Lawsuit?!?!?!  from a ringowrm "outbreak"????  geez

And to tell a person to "euthanize" a cat/kitten  foa a fungus...

Talk about frivolous lawsuits....

It's NOT THAT SERIOUS!!!!!

Ringworm is a FUNGUS.  It is found in EVERYWHERE since it spores just like
mold and mildew do, just prefers to grow on living flesh instead of we damp
cardboard or other surface. It is easily treatable.  I took in 4 kittens
earlier this year - one of them caught ringworm, then the other 3.  NONE -
ABSOLUTELY NONE of my adult cats got it.

I got ended up getting it in 4 places, but I could treat myself with
over-the-counter Athletes Foot Fungus treatments (Lotrimin cream worked
best, when applied under a band-aid to keep it 'fresh' and undisturbed), and
treated the kittens with Lym-sulfer "dip" (actuallym we sprayed it on them,
concentrating on the lesions).  That was six months ago.  Not a speck seen
of it since.

I might add that kittens are more susceptible than adult cats, and mine
caught it as they were taken away from their mother at an early age, and
were thusly stressed - *I* caught as I was stressed by lack of sleep, having
to wake every 3 hours to feed & care for the kittens.
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You seem to be a bit of an alarmist. My God, if you euthanized every cat
that ever had ringworm, we could definitely solve the overpopulation
problem. *Ocassionally* an outbreak can be serious but usually the animal or
humans involved must have a very supressed immune system. Yeesh.

For any that think I'm alarmist, have you read Kate Hurley's recommendations
and protocols and proceedures at ShelterVet, which is partially made
possible by Maddie's Fund?
http://www.vetmed.ucdavis.edu/CCAH/Prog-ShelterMed/pdfs/ringworm.pdf  Read
it.  Understand it.  This is the distillation of many many years of shelter
experience.  She and Lila Miller are co-authors of the new Shelter Medicine
textbook, and Kate holds the Chair in Shelter Medicine at UC Davis.  It's
one of the first universities that is even recognizing that shelter medicine
is different than individual animal medicine.  SHelter medicine, and by it's
extension, foster animal medicine, is a *herd health* situation, and
protocols and proceedures are different than they are in a privately owned
animal situation. It's not at all alarmist to think of the possibility of a
whole shelter being infected, nor losing your volunteers over them becoming
infected, nor being served with a lawsuit because of an adoption of a
ringworm carrier.  It's happened before.

We had 70% of our shelter cats infected because we had no real isolation
area, and there were no foster families willing to take in a cat that would
possibly infect their family, much less adoptors.  We lost a huge percentage
of our volunteer base because some members told them to "not worry about it,
it's not serious" and they took ringworm home to their families.  We had one
volunteer become infected so badly that she had an almost $10K medical bill.
She still has the scars.  Thank goodness she didn't sue us!  She very well
could have, and she'd have won. Just a judgement paying the $10K medical
bill would have bankrupted us, much less the punitive damages.  And there
would have been those for sure, because the seriousness and contagiousness
of the ringworm outbreak was minimized.  And more and more people are far
happier to contact their lawyer as a first response.

The infected cats, which some members insisted be saved, were placed in an
unairconditioned metal building In August with just a fan on them and given
Program and no other treatment.  No other treatment, because volunteers
could not be found to take care of them, much less dip them.  People who had
handled ringworm in one of their own pets wouldn't even volunteer because of
the communicability issue.  Even the folks who insisted that they be saved
wouldn't clean their cages and give them water.  It would have been far more
humane to euthanize them in the first place.  But, they kept them there for
7 weeks with only one person providing minimal care.  If it had been a
cruelty case call, we'd have taken such offenders to court.  And, the
lesions weren't healing, and they had new ones.  Any cat still in the main
building that developed lesions was immediately transferred to the "hot
box".  In the end, these cats were torutured 7 long weeks by people with
"good intentions" but no real assessment of the seriousness of the
situation.  The City which owns the facility, finally stepped in and had
them euthanized.  I still can't forget what was done to these animals in the
name of being "humane".

If a rescue doesn't have the resources to fully deal with a ringworm
outbreak, then they shouldn't try to.  Yes, that does mean euthanizing some
animals.  Better to euthanize a few than almost a whole shelter full.  If a
rescue can't afford the minimum 6-8 weeks for a cure, then don't torture the
animals.  If a rescue can't afford the culture tests to certify that any
past infected cats are not infected or are not carriers, then they shouldn't
attempt to treat the ringworm in the first place.  It's sad to euthanize
animals, but the sad truth is that there are always more to take their
place, and even though ringworm may be "minor" in a home situation, it's
certainly NOT in a shelter situation, and epidemic protocols of euthanizing
any affected animal should be in place if the financial resources are not
there to treat the outbreak appropriately.

The OP indicated that her rescue didn't have the money for even a vet visit
to perform an initial culture test to decide if the lesion actually was
ringworm.  That's a big factor in my recommendation to euthanize before the
other animals became infected.  She cannot provide isolation.  Ditto.  In
her situation, finances and surroundings dictate the action.  If her rescue
can't afford to deal with the problem properly, then hard choices have to be
made.  Or lawsuit happy folks will be happy to make them for you as they
close the shelter down permanantly.

Havin a kitten euthanized for ringworm is silly. I do agree that it's presence
is something that needs to dealt with argressively though. Early this summer
I got a kitten from a local shelter that turned out to have ringworm. While this
meant dipping both of my kittens (I got the one from the shelter as a companion
for one that was rescued from a railyard) in a lime sulfer dip that neither of
the kittens cared for. :-) It responded quickly to the dip and I didn't get
infected in the process. I've had a case of athletes foot a couple of years ago
that was harder to get rid of.