Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Maryland Rabies Fatality


The Washington Post reports that there has been the first fatal case of rabies in Maryland since 1976.

Great. Not that I ever handle wildlife or anything. Ah well, life comes with risk, and there's no getting around that. Golf balls and honey bees kill a lot more people in Maryland than rabid fox. If you get bit and it's an odd-acting animal, you have to get two to four shots over several weeks anyway. Get the prophylactic rabies shot (it's actually three shots administered over several weeks, and it's not cheap), and your insurance pays for it, and that becomes part of your medical record, perhaps impacting health and life insurance availability and rates into the future. So you learn to be careful.  Probably not a bad thing.

The smart move is to skip the rabies shot and get the flu shot.  The flu actually kills a lot of people in Maryland and across the nation!
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2 comments:

PipedreamFarm said...

The rabies came from an infected kidney

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/maryland-rabies-case-came-from-kidney-transplant-sources-say/2013/03/14/4f47361e-8cf9-11e2-9f54-f3fdd70acad2_story.html

PBurns said...

Thank God! I would hate to think there was any rabies in the Maryland wildlife population. Now, all I have to do is cut back on my harvesting of kidney from the homeless ("Look, free vodka!") and things should be fine. It will put a crimp in my budget (I can get $50,000 for the right kidney) but what are you gonna do?

P