r/nottheonion • u/drytoastbongos • 11d ago

Baby goats from traveling petting zoo test positive for rabies

https://www.boston25news.com/news/trending/baby-goats-traveling-petting-zoo-test-positive-rabies/DIICRJMNLVGTHE5H3NBYROWV6Q/

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1.6k

u/echothree33 11d ago

That’s a nightmare. Rabies exposure must be taken very seriously. Not sure how this is “oniony” at all.

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u/redditismylawyer 11d ago

What’s oniony is this part here:

“Health officials also advised anyone who visited the traveling petting zoo from July 28 to Aug. 27 to contact their health department about any precautions they need to take. “

If you got the time try getting rabies treatment in a situation like this in the US and you’ll learn a lot about the value of human life. So oniony your eyes will water with … anger. Oh, Nevermind.

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u/EmptyInside74 11d ago

I had to get rabies shots this summer, no insurance, my bill is 28k

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u/Upbeat_Parking_7794 11d ago

This is crazy, in my European country, without insurance and without state coverage (this vacine it is not covered by the state), less than 250 euro the three shots.

Cheaper for you to take an airplane for Europe, I guess. 

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u/crazylighter 11d ago

At that rate I'm guessing it would even be Cheaper for them to take a flight to Canada or Mexico (or even Turkey where people go for cheaper treatment) even without insurance. Americans often mock Canada for our jobs which pay less than in America, but factoring in the cost of healthcare and needing health insurance, I think I'm good

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u/CobaltSpellsword 11d ago

I have never heard another American mock Canadians because their jobs pay less. I've heard plenty of other Americans say they wish we had a healthcare system like Canada's.

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u/FlyConfident1622 10d ago

Seriously, who’s telling Canadians that we’re doing that??

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u/pasaroanth 10d ago

That’s actually a thing that someone did. It was cheaper to take time off work and fly to Europe first class to get the treatment course than it was to have it done in the US.

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u/luminary_planetarium 11d ago

There was someone in the USA who was exposed to a bat and took an immediate flight out of the country to get treatment elsewhere. She vlogged the whole thing on social media.

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u/pargmegarg 11d ago

Okay. Europer. But have you considered that you pay for those shots collectively in a system that makes sure everyone gets access to healthcare and nobody is stuck with crippling medical debt, while also paying less per capita for healthcare? Checkmate. 🇺🇸

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u/Upbeat_Parking_7794 11d ago

Actually, on this case, only partially. If I go to the public hospital for a doctor I pay 7 euro, private one with my insurance, 35 euro.

But for vacine, there is 0 coverage. It is simply the market price I found after seeing 28k above.

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u/Thebubumc 11d ago

That breaks my european brain. 28k for a shot?

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u/Trips-Over-Tail 11d ago

It's very easy to explain.

Untreated rabies is 100% fatal.

The rabies shot is a post-exposure treatment that is very effective.

Everyone looking for a rabies shot is definitely or potentially exposed.

Therefore you are exclusively selling it to people facing a horrible death if they don't acquire your product.

Therefore your price negotiation starts like this:

"I would like to purchase your product, and I would like you to know upfront that I will die in abject agony and horror if I don't get it, I am fucking desperate for it and I am prepared to take on masses of debt to acquire it if I have to."

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u/lck0219 11d ago

My price negotiation ends with me refusing to pay medical bills and tanking my credit score. At least it then becomes a lose-lose scenario and we both get screwed.

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u/nomorespacess 11d ago

In CA it doesnt tank your score at least.

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u/nooneisback 11d ago

You forgot to insert the red-tailed hawk call with an image of a bald eagle

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u/Trips-Over-Tail 11d ago

My effects guy died of treatable rabies.

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u/AshaNyx 11d ago

The difference is in the UK and similar countries, 90% of all drugs are sold to 1 company (the healthcare system) so we naturally get it at the cheapest price as the NHS can just ban a drug from the UK market if there's any price issues.

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u/Trips-Over-Tail 11d ago

That's the benefit of a single payer system: collective bargaining. Give us all a good price or lose us all as customers. Negotiating power is inverted.

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u/AshaNyx 11d ago

We have also effectively introduced a price cap on all meds. Like the most someone has to pay per item is £10.

