A New Strain of Rabies: Of Mammoth Importance

Anyone who remembers watching The Discovery Channel's "Raising the Mammoth" a few years back will know these things had fur and meat on them. They were literally big frozen Mammothcicles and they got them out of the ice in one big block.

Well, preliminary data is all but done with - with a few newer tests as more scientific data becomes available and invented. That's all good. The bad part is that a completely archaic strain of rabies has been released by accident in the lab when the Iditarod pack of dogs started chowing down on some tasty meaty bones. It was not until one of the dogs bit their handler when they realized the present-day shots did nothing to stop this unknown archaic strain. The dog was put down and the handler was given a series of the shots, twice, to try to counteract this unheard of strain.

Rabies is pretty much 99.9% fatal if not treated early...once it progresses there is no turning it back. Only two people in recorded history have ever survived a rabies bite without getting the shots. Death by rabies is not at all pleasant. No word yet on how the doubling up on shots is working. "It's still too early to tell," said Dr. Ben Rudolph, one of the paleoscientists spearheading the project. "This certainly was an unforeseen event, but a lucky one that it happened here in isolation and not when we got back to the labs in California and Reston, Virginia." Reston being the scene of the breakout of monkey Ebola in 1987, in which they were not certain if the strain cross species or was even airborne.

Could anything go wrong with this? "We feel certain we've done all we could and all dogs remain in isolation at the Northern Base. One did have to be killed in order to ascertain the diagnosis of this form of "new old" rabies. It's a very thrilling time for us...so witness a disease which might have been responsible for deaths of many animals, including human. This is what we live for, we hope for things like this, but few never happen, at least not too many that get leaked out like this one was." Dr. Timothy Scheleppe added.

Dr. Scheleppe issued this statement to the press:

"There's not a whole lot of way to get rabies...but we're not positive with this one, so that's why we are treating it with the utmost respect. We have issued a recall with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the "Mammoth Skin Chews" distributed at various Petsmart and Petco stores in the United Stated and Canada, Great Britain, Hong Kong, Sydney, Australia, parts of Portugal, Iceland, New Zealand, and the Maldives. The FDA's home site will have more info about how to properly collect the sample and place into a haz-bag for shipping. All materials will be sent to those individuals who have them (or pieces of them left) - information can be found at the FDA's site. Until you get your haz-bag we ask that you do not touch the area and wear gloves and vigorously scrub any area that it might have come into contact with - with distilled vinegar after which a mild corrosive known primarily to acid wash/etch in ground concrete/gunite pools. All this info is listed on the FDA's site.

We do not recommend anyone be in the room until it has been safely and properly cleaned up. All clothing and shoes, rugs, and other items which have come into contact with it should not be sat on or worn. We recommend waiting for the larger "haz-bags" to get sent to you before you go into any of those rooms.

But, otherwise, there have been no reports other than the first incident. Most incidents will take place within 10-20 days from the initial contact with Mammoth Skin Chews. We ask that do you not return them to the store of purchase at this time.

Thank you."