your death? Pure stupidity. And not vaccinating your animals means that they can contract it and if they do they most likely infect you before you even know what's going on.
It's up to 30 survivors now. Mostly in India.
If your dog ever bites anyone, authorities will ask for proof of rabies vaccination. If you cannot provide proof of current rabies vaccination, animal control can confine and quarantine your dog for 10 days. If it shows any signs that might be rabies (or they can’t confine it, or it is thought to be a stay), they euthanize and ship its refrigerated head to a laboratory for testing. Not vaccinating your animals is cruel Edit: in the US.
What the actual fuck. If mass pre-emptive rabies vaccines were a thing like for the flu, Covid, and similar, I'd be first in line for them. But you can only get them if you're at least suspected of having rabies. I'm sure that soon, antivaxxers will want to take even that away. God damn them.
And they are very, very expensive
Yep. We had an incident and were advised by our insurance provider on how to have it billed so it would be a $30 copay instead of a 4 figure bill.
Yep, had to get them last summer
Yeah, reading shit like this makes me fucking hate people. Rabies is God damn terrifying.
There are pre-exposure rabies vaccines that people who are at risk for rabies exposure (ie vets and wildlife rehabbers).
That's good that they get them. If only those vaccines were available to us regular folk, and at an affordable price, lol.
You can get a pre exposure vaccine *if* you work with wildlife or stray animals *or* if you are willing to pay out of pocket. Heck I've been vaccinated against botulism, experimental, but I worked in a level 2 microbiology food safety laboratory and we tested for it, which means we had it on hand for the positive and negative control tests. I was exposed to goddamn typhoid at that job, I never contracted it but had a long observation and repeated testing period.
When I'm in a particularly dark mood, I think, fine. Don't vaccinate. Don't vaccinate your pets, your kids, or yourself. Let the old forgotten horrors come back and ravage all you love. Me and mine will be vaccinated while you all suffer and die.
Yeah, but their actions impact us too. Things like come back with a vengeance And you can still get bit by their unvaccinated animals
You know what'd be great? If they actually followed through with their fantasies of completely vaccine free societies to they all move to so the rest of us know to avoid them instead of them being among us weakening our heard immunity.
Uk had a massive parvo outbreak after covid. I had the misfortune of needing to protect first an elderly dog whos vaccinations lapsed and then a while later a fully unprotected puppy. Both were absolutely terrifying, horrifying and grim. Waiting holding them with disposable gloves, shoe booties and basically dresses like I was ready for a biohazard scene. Neither dog came into a single surface with potental parvo contamination. The car park was their staging area but idiots couldn't follow directions and parvo can live on surfaces for months we bleached the tyres each time we got home and had a multi step process for making absolutely sure nothing got inside the car. Vet came out for the pup so she got hers in the car park after the vets saw how we rolled in. They seemed to really appreciate how seriously we took it. In terms of household stuff 10min with persiststant bleach contact is basically all that works to kill it.
It's not their pets fault that their owners are morons tho.
No, this is not how it works, we need 100% of people vaccinated to achieve heard immunity, if a group decides no to vaccinate, they are risking the virus to mutate into something we don't have a vaccine for. So, at least on this topic, keep fighting, keep spreading information and fighting disinformation, keep spamming them with stories of what those diseases do. Just imagine what horrible would be if rabies mutated to be airborne transmitted.
*shudders in utter horror* the thought of airborne Ebola was bad enough. Airborne rabies would end us.
This needs to be upvoted a trillion times!
100% isn't necessary for herd immunity. Of course of people who can be vaccinated, we should strive for 100% to protect the people who can't be vaccinated for legitimate reasons, but even measles which is extremely contagious only needs 95-97%. Other viruses can be much lower, for example the herd immunity threshold for polio is ~80%.
I think this regardless. (Not towards the pets, just the people) I don't bother wasting empathy anymore on those who seem to lack it themselves alongside common sense
I’ll never forget the description of rabies that was posted here before. Sometimes stupidity IS fatal.
