Centers For Disease Control reports on Catching multi-drug resistant salmonella from pet rodents.
Minnesota. During August 2004, a boy aged 5 years had diarrhea of 14 days’ duration (initially bloody), abdominal cramps, vomiting, and fever (103ºF [39.4ºC]). A stool culture yielded S. Typhimurium. Four days before the boy became ill, his family had purchased a mouse from a retail pet store supplied by a Minnesota distributor. The mouse became lethargic and had diarrhea immediately after purchase. Even though the mouse was ill, the boy frequently handled and kissed the mouse. One week after purchase, the mouse died; the mouse was frozen and later submitted for testing at MDH. Cultures of the mouse’s lungs, pooled liver and spleen, and intestines yielded growth of S. Typhimurium, with a pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) pattern indistinguishable from the boy’s isolate.
The article mentions that many distributors in the "Pocket Pet Industry" use lots of antibiotics pre-emptively to prevent disease. One company puts tetracycline in all the feed. They can’t prove that this resistant strain arose because of overuse of antibiotics, but here is yet another industry literally pouring antibiotics into the ecosystem.
Meanwhile, I can’t legally get antibiotics unless I visit the doctor and get a prescription.
Man that is messed up. The more I think about it, the more I want to puke.
I heard you can get salmonella from pet Iguanas also.
just the word “salmonella” makes me nauseous. Add the image of a kid kissing a mouse with the shits and I’m done eating for a while.