Salmonella from Turtles VS Salmonella from Cantaloupe

[Martin Nowak]

Negative statements (in particular) about reptiles should always be fact checked for accuracy, and sensationalism. Particularly true related to snakes and especially venomous reptiles. Here is an interesting comparison of Salmonella from turtles and from cantaloupe. Thoughts and conclusions ?


CDC - Salmonella from turtles. November 21,2023
https://www.cdc.gov/salmonella/turtles-08-23/index.html
CDC Fast Facts:
Illnesses: 80
Hospitalizations: 32
Deaths: 0
States: 24
Investigation status: Closed (first posted on August 18, 2023)


CDC - Salmonella from cantaloupe. December 1, 2023
https://www.cdc.gov/salmonella/sundsvall-11-23/index.html
CDC Fast Facts:
Illnesses: 230 (113 new)
Hospitalizations: 96 (35 new)
Deaths: 3 (1 new)
States: 38 (4 new)
Recall: Yes
Investigation status: Active (first posted on November 17, 2023)

Cantaloupe con't

https://www.fda.gov/food/outbreaks-...tigation-salmonella-cantaloupes-november-2023

https://apnews.com/article/cantaloupe-precut-salmonella-recall-ffcac001535361421a74c0d5c80ebc38

 

[bcr229]

On a day-to-day basis I'd bet more people come into contact with cantaloupe than they do with snakes or turtles.

 

[Martin Nowak]

Perhaps true.

Cantaloupe consumption has been rapidly declining for 22 years.
https://www.statista.com/statistics...sumption-of-fresh-cantaloup-melons-in-the-us/
Cantaloupes purchased per household is not available ... only lbs per person consumed ... which is about 6 lbs / person in the US.
https://www.statista.com/statistics...sumption-of-fresh-cantaloup-melons-in-the-us/

In 2022 the NIH indicated at least 4% of US households had a pet turtle and that 300,000 cases of Salmonella occurred "in some years" specifically attributed to turtles. For this study the NIH monitored 16 web sites selling turtles. This study is "anti" web site sales of turtles, particularly <4" and strongly suggests that regulations and laws are not followed in restricting such sales.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9770399/

There are approximately 131 million households in the US - so "back of the napkin" - 4% of that would be 5.24 million households with turtles. (this somewhat correlates to the number of turtles sold in the US according the NIH publication).

Perhaps rates should be considered. Without getting too statistically sophisticated ... the issues AT THIS POINT IN TIME appear to be similar. We don't really know the investigation timelines - although they are recent with the cantaloupe issue being in the last 90 days. Cantaloupe Salmonella reports more common - more states reporting.

Illness to Hospitalization:
Cantaloupe = 0.42
Turtles = 0.40

Hospitalization to Death:
Cantaloupe = 0.03
Turtles = 0.00

Anyone interested in captive ownership of herptiles - especially turtles - should carefully read the NIH paper linked above as it will be cited in future national and state regulations of turtles. One comment in the conclusions that interested me is this:
"However, salmonellosis outbreaks continue to occur in the U.S. and are regularly attributed to pet turtles, which represent a more expansive public health concern than that posed by potentially injurious animals."

 

[Socratic Monologue]

I think there is an underlying assumption in many such comparisons that a level of risk in an activity that is perceived to be unnecessary should be lower than that same risk in an activity that is perceived to be necessary. There's an additional hidden premise that keeping turtles isn't necessary, while eating (fruit) is.

As an example, people generally will accept a considerable number of deaths from car accidents, which are currently about 40,000 per year in the US. The number of deaths from amusement park rides is about 5 annually; if that number rose even to 100 people annually there would be an uproar.

The assumption that reptile keeping is unnecessary (or a luxury, or bad judgement, or whatever the marginalizing assumption is) is sort of supported by a link on the CDC page to a paper about zoonotic diseases from non-traditional pets (herps, fish, backyard chickens, small mammals). The support for marginalization is provided by the term 'non-traditional pet'. Maybe reptiles are, but fish are a pretty traditional pet (at least for the last couple human generations), and backyard chickens are traditionally more a part of US life than cats are ("In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in the United States and Europe, cats were just beginning to be seen as household pets", source). Reptiles are becoming pretty mainstream, too, so maybe they ought to get lumped together with dogs and cats and all the other animals people keep around. It would keep the statistics fair, anyway.

