found on yahoo news. 

it's not like thousands of kids are hospitalized each year due to dog bites..........  oh wait they are.  I swear fear-mongering is one of my biggest pet peeves, especially when done while excluding many relavent facts.

CHICAGO - Warning: young children should not keep hedgehogs as pets
— or hamsters, baby chicks, lizards and turtles, for that matter —
because of risks for disease.

That's according to the nation's leading pediatricians' group in a new report about dangers from exotic animals.

Besides evidence that they can carry dangerous and sometimes potentially deadly germs, exotic pets may be more prone than cats and dogs to bite, scratch or claw — putting children younger than 5 particularly at risk, the report says.

Young children are vulnerable because of developing immune systems plus they often put their hands in their mouths.

That means families with children younger than 5 should avoid owning
"nontraditional" pets. Also, kids that young should avoid contact with
these animals in petting zoos or other public places, according to the report from the American Academy of Pediatrics. The report appears in the October edition of the group's medical journal, Pediatrics.

"Many parents clearly don't understand the risks from various infections" these animals often carry, said Dr. Larry Pickering, the report's lead author and an infectious disease specialist at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

For example, about 11 percent of salmonella illnesses in children
are thought to stem from contact with lizards, turtles and other
reptiles, Pickering said. Hamsters also can carry this germ, which can
cause severe diarrhea, fever and stomach cramps.

Salmonella also
has been found in baby chicks, and young children can get it by kissing
or touching the animals and then putting their hands in their mouths,
he said.

Study co-author Dr. Joseph Bocchini said he recently treated an
infant who got salmonella from the family's pet iguana, which was
allowed to roam freely in the home. The child was hospitalized for four
weeks but has recovered, said Bocchini, head of the academy's infectious diseases committee and pediatrics chairman at Louisiana State University in Shreveport.

Hedgehogs can be dangerous because their quills can penetrate skin
and have been known to spread a bacteria germ that can cause fever, stomach pain and a rash, the report said.

With supervision and precautions like hand-washing, contact between
children and animals "is a good thing," Bocchini said. But families
should wait until children are older before bringing home an exotic
pet, he said.

Those who already have these pets should contact their veterinarians
about specific risks and possible new homes for the animals, he said.

Data cited in the study indicate that about 4 million U.S. households have pet reptiles. According to the American Veterinary Medical Association, all kinds of exotic pets are on the rise, although generally fewer than 2 percent of households own them.

The veterinarian group's Mike Dutton, a Weare, N.H., exotic animal
specialist, said the recommendations send an important message to
parents who sometimes buy exotic pets on an impulse, "then they ask
questions, sometimes many months later."

But a spokesman for the International Hedgehog Association said there's no reason to single out hedgehogs or other exotic pets.

"Our recommendation is that no animal should be a pet for kids 5 and
under," said Z.G. Standing Bear. He runs a rescue operation near Pikes Peak, Colo., for abandoned hedgehogs, which became fad pets about 10 years ago.

Yeah, they could get a nasty case of salmonella. Better that they should stay in and eat their lunch (of undercooked chicken).

Children run a larger risk of getting sick from their classmates. Should everyone keep their children home from school?

If you teach your children correct handling and precautions, most pets will be fine -- as long as the child understands how to take care of them, of course -- and even then they should be supervised to make sure the pet is getting what it needs. (Yeah, I'm a worry-wart). Kids who have pets seem to be happier and more well-adjusted and also learn responsibility.

geeze, they saw the need to publish it twice (albeit from another newspaper), this one actually specifies "non-traditional pets such as rodents, reptiles... and more", the article even alludes to outbreaks of illness linked to cats and dogs, which are considered "traditional" "safe" pets.  even if reptiles are more likely to bite than some dogs/cats, the bites are generally (depending on species) MUCH LESS SEVERE.  As I always tell customers; treat your herp like a raw piece of chicken, and you should be good.  I've grown up around exotics all my life, and I gotta tell ya I've gotten sick (reeeeealy sick) from food more than herps.  the few times I've gotten sick off of reptiles I can generally trace it back to my own carelessness, such as eating a snack directly after cleaning a cage without washing my hands (read: NOT treating the herp like a raw piece of chicken)  I do agree that children need close supervision when messing with ANY animal

MONDAY, Oct. 6 (HealthDay News) -- Exposing your children to the
joys of pet ownership may, in some cases, also mean exposing them to
infections and injuries.

Parents need to be aware of the dangers -- including salmonella
infection and even monkey pox -- of owning such nontraditional pets as
rodents, reptiles, monkeys and more, says a report from the American
Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) published in the October issue of
Pediatrics.

The report is the first comprehensive statement on the topic, said
study co-author Dr. Robert Frenck, a pediatrics professor at Cincinnati
Children's Hospital and a member of the AAP committee on infectious
diseases.