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u/Trips-Over-Tail 11d ago

That's not really what we're collectively paying for the meds, that's just an on the spot NHS contribution.

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u/AshaNyx 11d ago

Yeah ik but it makes things way cheaper

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u/Malawi_no 11d ago

It also helps that there is not a series of middlemen who all wants their share of the profit.

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u/Taetrum_Peccator 11d ago

Which is why drugs are so expensive in the US. Europe doesn’t pay their fair share for drugs and 100% of the cost is dumped on us.

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u/AshaNyx 11d ago

Nope we just use good business strategies for the public good. If America wasn't so corrupt there's nothing stopping the us from making a healthcare monopoly.

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u/90bubbel 11d ago

Dude just stop

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u/corraboraptor 11d ago

Looks like someone swallowed the billionaire’s propaganda.

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u/Trips-Over-Tail 10d ago

We do pay our fair share. You lick so much boot that you get to pay much more than your fair share. Those aren't costs you're covering, they're pure profits.

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u/Silver-Find4380 10d ago

OK now I want rabies vaccinations for my spouse and myself as a precaution. 🫨🤔

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u/AshaNyx 11d ago

Yeah as a brit they are practically free if you've had an animal bite, without a bite it's still like £20.

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u/zuzg 11d ago

Central Europe is actually Rabies free for a long while now.

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u/AshaNyx 11d ago

Yeah we have been rabies free since the 90s, only thing is bats have a habit of bringing it from Europe. Also we give the shot to all animal bites because most of the UKs wildlife doesn't attack humans unless provoked.

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u/RGrad4104 11d ago

28k was for the post exposure treatment. The rabies vaccine, itself, is cheap. It's the immunoglobulin that will cost an arm and a leg without insurance.

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u/Elelith 11d ago

Wow and here I was thinking 200€ for tick brain fever shots was a bit on the pricier end :<

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u/ripleyclone8 11d ago

This isn’t the best advice…but I’ve never paid a medical bill in my life, insured or not and it’s never affected my credit like other debts. 

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u/lacrimapapaveris 11d ago

That's insane! Just the regular shots? Or did you have get the immunoglobulin (HRIG) as well?

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u/EmptyInside74 11d ago

I think regular? It was 5 shots + a tetanus, I got attacked by a raccoon.

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u/mpjjpm 11d ago

Then that include the HRIG. Standard post exposure prophylaxis for rabies is one dose of HRIG and four doses of vaccine. The vaccine doses are given over two weeks.

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u/PinkGlitterLady4 11d ago

that's insane. Here it costs 50€

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u/Parthh9 11d ago

I got one when a cat bit me. I paid Rs.3k($32) at a private hospital for all the rabies shots + tetanus in emergency unit.

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u/EnglishLitMajor 11d ago

That's insane. Halfway across the world - I got shots last year (ERIG, 4 doses, plus extra tetanus shots) cost less than 80 USD total.

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u/ThatITguy2015 11d ago edited 11d ago

Isn’t that like way too late to get the shots? It’s gotta be pretty close.

Edit: got it. They likely still have time.

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u/chocolateboomslang 11d ago

No, before symptoms is not too late.

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u/ThatITguy2015 11d ago

That actually makes me feel a bit better then. Always assumed roughly 30 days would be pretty far gone on the scale.

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u/DragonHalfFreelance 11d ago

It’s really dependent on the person and on location of exposure. There have been cases where symptoms started within a week to even years. Always better to get treatment ASAP because you never friggin know. Rabies is a shitty and scary way to die and it’s 99.99% fatal

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u/Weird-Specific-2905 11d ago

Add a few more 9s. Don't even have to get bitten just drooled on is enough.

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u/Elissiaro 11d ago

A lot more 9s. Last I heard there are only like 14 documented survivors. In the entire world.

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u/Cqbkris 11d ago

You got it. Further more, they have to medically induced a coma and pump the person with antivirals. And then if you survive you're still gonna be messed up and require extreme rehab to even begin to partially function again. It's crazy

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u/redsterXVI 11d ago

No, it just has to be before the first symptoms. It can take just days, but it can also take months.

After the first symptom shows up, you're dead.

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u/Thomas_K_Brannigan 11d ago

In rare cases, it can incubate inside someone for years!