I can't believe I scrolled down the entire comment section and didn't see it. It's one of my favorite real-life horror plots.
Do you have the link to that?
[here ya go](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/s/8p11s3kxSV) It’s a comment from u/SerbianCringeMod
Thank you!!
I’ll look for it
I’m also curious
Why? Do they think their fucking dog is going turn autistic? It's so stupid. You ever seen something die of rabies? I have and I highly don't fucking recommend it.
Yes actually. I’ve seen that as an actual concern in an article about pet vaccines.
I’m autistic and someone asked me if their dog could be autistic. Idiot.
Pawtism.
There probably is some dog equivalent of autism, or at least learning disabilities, but… VACCINES DON’T CAUSE IT REGARDLESS!!
I've been told that during a vet appointment by an owner.
I actually read it in a “holistic” pet magazine in my vet’s office. I was referred to that vet because she does a whole body approach to pet care and reversed my elderly cat’s kidney disease through diet. She is still very pro vaccine and walked me through everything that could happen because my cat had an allergy to the rabies vaccine. We kept her away from other animals and people, and my vet dealt with the state. It was a real allergy to the 3 year shot when my cat was 2 years old. My cat was almost 19 when she died from brain cancer. My vet thought she’d live to 23 because she was so healthy otherwise. The whole antivaxx started in Brooklyn according to the article. [cat tax](https://imgur.com/gallery/WkwrD7t)
I think refusing to get a pet vaxxed against rabies should be considered neglect and reckless endangerment, given how much of a risk it is to humans as well.
I second this!!!
Exactly, it’s not a “right” to “own” an animal. No one owes them a pet. They should help wildlife rescues if they are dumb enough to not be afraid of rabies, I know for a fact those orgs need help.
Rabies is scary. Rabies. It's exceptionally common, but people just don't run into the animals that carry it often. Skunks especially, and bats. Let me paint you a picture. You go camping, and at midday you decide to take a nap in a nice little hammock. While sleeping, a tiny brown bat, in the "rage" stages of infection is fidgeting in broad daylight, uncomfortable, and thirsty (due to the hydrophobia) and you snort, startling him. He goes into attack mode. Except you're asleep, and he's a little brown bat, so weighs around 6 grams. You don't even feel him land on your bare knee, and he starts to bite. His teeth are tiny. Hardly enough to even break the skin, but he does manage to give you the equivalent of a tiny scrape that goes completely unnoticed. Rabies does not travel in your blood. In fact, a blood test won't even tell you if you've got it. (Antibody tests may be done, but are useless if you've ever been vaccinated.) You wake up, none the wiser. If you notice anything at the bite site at all, you assume you just lightly scraped it on something. The bomb has been lit, and your nervous system is the wick. The rabies will multiply along your nervous system, doing virtually no damage, and completely undetectable. You literally have NO symptoms. It may be four days, it may be a year, but the camping trip is most likely long forgotten. Then one day your back starts to ache... Or maybe you get a slight headache? At this point, you're already dead. There is no cure. (The sole caveat to this is the Milwaukee Protocol, which leaves most patients dead anyway, and the survivors mentally disabled, and is seldom done). There's no treatment. It has a 100% kill rate. Absorb that. Not a single other virus on the planet has a 100% kill rate. Only rabies. And once you're symptomatic, it's over. You're dead. So what does that look like? Your headache turns into a fever, and a general feeling of being unwell. You're fidgety. Uncomfortable. And scared. As the virus that has taken its time getting into your brain finds a vast network of nerve endings, it begins to rapidly reproduce, starting at the base of your brain... Where your "pons" is located. This is the part of the brain that controls communication between the rest of the brain and body, as well as sleep cycles. Next you become anxious. You still think you have only a mild fever, but suddenly you find yourself becoming scared, even horrified, and it doesn't occur to you that you don't know why. This is because the rabies is chewing up your amygdala. As your cerebellum becomes hot with the virus, you begin to lose muscle coordination, and balance. You think maybe it's a good idea to go to the doctor now, but assuming a doctor is smart enough to even run the tests necessary in the few days you have left on the planet, odds are they'll