| I MAY give them a calll, but it won't be for a week or so, because
Julie, my wife, has not gotten over the recent loss of our cat.
We DO have an adult carrier, and she shows no symptoms whatever of
having Leukemia, and probably never will.
When we lost "The Mew" to Leukemia, I was EXTREMELY concerned that
she may have contracted it from our "carrier". So I checked wit both
our Vet and I also called Tufts and spoke to a Senior Vet. BOTH of them
said the same thing: If a cat is immunized, they CANNOT contract the
disease. HOWEVER---the Leukemia vaccine is NOT 100% effective. MANY
cats will reject the vaccine, or it simply will not immunize them.
These animals can and usually will contract the disease. But they would
ALSO have a good probability of contracting it whether they are around
a known carrier or not.
I asked the SPECIFIC question about the danger of having a
non-carrier in the house with the carrier, and the answer was the same:
It would make little difference!! If the vaccine has taken effect, the
cat(s) ARE immunized. If it DIDN'T work, there would be problems.
When we lost "Bitch-Mew", we were in a real quandry, since she'd
tested NEGATIVE less than three months ago, and was given her vaccine.
She still got it!! BUT....The Vet at Tufts told me that kittens CAN and
DO get the virus from their mothers, and in MANY cases the virus is in
the bone-marrow, and is not detectable with the test. It can stay
dormant fro 1, 3, or 10 years, and then suddenly flare-up and kill the
cat. NOBODY can predict this, and at this time, unless you want to do a
bone-marrow sample and test,(which is very painful, very expensive, and
totally unnecessary for about 95% of cats)it's impossible to find it.
We got "The Mew" as a new-born kitten who was abandoned at birth by her
mother, so we had the complete history of her life on hand. She MUST
have been in that 5% who carried it from the womb in her marrow, so
there was nothing that anyone could do to prevent what happened and/or
predict it. It's jsut one of those unfortunate quirks of nature.
So...I'll keep trying to get Julie over her pain, and when that is
accomplished, we'll get another kitty...(or two....)
JMcD
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| I saw the little kitten last night at Concord. She is really, really,
cute. She is caged up and just watches all the other cats run around
freely. It's very sad.
Also, the woman that runs Adopt-A-Cat said that if anyone knows of
another leukemia positive kitten to let her know and she will put it
with this other one (for a playmate).
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