There's more that could be said that just the fact that many people think owning reptiles is unnecessary and so shouldn't be done anyway. It is certainly relevant that a consumer has a right to expect that cantaloupe is either free of pathogens that could infect humans through normal use or that every reasonable precaution has been taken to prevent it from carrying pathogens. This isn't the case for turtles -- exactly the opposite, in fact, since the fact that they carry salmonella is widely known and cannot be avoided.

It is also relevant that things like owning reptiles might be considered a recreational activity, which at least in my state has a legal expectation that the participant is responsible for their own safety, and if they get hurt it is their own fault. "A participant in a recreational activity engaged in on premises owned or leased by a person who offers facilities to the general public for participation in recreational activities accepts the risks inherent in the recreational activity of which the ordinary prudent person is or should be aware. (WI 895.525 (3))" Very little rewording would be needed to make that apply to animal ownership and the inherent risks of which a prudent person should be aware. If a person accepts risks, then those statistics above are interesting but nothing more.

 

[bcr229]

Also did the people who got salmonella from cantaloupe pick up the disease from whole melons purchased at the grocery store, or from pre-cut melon someone else cut up, either at a store or restaurant? Was there potentially cross-contamination from some other source such as raw chicken?

 

[Martin Nowak]

Good comments and thoughts from all.
Today's reports indicate primarily pre-cut cantaloupe; but the CDC has now added whole cantaloupe.

The notion of acceptable and unacceptable risks (social mores and societal culture) is interesting. For example, society accepts virtually unlimited dog ownership. And dogs kill "30-50 people every year".
https://www.sneedmitchell.com/post/...dog bite statistics,killed by dogs every year.

Cows kill about 20 people per year.
https://sentientmedia.org/how-many-...ny People Are Killed,241 U.S. deaths per year.

My overall concern is that the academic papers tend to govern regulation and promulgation of laws. There is little discussion or logic applied as we have in this thread. An example would be in Alabama, the Alabama Hospital Association was interviewed by the Game and Fish Commission with the baited question (paraphrased): "does the hospital association approve of citizens owning venomous reptiles?" The predictable response was "no, the costs of care and anti-venom are too great and many snake bite victims don't have health care insurance". So then in Alabama we are prohibited from owning non-native venomous reptiles including Gila's / Beaded's. Yet nationally, very few reptile keepers of hot animals are bitten and non have died in the last decade or so. Two years ago a LEO in Alabama was rammed by his cow and needed an intestine transplant costing nearly $2million and requiring lifetime expensive anti-rejection drugs. Fortunately the man survived and is doing well. This information public and easily found online.
Dogs kill several people each year in Alabama. Bees kill several people in Alabama each year. However, no comparisons will be made and no logic applied. Cats infect many humans every year with pathogens and parasites.

 

[Socratic Monologue]

Once you start using the interests of a business lobbying group to determine what pets a person can own, you're already somewhere pretty questionable.

But it is true that almost every state requires drivers of cars carry liability insurance so that if I cause financial harm to someone else with my car, that person is compensated. It isn't crazy to think that such requirements are fairly reasonable.

Since hospitals are legally obligated to treat ("stabilize", which I assume is pretty extensive in envenomation cases) a snakebite victim that shows up in their ER, it might follow that a hot keeper ought to be required to carry insurance for that possibility.

If it does, though, it also follows that anyone with any risk (any heightened risk? any risk at all? sometimes I walk on stairs with slippery socks on -- does that count? it should, because that is a statistically significant cause of hospital admission, and I'll bet "many" people who fall down stairs don't have health care insurance) of visiting an ER with something requiring an expensive treatment should be required to carry insurance for that possibility.

I'm thinking that's going to less palatable, but it does seem to follow from the stated interests of the hospital association.

 

[bvuille]

Everything in life has some risk level- I'll continue to et my cantaloupe and keep my reptiles free of any worry. There are millions of other things out there far more likely to result in my death or injury.