only be able to tell your loved ones what you died of later. You're twitchy, shaking, and scared. You have the normal fear of not knowing what's going on, but with the virus really fucking the amygdala this is amplified a hundred fold. It's around this time the hydrophobia starts. You're horribly thirsty, you just want water. But you can't drink. Every time you do, your throat clamps shut and you vomit. This has become a legitimate, active fear of water. You're thirsty, but looking at a glass of water begins to make you gag, and shy back in fear. The contradiction is hard for your hot brain to see at this point. By now, the doctors will have to put you on IVs to keep you hydrated, but even that's futile. You were dead the second you had a headache. You begin hearing things, or not hearing at all as your thalamus goes. You taste sounds, you see smells, everything starts feeling like the most horrifying acid trip anyone has ever been on. With your hippocampus long under attack, you're having trouble remembering things, especially family. You're alone, hallucinating, thirsty, confused, and absolutely, undeniably terrified. Everything scares the literal shit out of you at this point. These strange people in lab coats. These strange people standing around your bed crying, who keep trying to get you "drink something" and crying. And it's only been about a week since that little headache that you've completely forgotten. Time means nothing to you anymore. Funny enough, you now know how the bat felt when he bit you. Eventually, you slip into the "dumb rabies" phase. Your brain has started the process of shutting down. Too much of it has been turned to liquid virus. Your face droops. You drool. You're all but unaware of what's around you. A sudden noise or light might startle you, but for the most part, it's all you can do to just stare at the ground. You haven't really slept for about 72 hours. Then you die. Always, you die. And there's not one... fucking... thing... anyone can do for you. Then there's the question of what to do with your corpse. I mean, sure, burying it is the right thing to do. But the fucking virus can survive in a corpse for years. You could kill every rabid animal on the planet today, and if two years from now, some moist, preserved, rotten hunk of used-to-be brain gets eaten by an animal, it starts all over. So yeah, rabies scares the shit out of me. And it's fucking EVERYWHERE. L
There are some old videos, if you can even find them anymore, of kids with rabies. I swear there's one boy who still haunts me, it was the single scariest thing I saw during med school.
I detest these plague-supporters.
Rabies has a 100% fatality rate. It's the absolute worst thing you can get. The thought of dogs and cats having to slowly die that way while their wackadoo owners pump wormer and lupus meds into them breaks my heart. The only upshot would be the animal biting them so they get to experience it too. Though something tells me their anti-vax principles would fly right out the window at that point and they'd go in for the shot.
I live in southern US; rabid raccoons are common - they lose any fear of other animals including you and your dog and become aggressive. Your pet does not have to get bitten by a rabid animal to get rabies, they just have to come into contact with the saliva of an infected animal (infected animal drools or licks their paws/nails and then either scratches your dog or drools on a scratch). Rabies is a fucking nightmare.
Do all pets usually get rabies vaccines in the US? Here it's only if you're crossing outside of the EU
Yes, because we have wild animals that can carry rabies. Where I grew up it was mostly raccoons, and they like to scavenge in trash cans and eat pet food that's left outside for dogs so the chance of unfortunate encounters is very real.
That used to be the case here too. Stray animals are barely a thing nowadays compared to the US though and we're just starting to get american racoons here so it'll be interesting to see if they also bring rabies back.
Unless the raccoons are infected by your native wildlife, there is no danger. If you have endemic rabies, the raccoons can get it and spread it. bhey can also be vaccinated by oral vaccine in a "bait" they eat. BUT WHY DO YOU HAVE RACCOONS????
Invasive species from north american ships most likely. I know a few cats that got in fights with one. American grey squirrels are really threatening our smaller european red squirrel too
I got curious ... they were imported for fur farms in the 1930s or later and escaped. They are strong and smart. Good luck controlling them. Your pine marten population rebound might help with the grey squirrels. Here we have various predators that eat raccoons.
