Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Infectious Disease Special Edition (IDSE), is a newsmagazine for doctors and healthcare professionals in the infectious disease specialty. It publishes six times a year, presenting news and features, as well as review articles about the latest medical developments and practice guidelines relevant to infectious disease specialists, pharmacists, laboratory leaders and others involved in the treatment of infectious diseases.
[00:00:00]
MLC: Hi, I'm Meg Callaghan. I'm the managing editor of Infectious Disease Special Edition, and I'm here speaking with Ethan Covey, who probably is our number one writer, and this is Zoo to You. Ethan is our go-to for any story that, it could be anything from a new HIV drug to, uh, rabies attacks is one thing that we talk about a lot, um , unfortunately.
But usually this, the ending is okay, though this one I think, um, I really wanted to talk about with you. Um, I mean, it was okay in some respects, but maybe not as rosy as some of the other stories. Can you talk a little bit about the cattle, and what state was it? It was somewhere in the Midwest, right? Sure.
EC: It was in, uh, Minnesota, and this was in 2024. Um, there was an outbreak of rabies among, uh, cattle at a dairy farm And, uh, there were a number of cows that were, um, uh, affected. [00:01:00] Basically the 35 cows on the farm, [some] had signs and symptoms that were consistent with rabies. Um, three of them were euthanized and, uh, were confirmed to have had rabies, and it was found out that the likely exposure was a rabid skunk that had actually, um, gotten into one of the pens that the cows were being kept in and had bitten a number of them.
MLC: Which is so wild to think of, but of course, you know, the skunk has rabies so that's why it was acting in this manner. But like, if you've ever been... I mean, we're fr- we're both from the Northeast, so like you maybe have seen a skunk before. At least you've smelt them. Um, to think that they went in and were biting the cattle is just wild.
Um, so sad though that they had to euthanize them, but I thought an interesting thing that I didn't know about, because I don't really know so much about veterinary medicine, um, is that the cows are not normally vaccinated for rabies, I think was something that came up.
EC: That's [00:02:00] true. That's true. It sounds like they're not.
MLC: Or it could be a choice, the ca- you know, the, the rancher's choice or the, the farmer's choice if they wanted to for some reason. You know, vaccination for cattle is a totally different ballgame from what I am usually talking about, so I don't want to make any, you know, judgment calls or anything like that.
But, uh, what I do know is that for a farmer that would have some sort of cost associated with it, and they're trying to balance that 'cause they care about their cows, right? They care whether, uh, you know, the you know, I think, you know, maybe for someone who might be vegetarian like me, may- you know, you, it, you don't, they are using the cows, but they care about their cows, you know?
And so they want them to be healthy and, um, and like, you know, so weighing that whether to vaccinate or not, that cost associated with that, if there's a risk associated with that, which apparently there was from the skunk. Um, but then there's all these other costs associated with what happens when someone or when an [00:03:00] animal does get infected, and treatment and quarantining, and can you talk a little bit about that?
EC: Yeah, so one of the things that's really unfortunate in this situation is that, um, the costs are very high, as you said. And it sounds like unlike pets- Animals on farms aren't generally vaccinated, uh, against things like rabies. It exists, and sometimes it happens if they're particularly, um, high-value animals or if they're in areas where there's been repeated wildlife exposures that would put them at particularly high level of risk.
But otherwise, they're not vaccinated. Um, that obviously, you know, creates a problem when there's situations like this where there is, you know, a rabid animal that gets in and has access to them, and, uh, also it ends up creating, you know, both, uh, em- emotional and financial issues for the farmers. So another thing that's unfortunate is that it sounds as if, uh, losses such as these are not covered by standard farm insurance or other federal programs.
So [00:04:00] that means that there ends up being a, again, financial as well as emotional burden for the farmers.
MLC: Yeah. So kind of went from being a silly story to being kind of sad. But I think it's also important to, to say, like I, I don't know if this is a one-off, but at least I, I remember reading in the story that you wrote that it was, like, kind of if there are repeated wildlife ins- exposures, maybe a farmer should take this into consideration.
EC: Yeah. Clearly, it's not something that happens very often, and when it does, it, as shown here, can have pretty devastating consequences, both for the livestock and for the farmers themselves.
MLC: Um- Oh, and that was another thing I remember about the story that, like, made me sad, that, um, that ... I remember this very clearly from your story, that the dogs on the farm were vaccinated because they had-- they were their pets, and they had them up to date on vaccinations.
But the cats that they had on the farm were considered barn cats and were not, and they had to be euthanized as [00:05:00] well. And that, I thought, was ... That's pretty terrible.
EC: That's pretty terrible.
MLC: And maybe- Yeah ... maybe vaccinate your barn cats, guys. I don't know. Yeah.
EC: Yeah, exactly.
MLC: Okay. Thank you, Ethan, for taking the time to talk to me.
EC: Thanks, Meg.
MLC: Did you like what you hear? I hope so. In two weeks, we'll be back with another episode of Zoo to You. But in the meantime, next week, next episode of Beaten Pathogens. Check it out. Zoo to You is a new podcast from Infectious Disease Special Edition, which is a magazine from McMahon Group. You've been listening to me, Meaghan Lee Callaghan, managing editor, and our writer, Ethan Covey.
Help from Landon Gray. Our engineer and musician is Gianni Pizzi. Editing help from Don Pizzi and Brian Dunleavy. Copy editing, Kristin Jannacone and Madison Fiedler. Special thanks to our team members Leona Smith, Dave Kaplan, and Lillie Onday. Our publication director is Joe Malichio, and our editorial director is David Bronstein.[00:06:00]
Thank you for listening.