*** CDC Investigates RODENTPRO - Lymphocytic Choriomeningitis Outbreak***

anyone see this on fauna? wow. Please check your stock closely!!!!

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RodentPro- Zoonotic disease warning
For several years our facility (Kentucky Reptile Zoo) purchased rodents from RodentPro. While less than completely pleased with their customer service from time to time, we did not have any major problems.

In May, three things occurred:
1. We were informed they would no longer be providing live mice after the May delivery (we met them in Louisville, about a 2 hr drive for us, so we could get live things.)
2. They did not have several hundred rats that we needed.
3. I attempted to purchase quail. I was told they were increasing their quail colony and did were not selling any. I asked if there was any way I could get 2-5 extra males, as I had one snake that would not eat anything other than quail and he was already thin. Casey flat out refused to provide even 1 quail. I was quite irritated at this - how could there not be any extra males, surely they could help out a long term customer who spends several thousand dollars per month with them??? But no, no quail for this one snake.

Due to these three things, we decided to look for rodents elsewhere.

Fast forward to yesterday, when I received a call from the epidemiologist for our county, who informed me of the following:
1. The CDC was looking for people who had purchased rodents from Rodent Pro, particularly in May of this year.
2. Rodent Pro rodents were found to be diseased with Lymphocytic Choriomeningitis, which is a zoonotic disease with potentially serious consequences, especially to those who are immune suppressed and pregnant women. You can google this disease and see the CDC information about it.
THE VAST MAJORITY OF HEALTHY ADULTS WHO CONTRACT THE DISEASE RECOVER FULLY.
3. They wanted to visit us today to see our purchase records from Rodent Pro.

They did visit us today and talked to us about the situation. We are not sure if we received diseased rodents or not. We provided them with our purchase records and are supposed to be told if there is a problem within a day or so.

I am not aware of any of our employees having any health issues in relation to this situation. However, I do not yet know if we will need to discard any live rodents that we have and also discard any remaining frozen rodents.

I have been informed that frozen rodents pose a very small risk. However, this risk is not zero. If you purchased frozen or especially live rodents from rodentpro this spring or summer, you might want to contact your health department and find out if you should be concerned.

I AM NOT TRYING TO SCARE ANYONE UNDULY-- HOWEVER I FEEL MORALLY OBLIGATED TO NOTIFY THE COMMUNITY THE BEST I KNOW HOW.
Especially since Rodent Pro made completely zero effort to contact us about the problem. Below is the letter I am mailing to them today.

I will update as I find out more info.

Here is the letter:

"July 31, 2012

Kevin Bryant
RodentPro
PO Box 118
Inglefield, IN 47618

Dear Kevin,

Yesterday we were contacted by our local epidemiologist, who visited us today in regards to rodents from your facility carrying lymphocytic choriomeningitis. I do not yet know if any rodents we received from you were carrying this disease, but they have taken copies of our invoices from you and are supposed to contact us soon to let us know.

I’m sure that this situation is not news to you. I am writing to express my extreme disappointment and displeasure that you made absolutely zero effort to contact us to inform us of this situation. As I have learned in the past 24 hours, this disease is zoonotic and can cause serious illness, especially to those who are immune suppressed and to pregnant women. Even though the risk is low to healthy adults, I now find myself in the position of having to back track and attempt to figure out if anyone was exposed. It is absolutely unconscionable that you would allow any of your customers to continue to use and work around these animals without providing some sort of warning to them. I can not imagine what absolute lack of ethics and morals you must possess to be so lax in your professional responsibility to your customers.

If we did receive any of the diseased animals, we are going to have to euthanize and discard our entire live rodent colony, as well as discard any remaining frozen rodents that we received from you. I estimate this loss will be roughly $1000, which we can ill afford but it is better than continuing to put ourselves and our employees at risk. The monetary loss is aggravating but pales in comparison to the betrayal I feel at how you handled this situation.
Rest assured that you will never do business with us again. I tolerated the moderate quality of customer service for several years because we could get live rodents from you, but I will not do business with anyone who has proven themselves to be so utterly devoid of basic human decency.

In addition, I will be posting a copy of this letter to the Board of Inquiry on Faunaclassifieds.com. I will do this because there are probably large numbers of people who purchased rodents from you at shows. I have been told the risk of transmission from frozen rodents is very low. However, very low is not zero and these people deserve to be informed that the risk exists. Since it is clear you do not feel it is necessary to inform your customers of this risk, I will do it for you. I find that my personal morals will not be satisfied until these people are notified in some way.

Please realize that while I would have been concerned and disappointed in this situation regardless, I would have been much more understanding if you had made any effort at all to notify us of the problem when it occurred, which to my understanding was in May of 2012. I am not sure when you found out about the problem, but I know that you knew prior to today, when I am finding out about it. Large colonies of animals are by nature susceptible to disease outbreaks and this disease is present in the wild rodent population. However, dealing with such an outbreak responsibly and professionally would have gone a very long way towards preventing any potential problems that may now arise.



Kristen Wiley, Curator
Kentucky Reptile Zoo"

http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/foru...d.php?t=334751

Scary stuff guys, please look into it if you have bought anything from rodentpro during the month of May.

Wow. Will you please post the Fauna link as well?

This actually made me back check my records now to see what I was getting from them during that time. Fortunately, they've been "out of stock" for months of many of my needed feeders, so I've been using a new company since March . . . But I do find it interesting that there is no information about this on their sites main webpage. Please let us know if Rodent Pro confirms the outbreak, and what they have done if anything for it.

I posted a link to the Fauna discussion in another thread about the same issue. Didn't see this one before I posted it in General Herp.