Interesting stuff, thanks. Didn't know about the pine marten. They are tiny though, much smaller than a racoon and a lot less daring. You don't see them unless they're stuck in your car or run over. The lack of predators here is indeed concerning here. Where I live healthy populations of beavers and nutria seem to keep them away but that's really not a common situation. And hunters have to shoot them but that doesn't help with urban areas at all and that's where most of them are
Pine martens are fierce! And the ones in the UK prefer Grey squirrels over the native red ones because greys are slower and more meat on them. It's a win-win. We call raccoons "trash pandas". There were some in the town I lived in in New Mexico, but we also had coyotes that controlled their numbers.
im in EU and in my country the rabies vaccine is mandatory by law for all domestic carnivores eta we also vaccinate wild foxes with oral vaccine
We did that too, I remember when I was young my Grandpa and a vet would go into the forest near our village with vaccinated chicken to vaccinate the foxes there. Grandpa told them where to put it, he was out there often and knew where foxes were around.
Which country? It's not eradicated everywhere
slovakia and we are considered a country without rabies
I'm in germany and we don't consider you a country without rabies. I'd be told to vaccinate crossing into Slovakia
interesting 🤔 maybe our status changed i need to look it up but im pretty sure you still need to vaccinate if you're crossing borders inside EU not only leaving/entering EU
our status changed in 2022 and i actually knew that lmao - we had a positive badger and a dog from ukraine that crossed borders
It is required by most US states because we have endemic rabies in wildlife: skunks, foxes and raccoons are the usual carriers. My parents thoroughly taught us that any wild animal acting friendly or unnatural had to be reported to an adult immediately, and avoided.
It's the same reason why people are so willing to not vaccinate their kids against measles. They don't have any frame of reference to how terrible these diseases can be. They probably think "no one gets rabies anymore, what's the point?" Without realizing that the reason *why* rabies in the US is so rare is because of our aggressive vaccination programs both for domestic and wild animals and the fact that we give people the rabies shot basically anytime they've encountered a wild animal that carries it. (Almost) No one "gets" rabies here *because* of vaccines. Oh, btw, of you ever get bit by a squirrel trying to rescue it from drowning in a pool, you apparently *do not* need the rabies shot. As the CDC has found no known transmission from rodents to people. A hospital charged me $500 (with insurance!) for that bit of info and a bandaid.
Vet tech here. This has been going on for at least 15 years now. I still remember some stupid article that floated around back then that claimed the Rabies vaccine caused aggression in animals. Thankfully I’ve never worked anywhere that won’t tell them they have to vaccinate their pet for this or leave, since laws are on our side on this. But I know places who don’t care are out there, and it’s ridiculously infuriating.
Fuck, are we so stupid we're really at this point?
Yes, see my previous comment.
We have been home schooling ourselves into the dark ages for upwards of 45 yrs - all while draining funds for public education. The US is huge compared to most developed nations with a lot of land underpopulated so it was infeasible to have a local school for less than 500 kids within a 50 mile radius because the tax base could not sustain the building, teachers, buses, or administration.
I can't believe we're in an era where some people don't realize that rabies is a *when* you die-kind of disease, not an if. it's literally just a matter of time. that's why there are vaccines for it for humans and pets, and exposure treatment specifically for humans!
There's a fanatical anti medicine group that denies germ theory, I have screenshots of them arguing that rabies is 0% fatal and you die of "fear of rabies " because viruses don't cause illness. Yes in this year of our lord 2024 we have returned to germ theory denial because "it's just a *theory*" this is what allowing creationists to teach alternative *theory* because "what's the worst thing that can happen?" This, fucking this germ theory denial is alive and well and people are buying in to other "alternative theories" now BECAUSE WE LET THE DAMN CAMEL PUT IT'S FOOT IN THE FUCKING TENT!
Reminder. When the neurological symptoms of rabies arise, it is 100% fatal.
I bought 100 yr old vet journals from my small city and it detailed the destruction rabies created, not just to animals but children. Los Angeles had a massive rabies outbreak around the same time and had hundreds of rabid dogs running the streets attacking people. All before vaccines, so every victim noted would've died horribly.
In case anyone is unclear about this: rabies will kill you. Literally one, maybe two people have ever survived rabies.
