[b said:
Quote[/b] (FlytrapGurl @ July 08 2004,4:26)]Salmonella. It's a VIRUS that effects not the reptile but any human who handles a reptile that happens to have Salmonella and doesn't wash their hands with soap and water afterwards. Trust me on this...
A. Never handle a reptile if you have an open wound. 2. Never touch your eyes or mouth after handling a reptile unless you have washed your hands. C. Never kiss a reptile. That's a good way to have Salmonella festering on your lips.
I do not trust you.
Salmonella is
NOT a virus it is a bacteria and very few reptiles actually carry it!!! Please read things carefully and get your facts straight before you counter argue them.
I have been keeping reptiles since I was 5 (I turn 27 this month.) In that time I have had:
too many garter snakes to count (record for one summer was 157)
too many anoles to count
too many fence lizards to count
20-30 leopard frogs
50-100 toads of various species
a corn snake (that I still have, 14 years old)
2 horned frogs
7 box turtles
a black rat snake
5 bull/gopher snakes
2 smooth green snakes
a green racer
3 iguanas
2 tokay geckos
a dozen or so horned lizards
10 tiger salamanders
a Tucson banded gecko
2 fat-tailed geckos
4 gargoyle geckos
a coupld dozen house geckos
and I am sure there are a few I am forgetting
And on top of that I have handled more wild snakes, lizards, turtles, frogs, toad, salamanders, newts, etc than I could ever remember. A conservative estimate would be in the 500-600 range
In all that time I have
never washed my hands after holding any of those animals. I have kissed some of them, I have been bitten more times that I can count, I have been urinated on and I have been defecated on and
NOT ONCE have I ever gotten sick. In point of fact I have never in my life had salmonellosis.
As I said in my first post, the great
Salmonella scare about reptiles was caused by news agencies that blew the whole topic way out of proportion (like they do with everything.) They never got all the facts and now the public has been duped into thinking that all reptiles and amphibians are absolute disease vectors. That is not the case, very few diseases can be transfered from reptiles to mammals, the gross physiologic differences make it almost impossible to survive in both radically different environments. I am not saying that reptiles do not carry
Salmonella, what I am saying is that very few reptiles actually carry the disease so it is very unlikely for you to catch it from them.