2 Myths About Cats Not True

[Editorialist12]

The Humane Society of The United States through it's Animal Sheltering Magazine has proven that cats very rarely carry rabies or toxoplasmosis. This is a must read for all those interested in cats. I give you the following links of their proof:

https://www.animalsheltering.org/toxoplasmosis

https://www.animalsheltering.org/magazin...oplasmosis

There is too much information that is not true about cats that instills fear and a call for their euthanasia. Please pass this on to all cat owners you know.

[Catherine]

Welcome to the forum and thank-you for this Thread.

I am glad that they have determined that cats are not a common source of rabies. Rabies is a very serious disease and all bites should be taken seriously, however it is clear that we do not need to fear cats.

Even better, cats are not the direct source of toxoplasmosis infections. It makes sense that it would be infected meat or contaminated soil that is the contact point with the parasite. It is good to know that cats and people develop immunity to toxoplasmosis after an infection. It should be easy to protect a pregnant woman and therefore her baby. She could get the infection before and develop immunity. She could also be very careful about meat and gardening. Good hand washing would probably be enough.

Cats are so clean anyhow that I never believed they were sources of disease.

[Tobi]

A very warm welcome to the Forum, Editorialist12

And thank you for an excellent post.
I hope your post will reassure cat owners, and prevent any discrimination against cats. There are some cat-haters about who want to hate them for this reason or that.
We have no rabies in the UK, but there is still an unfounded fear about toxoplasmosis, and "cat scratch disease" (which is quite rare actually, and more to do with the immune system of the person scratched.) All I can say is I regularly get cat scratches during play or 'kneading' and never had any problem with them.

And then there are those who hate cats because they say they kill birds. All I can say to that is I have been looking after a cat (indoor/outdoor cat) for 5 years now, and see almost all of her 'kills' or clear evidence of her kills, and in that time she has killed two small birds, but a far greater number of mice and one rat. Birds aren't all that easy to catch!

[Catherine]

Quote:And then there are those who hate cats because they say they kill birds. All I can say to that is I have been looking after a cat (indoor/outdoor cat) for 5 years now, and see almost all of her 'kills' or clear evidence of her kills, and in that time she has killed two small birds, but a far greater number of mice and one rat. Birds aren't all that easy to catch!

Mostly cats catch mice. We probably need them to catch mice since we have killed so many other predators.
I think the people who hate cats will hate them no matter what.

I have never actually known anyone to get cat scratch fever. A little soap and water would probably help if you had a scratch.
You are like me, you get scratches all the time and we don't get sick because we keep ourselves healthy. Of course most of my scratches are from reptiles, but they never infect either.

The UK is lucky that it doesn't have rabies. We still find cases in raccoons and foxes. It is such a scary disease. We actually vaccinate the wild raccoons with some kind of bait they can eat. There is no rabies in Toronto right now, but there are cases not too far away.

[Tobi]

(04-02-2017, 04:39 PM)Catherine Wrote: The UK is lucky that it doesn't have rabies. We still find cases in raccoons and foxes. It is such a scary disease. We actually vaccinate the wild raccoons with some kind of bait they can eat.

That is a perfect way to deal with dangerous diseases in wild animals. Do the vaccinations work, do you know?

That is precisely the method which should be used with Britain's Badgers, if farmers are so concerned about them spreading TB! (which has not been proved to originate in Badgers anyway) It wouldn't do any harm to vaccinate them that way -if it is possible, at least to prevent spread.
That would be a better solution than killing them!

[Catherine]

The vaccinations work. If they find a rabid raccoon they saturate the area with vaccine. That creates a wall of immunity around the area so the disease can't be spread.

Culling never works. More animals move into the area to replace them. There is more chance of disease transmission when animals are on the move. Your badgers could have been vaccinated and they would have created a disease free zone.
The TB is coming from the cattle. Testing and vaccinating the cattle would have been an effective solution and it would have been more humane.

If the solution is cruel (like a cull) it is not the right solution, it is never the right solution.

[Tobi]

Oral vaccine for Bovine TB in UK is a possibility but hasn't been developed yet:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAr1Uc3Uewk

Now, maybe they are dragging on this because it's cheaper to kill Badgers, and because they simply don't care enough? Possibly....
At the moment, DEFRA is saying that the only way of vaccinating Badgers is by injectable vaccine which would cost apparently, £662 per Badger. And they don't see that as feasible. I am inclined to agree actually. But they need to push development of an oral vaccine more than they are doing, in my opinion.

[Catherine]

I watched a number of videos from your link. It seems to me they haven't improved testing methods since the days of James Herriot.  The results are very subjective so it would be easy to report false positives and false negatives. That in itself is enough to make testing ineffective.

Since TB is such a serious issue why haven't they developed a  better vaccine and better methods of testing.
Since local wildlife, mainly badgers can catch the TB, why have they failed to develop an easy way to vaccinate them. These things should have been done 30 years ago. We have the technology and the labs to work on the problem.

We both know they have continued to work on Biological weapons.  If they have the facilities and money to do that, then they can certainly do something about TB.

I think the cost of vaccinating the badgers is outrageous. I am sure they could find a cheaper way to do it. They lack the will to do it. They would rather kill the badgers.