Rat bite fever? In the news ...

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rhapsody

rhapsody

Senior Member
Joined
Nov 1, 2010
Messages
1,288
Location
California, U.S.
So the following news article has been making the rounds: "Child dies after bite from Petco rat"

I've never heard of this "disease" before! Any of you folks know of it?

Considering that this happened in my parents' neck 'o the woods, I suspect I'll soon be hearing about it from my mom. Particularly the bit that pregnant women shouldn't have rats (the hubby and I are trying). Grrr, I really don't need any more pressure from her to dump my ratties.
 
Golly, I guess the news is over-sensationalizing the whole thing then. They make it sound like everyone who handles rats has this "impending doom" hanging over their heads. *GrumbleGrumble*

hopefloats said:
On the bright side maybe they will stop selling rats at petco.....
Click to expand...

I'm actually hoping that would happen! I very occasionally swing by PetCo/PetSmart when they have sales on bedding (bad Rhapz, I know), and their poor ratties always look ... off ...
 
Oh my goodness if one more person calls me, sends me an email, posts something to me on facebook, and/or just comes up to me and mentions this I may snap...... Yes, I had an infection, but I got treatment right away and it wasn't this... The chance of this are low. Like I said early your more likely to die from a cat bite/scratch and I've known people that ended up in the hospital for that. OMG this has been blown way out of proportion and is making our ratties look bad! Dang you Petco
 
Luckily I heard about this from animal lovers on facebook, otherwise I'd be furious with all the comments against rats! In the article they NEVER mention if they even took their kid to the doctor or ER, which is what you should do when you get a serious rat bite or if it starts to look infected. Rat bite fever can be treated with antibiotics and rarely do people die from it.
 
I caught the whole 'wanted to marry his rats' I would have sold him a female...he wouldn't know the difference likely cuz clearly he knew so much that he was going to intro a male to a female. I doubt he had the skills to take care of the consequences!!

The poor innocent rats that will now live in the small tanks at that pet store their whole lives because of one incident.
 
I'd be interested in knowing if it actually was an infection directly from the rat bite that caused the child's death; was this proven through an autopsy/blood testing? As well, even if the rat bit (and we all know that rats seldom bite unless protecting babies, or if being squeezed/hurt/threatened in some way) it may have been any kind of bacteria that got into the cut - a child plays outside all the time, may have handled food that carried bacteria, etc., etc. I also worry about what happened to the pet rats? What became of them? What happened to the boy is very sad, but there's something about the whole thing that sends up a red flag; it's over-sensationalized for certain, and propogating erroneous information regarding pet rats. Every pet carries a risk. Given the horrific amount of germs in any human mouth, kissing another person carries more risks.
 
I am personally more scared of cat scratches than a rat bite. I know we had a member on here whos daughter or maybe her got rat bite fever and spent a week in the hospital or something. I remember seeing it a few years ago on here. I know it is rare and I am hoping my ex dont see this he already swears my daughter is infected with mrsa because we have rats. LOL

It did make me angry about the boy for the girl rat.... more so than reading about this. It is rare and it happens.
 
I think they are going to have a hard time winning this case:


from the govt article linked below:
"However, as stated above, 10% to 100% of domestic rats and 50% to 100% of wild rats carry S. moniliformis, and a known bite causes infection approximately 10% of the time."

the fact that the rat tested positive for the bacteria is almost meaningless, since up to 100% of all wild and domestic rats carry it.

there are other animals that carry this bacteria as well.

I don't understand how they come up with a 10% rate of infection from known rat bites, that seems absurdly high (in the govt article linked below)

if that were true, then we would ALL pretty much know someone who has been infected with rat bite fever. Think of how many of us have been bitten by a rat, even just once.
Heck think of all the rats we have, and the times we let our rats drink from the same cup we do, etc. There was an outbreak of this illness among people who drank milk that had been contaminated by the rats carrying the bacteria.
if you figure at least 10% of our rats are carriers... well I'm not very good at math, I admit that, but you'd think we'd know a lot more ppl who had been infected if the rate was as high as this gov't article supposes it is.

Since it's very hard to test for, anyone who has been bitten by a rat and gets sick afterward, should #1 tell their doctor about their exposure to rats and #2 make sure to be treated with antibiotics.
esp if you have a fever, rash, and joint pain.
a govt' article:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1797630/

a info sheet from a lab about rat bite fever:
http://www.criver.com/files/pdfs/infectious-agents/rm_ld_r_streptobacillus_moniliformis.aspx
 
Nancy grace got ahold of it. I am looking for a huge intake of rescues now due to the bubonic plague or rat bite fever now i guess it is...
 
I've had two true rat bites - crime scene looking room afterwards. The first one became infected, but I knew it was infected within 24 hours and got medical treatment. I also truly believe it would not of become infected had I been able to properly clean it before the hubby rushed in with the liquid skin and covered the bite - sealing in the germs. That stuff stayed on for days - the er doctor couldn't even get it off. Anyway, that kid had to have been sick for days before they got him treatment and that bite had to have looked horrible. When I first thought my bite was infected I took a pen and marked the outline of the redness so I could tell how fast the redness/swelling was spreading. I was more worried about flesh eating bacteria than rat bite fever. Those parents dropped the ball and just want someone to blame.
 
hopefloats said:
Nancy grace got ahold of it. I am looking for a huge intake of rescues now due to the bubonic plague or rat bite fever now i guess it is...
Click to expand...


My mother told me I've living in a dangerous environment since we have the rats and a cat. After I explained the cat bite/scratch would be more likely to kill me! Although, I think she was kidding - at least I hope so. This is terrible publicity for ratties

I kept thinking about the rats "getting married" what the heck is that crap.. I guess since they didn't know to get their kid medical attention for an infected bite they probably didn't know a boy rat will mate with a girl rat!
 
Last edited:
This is nothing new cat scratch fever has been around. We all know pets can carry things so we have vets but iw ant the testing to show it is in fact rat bite fever people have been dying from the flu so it means nothing yet and I dont get how they can file without the test results back.
 
hopefloats said:
This is nothing new cat scratch fever has been around. We all know pets can carry things so we have vets but iw ant the testing to show it is in fact rat bite fever people have been dying from the flu so it means nothing yet and I dont get how they can file without the test results back.
Click to expand...

Article says:
The lawsuit was not filed until now because attorneys were awaiting the lab results from the federal Centers for Disease Control, which tested the rat to confirm it was infected, Gomez said. The agency could not immediately confirm the results Tuesday.
 
yeh a different article says the Medical Examiner told the parents 6 mos after the boy's death that it was RBF that killed him. really??
I'm assuming the ME based this on an autopsy of the boy, and not from testing the rat!! it doesn't matter if only the rat tested positive.

it all sounds very sketchy if you ask me. the time frame they are using for him coming down ill, how quickly it supposedly killed him.



the supposed *facts* as they are presented in the media, are rarely accurate, so unless we've got a trial transcript, it's unlikely we'll ever know the full story, just the sensational crap that sells papers.
 

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