If confirmed - and i have no doubt it will - it is horrifying to think they would not notify their customers.

http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/foru...d.php?t=334751

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kaorte

I posted a link to the Fauna discussion in another thread about the same issue. Didn't see this one before I posted it in General Herp.

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Merged :gj:

Their response to this, assuming it is confirmed, is completely irresponsible and inexcusable. I won't be doing any business with them in the future if it is in fact confirmed.

I'm floored that we're hearing this from someone other than Rodent Pro. Total lack of professionalism.

Since the local reptile shop is always in need of support I get my feeders there, but before that I've used rodent pro and didn't have any issues. Sad to see this turn of events

The disease itself doesn't actually sound that serious. I found this on the CDC's website. Still, I'd prefer to be informed.

http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvrd/spb/m...es/lcmv/qa.htm

Zombie rodent apocalypse

This is great:( I have a order of rodents coming from rodent pro tomorrow :(. What should I do?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MarkS

The disease itself doesn't actually sound that serious. I found this on the CDC's website. Still, I'd prefer to be informed.

http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvrd/spb/m...es/lcmv/qa.htm

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Arthritis and mental retardation of an unborn child sounds like a walk in the park to me :)

Certainly doesn't seem like something that causes serious issues for most people, but pregnant women and those who with a suppressed immune system, could have some considerably more serious problems.

Would like to hear back something definite on Rodent Pro sometime soon.

Honestly, not surprised. I've heard horror story after horror story about RodentPro for the past few years.

Regards,

B

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MarkS

The disease itself doesn't actually sound that serious. I found this on the CDC's website. Still, I'd prefer to be informed.

http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvrd/spb/m...es/lcmv/qa.htm

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One of the symptoms is testicular pain....I'd say thats pretty serious.

Well sounds like RodentPro was in a lose-lose situation. If they notified people they'd lose business... and apparently not notifying people is going to cause them to lose business.

Wonder if this is why they were "out of stock" for so long... trying to protect their customer base but not tell what exactly was going on? Sucks to say but in their situation I probably would have culled all stock, told everyone I was sold out, and tried to keep my reputation intact... I can't really fault them.

I just got a bunch of frozen for my monitor at the show a couple weeks ago... I sure hope we find out more.

Sent from my PC36100 using Tapatalk 2

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DavidMundy

One of the symptoms is testicular pain....I'd say thats pretty serious.

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Well, it's not quite as serious as death, which in extreme cases (much like the aforementioned testicular pair) can happen with Salmonella. And Salmonella, as we all know, can be carried by any reptile. In fact wasn't there another rodent supplier that was in trouble last year because one of their customers actually came down with salmonella poisoning after using their product?

So I just checked my shipment is Suppost to get here tomorrow. Should I try to return the rats, or you guys think it's ok to feed them anyway?

Wow, good thing I did not put my order this week. Are there any other companies that you would suggest?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by 1nstinct

This is great:( I have a order of rodents coming from rodent pro tomorrow :(. What should I do?

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I heard it was only from orders processed in may. I could be wrong though, call rodent pro and ask

Dragoon-I did I mentioned the out break and they told me the rodents are virus/disease free. They should safe since they are going to be frozen and I'm not touching any bedding or urine/fecal matter.

This is the letter that Rodent Pro sent out to the customers that purchased during the time this was an issue.... They basically placed blame on the supplier and said sorry.... :colbert:

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August 2, 2012

Dear RodentPro Customer:

This statement is to inform you that during May, 2012, RodentPro learned that a portion of the mouse breeding colonies at one of its suppliers tested positive for Lymphocytic Choriomeningitis virus, known as LCMV. This particular facility had tested negative for LCMV as recently as February, 2012 during a routine screening. As a result of the positive LCMV findings, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) took immediate steps to quarantine the facility and required the supplier to take measures to ensure that the facility was returned to a virus free condition. The CDC determined that mice that may have been exposed to LCMV produced at that facility were shipped prior to diagnosis to fourteen of RodentPro's customers, all of whom have been contacted by the CDC. All rats produced at that facility tested negative for LCMV. No rabbits, guinea pigs, chicks or quail were produced at that facility. We are currently not purchasing any products from this supplier.

RodentPro would like to stress that the finding of LCMV at the before mentioned facility is an isolated incident that occurred at only one of numerous locations utilized by RodentPro to produce its products. This incident did not involve any RodentPro products produced at any other facilities.

RodentPro's top priorities are the health and safety of our customers and employees and the welfare of our animals. We have worked closely with the CDC and other governmental agencies in resolving this issue with the above supplier.

We are closely examining every aspect of our production processes to determine enhancements we can make to our procedures in our efforts to further ensure our ability to provide safe feeder animals.

We apologize for any hardships that may have been caused by this incident. We value our relationship with you and are committed to do everything we can to provide you with safe and high quality products.

Sincerely,

Kevin Bryant
President - RodentPro.com

Honestly I have heard more bad things, than good things about rodent pro. They raised their prices this year which was one of my only reasons to ever go through them. A couple weeks ago I was going through the TSK facility where I purchased one of my balls. While I was there they informed me that they are starting their own frozen rodent department and showed me some of their products. I think its safe to say I was impressed. Totally humane, professional, and organized. The rodents were packed very neatly with great attention to detail. I just thought I would recommend them since their prices are just as competitive.

Sent from my VS910 4G using Tapatalk 2

I'm happy I breed my own, and have a great local supplier if I'm ever low or need to restock ;)

Any updates?

Just caught the tail end of a newsclip about the Mouse House, one of the local suppliers to Rodent-Pro. I live a couple miles away from them, so it was on my local news channel, :)

http://www.courierpress.com/news/201...mmission-herp/