Lucy

http://news.aol.com/health/story/ar/...17090609990001

The following was at the end of the article. Am I right in assuming that means I cannot copy and paste the article here?


Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. All active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.
2008-04-17 09:07:24"

Mike

Thanks Lucy - unless you get permission from AP to use the article, you did the right thing by linking to the copyrighted content.

Mike

COBettaCouple

It seems like her aim is off. It's a rare virus and if anyone should have tested for it & detected it - shouldn't it have been the medical people involved? They're transplanting organs.. I'd think some testing would be required.

Lucy

Good point.

FL CommunityFans

I don't know. I feel she has a leg to stand on. Pet stores SHOULD test/require testing of an animal before selling it. This would be a hassle in the short run, but long run you are looking at better quality animals being sold and less people being infected from various illnesses associated with these guys. I worked in the veterinary field as a surgical and pharmaceutical tech for 6 years. While there are very few actually transferable diseases between animal and human, they are there, such as lepto and rabies, and evidently this virus with the rodents. I guarantee you if a pet store sold a pet with lepto and the new owners got infected, that store would be liable. Providing proof is the hard part, but with proper investigation is possible.

I honestly feel it's on the stores to make sure they are selling healthy animals.

steveangela1

From a healthcare professional point of view there are a ton of animals that carry diesases in the home that if a person recieves a transplant it should be the hospitals responisbility, not the petstore not to tell them that the animal may or may not have.
The transplant team should explain to the patient not to get around a certain bunch of animals.

For instance: any birds indoor/outdoor carry histoplasmosis horrible fungal infection in the lungs if caught by an immoncomprimised person, namely a person who just recieved a transplant...

most iguanas carry salmonella in their bites, we are all susseptable to that infection.

dragons (lizards) can carry salmnoella and some other bacteria in their bite (cannot remember my husband does.

cats have toxoplasmosis, and cat scratch fever

cats/dogs/ any animal can carry flesh eating strep in their teeth when biting you.

how can petstores be responsible for every person who buys an animal? just because the person bought a rodent and the rodent had a virus?

FL CommunityFans

They're not responsible for the person but the pet/animal/rodent/etc If their animals are sold with no issues, then you negate having something happen to a person because of it.

I understand what you're saying, and agree with that. My point is if the stores are selling 'already' infected animals, then they are responsible for spreading the disease. That is how outbreaks happen, because of no checks and balances, and no one taking the responsibility to make sure the animals are healthy. If this were done, you wouldn't have as many people, immune-compromised, having issues with animals, becuase new animals would be much healthier and much better quality.

This of course will never happen, because it goes against the bottom line, and that's all the big corps are worried about. Making that extra buck.

I do agree that blame resides on the hospital for evidently not following proper sx protocol, but still, the pet stores have to be responsible for the health of the pets they are selling. This is bigger than just a person who was immune-compromised, selling unhealthy animals that is. Just because a test is 'rarely' done doesn't mean it shouldn't be done. If this results in higher pet store prices, then GOOD. It means less people will buy animals on a whim, and the people who do buy them will know they are getting healthy quality pets.

I guess I'm just irritated with it from my past working experience, seeing the things that many places will sell to people.. lizards, cats, dogs.. etc etc No one places any responsibility on these people, and people wonder why bettas get stuffed in cups, and other fish get slammed 500 in to one tank, with no regular maintenance being done, and why kittens come home with upper respiratory infections ( from which it's a 50/50 chance if they bounce back or die) or puppies being sold with the beginning stages of parvo or distemper(which can take up to 6 weeks before you see the symptoms begin to show)

Yes I'm jaded.

steveangela1

I can understand the virus's that they should naturally be tested for that all animals should be tested for before being sold.. etc cats for distemper...
I would be very very upset if I paid high dollar for a cat and brought it home w/ distemper! Or a dog w/ heartworms from the petstore... They do have a responsibility there a Big responsiblity there! Just like right now petsmart isn't allowed in TN to sell birds for some kind of bug? until they know they are free of that bug. why don't they just test all the birds?
Now stuff like toxoplasmosis, histoplasmosis.. that they carry you can't test to see if they are carriers... but the public should be warned that the animals are natural carriers of diseases.. especially the ones that are immocomprimised...
I took care of a guy post liver transplant for 3 months on a vent from histoplasmois infection in the lungs... frm their parrot... they had no idea that their bird would make him sick until he almost died...

