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The US Is Tracking 14 Potential Rabies Outbreaks in 20 States
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Re: The US Is Tracking 14 Potential Rabies Outbreaks in 20 States
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, the medical dark ages. Not the metaphorical kind either, but the kind where people die foaming at the mouth because their neighbor decided a rabies shot might cause dog autism. The CDC has apparently chosen the new strategy of “if we ignore it, maybe it will go away,” which worked wonders in the 14th century. Soon, every PTA meeting will double as a plague ward while Etsy sellers crank out crystal collars to pro…
I thought perhaps you were joking but it turns out people are also hesitant to vaccinate their pets. """ About 37 percent of dog owners also believe that canine vaccination could cause their dogs to develop autism, even though there is no scientific data that validates this risk for animals or humans. """ https://www.bu.edu/sph/news/articles/2023/nearly-half-of-dog...
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Re: The US Is Tracking 14 Potential Rabies Outbreaks in 20 States
#63[flagged]
Re: The US Is Tracking 14 Potential Rabies Outbreaks in 20 States
#64Here's an article from late August with some detail [1], including the affected states: New York, Massachusetts, Alaska, Arizona, California, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, North Carolina, Oregon and Vermont. I can't find anything about it on the CDC website though. Edited to add another charming detail from the article: "A 2023 study published in the journal Vaccine found in a nationally representative sample of American…
> Edited to add another charming detail from the article: "A 2023 study published in the journal Vaccine found in a nationally representative sample of Americans that nearly 40% believed canine vaccines were unsafe and 37% believed that vaccines could lead their dogs to develop cognitive issues, such as autism." You should always go to the primary source. Here's the Vaccine paper [1,2]. I don't say this often about p…
If 10% of people aren't vaccinating their dogs for rabies that's WAY too many, and it's a big problem.
Going to good ol' Wikipedia[0], "in countries where dogs commonly have the disease, more than 99% of rabies cases in humans are the direct result of dog bite. In the Americas, bat bites are the most common source of rabies infections in humans, and less than 5% of cases are from dogs." But the article is citing sources from 2011 - if TEN PERCENT of people aren't getting their dogs their rabies shots, that number is going to increase.
Re: The US Is Tracking 14 Potential Rabies Outbreaks in 20 States
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I thought perhaps you were joking but it turns out people are also hesitant to vaccinate their pets. Incorrect. Of the respondents to that paper's survey, 84% said that their pets were fully vaccinated for Rabies . [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45329845
How does your highlighted quote refute injidup‘s claim?
I didn't "highlight a quote". I showed that the entire paper is invalid. They use poor methodology and base their model of "vaccine hesitance" on a population with self-admitted high rates of vaccination.
Re: The US Is Tracking 14 Potential Rabies Outbreaks in 20 States
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Edited to add another charming detail from the article: "A 2023 study published in the journal Vaccine found in a nationally representative sample of Americans that nearly 40% believed canine vaccines were unsafe and 37% believed that vaccines could lead their dogs to develop cognitive issues, such as autism." You should always go to the primary source. Here's the Vaccine paper [1,2]. I don't say this often about p…
If 10% of people aren't vaccinating their dogs for rabies that's WAY too many, and it's a big problem. Going to good ol' Wikipedia[0], "in countries where dogs commonly have the disease, more than 99% of rabies cases in humans are the direct result of dog bite. In the Americas, bat bites are the most common source of rabies infections in humans, and less than 5% of cases are from dogs." But the article is citing sour…
> If 10% of people aren't vaccinating their dogs for rabies that's WAY too many, and it's a big problem.
First of all, it's an internet survey of 2200 people. The data is garbage and you can't conclude anything from it. Huge error bars. I didn't lean on that point above, but it's fundamentally true.
Second, even assuming that the number is correct, who says it's a "big problem"? Rabies is not like the flu -- it requires direct, intimate contact for transmission. If the pets in question (like most pets) never meet a wild animal in their lives, the chances are high that it won't matter at all. Your main worry is dogs catching it from other dogs…but at a 90% vaccination rates and a rare event profile to begin with, that’s incredibly unlikely.
I grant you that it would be better to have 100% vaccination rates, but I doubt we’ve ever actually had that. Badness is relative.
Re: The US Is Tracking 14 Potential Rabies Outbreaks in 20 States
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's absolutely scary that the CDC hasn't published anything about it. They were the ultimate source of epidemiological information, weren't they? We knew this was coming. But this is the clearest sign yet that we have entered the medical dark ages.
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/rabies-outbreaks-... CDC did publish something. The idea that it's "absolutely scary" is hilarious when you didn't do any research.
I was replying to someone, not attempting to refute them.
Re: The US Is Tracking 14 Potential Rabies Outbreaks in 20 States
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
If 10% of people aren't vaccinating their dogs for rabies that's WAY too many, and it's a big problem. Going to good ol' Wikipedia[0], "in countries where dogs commonly have the disease, more than 99% of rabies cases in humans are the direct result of dog bite. In the Americas, bat bites are the most common source of rabies infections in humans, and less than 5% of cases are from dogs." But the article is citing sour…
> If 10% of people aren't vaccinating their dogs for rabies that's WAY too many, and it's a big problem. First of all, it's an internet survey of 2200 people. The data is garbage and you can't conclude anything from it. Huge error bars. I didn't lean on that point above, but it's fundamentally true. Second, even assuming that the number is correct, who says it's a "big problem"? Rabies is not like the flu -- it requi…
Rabies is something it's hard for me to be highly rational about. It's 100% fatal after symptoms appear‡, and it's just an absolute horror show of a disease. Most states require you to vaccinate your pets, which is HOW the US became a place where less than 5% of rabies cases come from dogs.
You're right though, I don't know the exact threshold of unvaccinated pets where it really becomes a problem. And I also don't know how representative that survey is (I will admit I was waking up and didn't notice the source was an internet survey with a small sample size).
‡ I know, I know, they can put you in a coma and do some dramatic medical stuff and you might survive - but it's very expensive, of debatable efficacy, and even if it works you'll still probably have brain damage
Re: The US Is Tracking 14 Potential Rabies Outbreaks in 20 States
#69I'm surprised they don't mention bats, every summer night they fly within a foot of my head and some poor guy died on Vancouver Island, https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/rabies-death...
This must be an LLM/bot account as bats were listed multiple times throughout the article...
No sorry, I just missed it...
Re: The US Is Tracking 14 Potential Rabies Outbreaks in 20 States
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
Rising global temperatures will likely lead to increased pathogen activity.
Curious why that is?
You could do a simple google search and find hundreds of articles. Here's a few...
https://health.ucdavis.edu/news/headlines/experts-warn-clima...
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11138229/
https://www.preventionweb.net/news/more-common-enemy-how-cli...