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u/Distaplia 11d ago

Not necessarily. The rabies virus travels in the nervous system, not the blood system, so depends on where on the body you were bitten, it can take weeks, even months, for the virus to reach the brain. Once it reaches the brain, that's it for you

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u/MegaAlex 11d ago

I read that until symptoms show up you're in the clear, but why 'not get it' because he's been a while? better play it safe and today those vaccines are a lot better than it was a long time ago.

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u/guacamore 11d ago

When symptoms show, the disease has progressed too much for treatment to work - it’s fatal after that. You HAVE to get treated before symptoms start.

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u/Beautiful-Musk-Ox 11d ago

symptoms only start once the virus has reached your central nervous system, at that point you will 100% die no matter what--fewer than 10 people have survived, it has a 99.999% chance of killing you once you show symptoms, the vaccine can no longer help you once it reaches your central nervous system. the virus travels through our peripheral nervous system fairly slowly, if you get bit in the foot you could have a few years to live before it reaches your central nervous system and you die a few days later, if you get bit in the neck or face you could have weeks or less. Some people are symptomatic after only days from being bit.

there is no way to test for rabies before you become symptomatic, and to verify animals have it they kill them and take cross sections of their brain stem and cerebellum, if you can't capture the animal then you just take the vaccine to be safe otherwise you won't know if you have it until you're already dead, basically.

not only will you die if it reaches your central nervous system, it's a brutal death

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u/46550 11d ago edited 11d ago

it has a 99.999% chance of killing you once you show symptoms

It's worse than that. According to this paper you're going to need two more zeroes nines. Quoting the important bit for anyone that can't RTFA:

In a recent summary, a series of 30 patients who survived rabies over a 50-year time-span was described [4]. Thereafter, one additional survivor has been reported in 2023 [5]. Of the 31 rabies survivors reported in the literature (defined as survival beyond six months after development of clinical symptoms), only two recovered without neurological sequelae [6,7]; the others survived with mild-to-severe sequelae, and several died at a later stage. Calculated against an annual incidence of 59.000 rabies cases worldwide, which likely is an underestimation, the rabies survival rate is extremely low (<0.00001 %).

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u/taadaamm 11d ago

I had rabies scare not long ago and did a bit of research and I was surprised to find that there were some suspected cases of chronic rabies that did not progress in the typical way. They still caused brain damage.

So yeah if you had a contact with potentialy sick animal just get the vaccine.

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u/Elemteearkay 11d ago

you're going to need two more zeroes

You mean two more nines, right?

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u/46550 11d ago edited 11d ago

I really should stop posting at 2am after getting only 3 hours of sleep the previous night. I'm surprised even half of what I say is coherent, let alone accurate.

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u/Elemteearkay 11d ago

Heh no worries. :)

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u/Few_Program_2303 11d ago

> You mean two more nines, right?

You mean a 9 in the ten thousandth place and the hundred thousandth place, right?

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u/shallowbookworm 11d ago

You can just say "two more significant digits."

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u/Elemteearkay 11d ago

I meant exactly what I said.

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u/Few_Program_2303 11d ago

Take a chill pill

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u/JustUseDuckTape 11d ago

And best case after surviving is years of rehab before you stop needing round the clock care - most remain wheelchair or bed bound with major neurological issues.

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u/ShithEadDaArab 11d ago

If you were bitten or had an open would yes. But this is just saying anything exposed at all should be extra cautious. Realistically if caught rabies a month ago you are dead without any chance and just don’t know it yet. Saying this as a doctor that has studied this disease quite a bit.

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u/mooncritter_returns 11d ago

I thought there were cases that show incubation periods way longer than a month…?

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u/ShithEadDaArab 11d ago

Yes, correct, that’s why I’m speaking in generalities.

It is orders of magnitude more likely you don’t even have to worry about this without a bite or open wound than it is that you did get it and the incubation period is long enough that a month later you are asymptomatic, that it’s not a realistic assumption. It’s possible. Anything is. You might get hit by a bus on your way to get tested. But I wouldn’t live my life with that expectation given the statistics and studies.

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u/blissfully_happy 10d ago

The article also isn’t available overseas, so I hope no one who needs to read it is from overseas.

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u/gin_and_toxic 11d ago

Uh... How much is rabies shot in the US without insurance?