I also just about bought the kids an iguana.. and it was my boss not anyone else that looked at me and said you don't want one.. they carry salmonella.. he had one for years..

so I think that maybe in the flyers w/ the animals, or in a statment that the people get and have to read and sign when buying an animal... plus when they get transplants the doctor should explain basicly no pets... and immocomprimised people should be told no pets! (just fish and someone else gets to clean the tank for them)

its all in educating the public, and testing animals properly for distemper, parvo.. stuff they should have been tested for that we get out pets tested for when we go to the vet.

FL CommunityFans

Exacto!!!! It's funny that pets have to suffer, and sometimes humans get bitten with it as well, simply because pet stores refuse to properly educate employees and the public, because they are more interested in making that extra dollar and lot losing 2 more dollars because they had to print something or train someone.

Doctors should definitely be going over post-op sx care, I agree, and no pets should be in a home with immune compromised/suppressed people.

Just a little bit of idiot dr experience, my brother-in-law had his appendix removed last year.. his dr was from india or that general area (sorry for stereotyping) and he spoke extremely broken english. I was shocked to tell you the truth that he was allowed to operate here, but again, it comes down to cutting corners for that extra dollar! Anyhow, he tells Jarod that he doesn't need antibiotics after the surgery, and sends home with pain pills instead!!! ALbeit, he definitely needed the pain pills, but never in my life have I heard of some quack not scripting out abo's after a sx. NEVER! Needless to say, about a week later he was doing very poorly, sweating bullets with a 104 temp. He want back in (to a different hospital) and they basically had to reopen and clean the sx site again... the site (internally) had become very infected and he was about to the point he would have been septic had it gone on a few more days. 3 weeks worth of abo's cleared him up, thankfully.

So yea.. I don't have anything against corporate america or anything like that.....


((ps: We raised heck at the 1st hospital about what had happened.. 2 months after the incident when we called to speak with dr quack, we found he no longer worked there... ))

luna

Being immuno-compromised due to almost 4 years of cancer treatments and a bone marrow transplant, I have to interject. I WAS told about the risks to my health from animals, especially birds and reptiles, and that I had to be careful with our cats, be sure not to be scratched, and the family had to move the litter boxes so that they wouldn't be near me (and, of course, I can't change the litter box). I was sent home with a binder 2 inches thick filled with protocols of what I can and cannot do/eat/etc. after the BMT.

If anyone in that state went home not knowing the risks posed by animals, their doctors are...well...words not appropriate for this website, and would be PARTIALLY liable for any undue risks and unhealthy exposure that patient has.

Partially. It's still the responsibility of the pet store to sell healthy animals and provide detailed and accurate information on the risks of handling and owning those animals, as well as their care. We know from experience that pet stores all fail on that responsibility.

People SHOULD be able to trust that their doctor will send them home with all of the information they need, and instructions to call whenever that information falls short. They SHOULD also be able to trust that a pet shop will sell healthy animals, and provide information about potential health risks that certain animals pose regardless of the health of the animal. What should be and what IS are two separate things, though...and people need to be smart enough (and not enough of them are) to research things on their own and take responsibility for their own actions, even if the people around them in positions of trust aren't.

EDIT: After having read what actually happened, the people who died received transplant organs from an infected donor. That's medical malpractice.

The family of the donor with the hamster-borne infection should be suing PetSmart for selling a diseased animal, and the families of the transplant patients who died should join in, since they've suffered loss due to that horrible negligence, but they should all be filing malpractice suits for doctors transplanting diseased tissue in the first place!

steveangela1

When I was working at a teaching hospital you don't know how many idiot residents came through that spoke broken english.. belive it or not being TN the Attendings found one reason or other to fail them.. lol... they were tough cookies to get through!