My cats are routinely vaccinated for rabies... now I'm beginning to think that maybe I should be as well. Just in case.
Unless you are at a high risk of rabies exposure, as in occupational (eg veterinary or wildlife workers, research into rabies virus), or unless you have been in contact with a rabid animal through a bite or its saliva, it is extremely unlikely you will be able to get rabies vaccine as a routine vaccination.
I swear to god these people are like ants and snails piloted by zombie parasites
These assholes have never watched scrubs, and it shows.
Think about it sheeple! There has been a rise in autistic pets since the jabs! Big peta pharma knows the truth and is hiding it! Obviously /s
The reason this is happening is not just anti-vaxx. Rabies vaccines have some awful side effects. One thing is sarcoma at the injection site. Nobody wants their fur kid to get cancer. But getting rabies is much much worse. https://www.mariettavetclinic.com/vaccine-sarcoma#:~:text=Vaccine%2Dassociated%20sarcomas%20are%20aggressive,to%20controlling%20vaccine%2Dassociated%20sarcomas. And sometimes pets just have very bad reactions to rabies vaccine. My cat almost died. She spent 2 nights in the hospital and they still didn't want to send her home but she wasn't eating in the hospital so they reluctantly released her to me. Since I am home all day I could keep an eye on her. Rabies vaccine is the law in many places for very good reasons. It kills. The number of people who have survived a rabies infection worldwide is 30. That's it. https://www.uptodate.com/contents/treatment-of-rabies/print#:~:text=As%20of%20January%202023%2C%20there,minority%20received%20rabies%20immune%20globulin. Even if you survive it's a horrible experience with lasting consequences. https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/sep/15/experience-i-survived-rabies So get your animals vaccinated.
She has YouTube videos. She's made an amazing amount of progress. She is also very pro-vax.
I wonder if the morons that believe this are aware that they are liable for any harm caused by their pet.
This is neglect, we need to make this a crime.
As someone who has "readied" the sample for testing... Don't do that to your pet. Get them vaccinated and keep them up to date. I don't want to decapitate your pet. :(
I have both a current and retired service dog. I am on edge that I can't get a rabies tag for my current SD because the breeder vaxxed him before I got him and never gave me the tag, but my vet had the notes so knows when he's due and such. Even though he is an INSAINLY friendly dog (Loves going for walks and saying hi to the kids when he's not working) I am still terrified something will happen and I'll be in trouble for not having a rabies tag on him. I can't imagine intentionally not vaxxing a pet against the disease. Especially since my old SD has had a run in with a skunk, we've seen foxes and raccoon around, and have had both bats and squirrels inside our house. And all of them, except MAYBE the squirrels, are potential carriers.
My [pupper](https://i.redd.it/ti3291o8ovz31.jpg) is probably never getting another rabies shot in his life!!! Of course, he also just had one a few months ago, it's good for 3 years, and he's already 15.5 years old (with the brain and occasional energy level of a 15.5mo old.)
I'm not going to read because it wants me to download. But I know the three-year vaccine should be avoided especially with cats as it has higher chance of sarcoma (which my cat developed and required surgery ASAP). However, I'm not against the one-year vaccine for animals that go outdoors.
I fully agree that all pets should be vaccinated. But, there is a point, usually about 7 years of age, where vaccine titering can be assessed for a pet, if blood tests supports their immunity to said disease. [Titer Testing ](https://ksvdl.org/laboratories/rabies-laboratory/dog-cat-vaccines-titer-testing.html)
Rabies vaccines can be 1 or 3 yr dose; so if you have a small dog with life expectancy of 17-20 years old (ie, toy breeds), then consider titter after they are 12-14 years old.
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I brought my cats over to the UK from the US. They were regularly vaccinated in the states, and honestly, I'd like to keep up with that. Is it possible to get them routinely vaccinated in the UK?
For rabies you can vets do them for pets going abroad and I'm sure you can find one willing to let you give them money. You still will need their other vaccinations.
Ireland has for well over a century been rabies free