"Nontraditional pets are becoming more traditional, and nontraditional
pets can expose kids to disease they otherwise might not be exposed to,"
Frenck said. "If parents are thinking about having these nontraditional
pets, they may want to talk to a veterinarian and/or pediatrician first to
see if there is any real concern."

Dr. Charles Miller, a professor of pediatric infectious diseases at the
University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, added, "From the standpoint
of public education and from the standpoint of not only pediatricians but
also family practitioners, this is important."

The number of exotic animals in the United States has almost doubled
since 2002. For instance, 40,000 households now harbor hedgehogs, while
4.4 million homes are home to reptiles, according to the report.

The risks are real. In 2003, a human monkey pox outbreak was traced
back to imported African Gambian rats that had infected prairie dogs sold
as pets. Small pet turtles were responsible for 103 cases of salmonella
infection in the second half of last year, mostly in young children, the
report found.

And just last week, an Iraqi dog recently shipped to the United States
as part of an international animal rescue effort was found to have rabies.
Twenty-four other animals in the shipment, already distributed to 16
states, were potentially exposed, according to the U.S. Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention's Oct. 3 issue of Morbidity and
Mortality Weekly Report.

The new AAP review details a number of diseases potentially transmitted
by these more unusual pets: Reptiles have a high rate of carrying
different strains of salmonella, as do turtles, baby poultry -- including
chicks -- and hamsters.

Plague is carried by wild rodents and transmitted to humans handling
infected animals -- including domestic cats -- that have been bitten by
fleas. And macaque monkeys carry the herpes B virus.

And animals don't have to be in the home to pose a risk. More than 55
outbreaks of disease in humans, including infection with E. coli
bacteria, involved animals in public settings from 1991 to 2005.

The report recommends frequent hand washing to help minimize these
risks.

Children under 5 years old are at particular risk, partly because their
immune systems are still developing. Adults with weakened immune systems,
the elderly and pregnant women are also at greater risk.

Typically, allergies are associated more with cats and dogs than with
nontraditional pets, said Dr. Jonathan Field, emeritus director of the
pediatric allergy and asthma clinic at New York University/Bellevue
Medical Center in New York City. The real problem comes with people who
have weakened immune systems and are exposed to a bacteria or virus from
one of these pets.

More information

To learn more, visit the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention's Healthy Pets Healthy People.

aaaaah!  sorry about the weird post, html code messed it up and now i can't see the edit button to fix it

I saw that one. Funny how the lack reasonably responsible and reasonably intelligent parenting can be the animals responsibility. They don't even have a choice in the matter.
jsc

thats funny- because kids can get sick from anything!!! i even have a paper somewhere that says "why reptiles are wonderful pets for children" i wish i knew where it was.....

sober_serpents wrote: thats funny- because kids can get sick from anything!!! i even have a paper somewhere that says "why reptiles are wonderful pets for children" i wish i knew where it was.....

if you find it, I'd love to read it (I'm sure a lot of others here will as well)

I can promise you that none of my snakes will ever scratch a child with its claws. I can also promise that my crested gecko will never scratch a child with her claws.

No child under the age of five should be primary caretaker for any pet. People who are giving exotic pets to children at that age are such stupid people that the kids don't have a chance anyway. Having exotic pets in the house is no more dangerous than having any other pet. I've seen several news articles in the past year about dogs killing young children. If a kid is allowed to bother the cat, the kid is likely to be clawed eventually. Most exotics have much less dangerous weapons than do their traditional counterparts. (I blog about this issue at http://www.reptilegeeks.com/user/blogs/view/name_wftright/id_1666/title_why-snakes-v/ .) Sadly, ignorant people will read these articles and refuse to question these ideas. More people are killed every year by medical malpractice than by exotic animals. I'd recommend that people avoid these quack doctors before avoiding exotic animals.

Bill

My kids bring home more crap from school than they'll ever get from their animals. I couldn't imagine telling my son he can't have his snakes anymore and he's 7. He's been handling his snakes since he was 2 and has never gotten sick from them...these quacks are just tryin to keep people from having exotics as pets! Crap like this is part of the reason why exotics get such a bad rap.

This is another case of the Hysterical Ninny Syndrome, or HNS. Sufferers of HNS would have us raise children in sterile bubbles, and never interact with the real world;i.e. get dirty. Little children eat the world to know it. They build immune systems by being challenged. Granted, some cases of salmonella occur from contact with animals. But some of the worst diseases, such as TB and Hepatitis and Meningitis occur from classmates at school, yet would we prevent our children from going to school?

This article is clearly one sided with claims and facts stated without citing the source. I do agree however that small children under 5 should not own 'exotic' pets. This obviously hit a chord with exotic animal keepers, and parents of small children alike. I firmly oppose writing articles to warn the dangers of something that are one sided, poorly documented, and largely made of generalizations and false claims. Hopefully enough people will respond forcing these authors to do their homework before writing an article.