I remember having my lap surgery back in August.. they gave me 2 bags of antibiotics one before the surgery, one during... then sent me home w/ a round of antibiotics... they made sure I didn't get sick.. (that was the same hospital I used to work at even though I wouldn't go there to work again, I def go there for all my procedures and docs) Not to mention they told me to stay away from the family pets... hum... even the dog... Why can't they do that at all hospitals for all patients?
Im a healthy 30 year old person.. and they gave me those precautions post surgery.. my surgery was an elective surgery for my bladder from having children nothing to do w/ being immunocomprimised...

then, my son which had a tonsilectomy they gave him TONS of antibitotics at the hospital during surgery and after iv, then at home for 10 days.. plus the staying away from the cat warning.... once again, healthy child.. had to have it for sleep apnea... (this was diff hospital this was at childrens hospital)

I also remember being pregnant both times and basicly remember being told to stay out of my cats room where her litter box is... and for even to let my family feed her... and my mil's mother had chickens.. stay away from the chicken coop...
I guess East TN has a different standard in healthcare?

sirdarksol

I think that this is a question of "Is the virus in question common?" Sure, it's possible that hamsters carry this virus. It's also technically possible that the rats they sell can carry the plague (or rather, fleas that carry the plague), that the birds carry avian flu, and that many of the animals act as carriers for a wide variety of other diseases. But then, every animal would have at least one such virus/bacteria (and likely many, many more).
It would be impractical to do this, and would likely fuel a belief that owning cats (who can transmit a nasty infection from their claws/teeth) is deadly, that anyone who keeps pot-bellied pigs is trying to cause the avian flu to hop from birds to humans, etc... There are too many people who read something, take the concept way too far, and then raise heck over the issue afterwards (like the Taco John's lettuce incident that caused Taco Bell to stop carrying green onions. A single article listed Taco Bell and suggested that it might have been the green onions, and America freaked out and Taco Bell's sales dropped enormously)
On top of this, there's an underlying suggestion that all animals should be tested for any illness that can hop to humans. Perhaps a good idea, but I can pretty much guarantee that the price of all pets would double or even triple, since these tests are not cheap.

This particular instance (not referring to anyone's personal experience here, just the PetSmart hamster thing) seems to be nothing more than people feeling like they have to get something when they are hurt. It's a scary phenomena.
The virus in question isn't common in pets (at least according to the article) and can be carried by the common house mouse.

Narcicius

lol somebody was trying their best to cash in on a chain store like PetSmart. Its sad that those people died but its seems very unlikely that it was petsmart's fault.

SereneReyn

there are some risks involved when you stick someone else's liver in your body. period. ofcourse the people responsible for the donor program should probably make sure their donors are reasonably healthy first, but it can't be expected to be flawless - it's someone else's body part, it's not a new car with a full warranty! no refunds, sorry.

steveangela1

that is how I feel as well.. I do think that they should test animals for things such as parvo.. common bugs... but not stuff that is just over the top.. I mean how many 3 dollar hampsters have this? or how many parakeets in the us have the avian flu right now?

people should be educated and warned about the fact that yes animals do carry diseases, and if you are immunocompromised, you have no business having a rodent in your house.
now, this person should have had a fishtank..


This is going to lead to a rise in pet prices, and possiblely a questionaire and some sort of thing we will have to sign everytime we buy a pet from this store now...

FL CommunityFans

Annoying as it is, I think it's good. Half the people who own pets shouldn't own them, imo. That's just me though!

KittieKat

sorry if anything i say was said by someone else but after reading that article im blowing stream out of my ears and scolled right down to the bottom to post!!!!!! i feel that this is the most rediculous lawsuit ever! its like blaming bigfoot for u getting biten by mosquito. give me a break! only in america can someone win such a lawsuit as spilling hot coffee on oneself being mcdonalds' fault for not having a label saying caution... ugh! seriously its like sueing someone for IMing u when they had a virus on their computer and then u getting physically sick.... its insane!... im pouting right now.. i really really am! humph. its not petsmart's fault for some crazy occurance like this. i hope that woman loses and fells dumb for what shes trying to do

steveangela1

The sad thing is in america these days people will sue over anything and everything!! As a healthcare worker I have been through numerous talks/conventions and they have attornies speak.. they even tell us to watch how we even say "hello" to the patients.. they will sue you for your attitude... if you say "hello, honey" its sexual harassment... its all BS!

The land of lawsuits!