cellio | whence personal responsibility?

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whence personal responsibility?

A story in today's paper reported that in Richmond VA, in a city park with fenced areas for animals, the park-keepers killed two black bears because one of them bit a child and they had to find out if there was a threat of rabies. (The only test for rabies in an animal kills the animal.) These bears have been in that park for years, and when the news broke (days after the deed was done), people in the community were outraged.

The child, four years old and accompanied by his mother, bypassed one four-foot-high barrier and then put his hand through a larger chain-link fence. The article didn't say, but I assume there were plenty of "keep away from the bears" signs too, in case two fences didn't make that point. The child got bitten (not badly enough to require stitches). Mom couldn't identify the biting bear, so both of the bears in that pen were killed.

Rabies is an unpleasant disease, but it is treatable. The treatment is painful, but many people have to undergo it because they have no choice. Sometimes you do something stupid and have to suffer the consequences; sometimes you're just in the wrong place at the wrong time and, yet, you still have to suffer the consequences. Life isn't fair, and sometimes no one is at fault.

Accidents happen, and the kid here is not to blame. For all we know, neither is the mother -- there are conflicting reports about whether she helped him climb the first barrier or looked away for a moment and he did it on his own. But that doesn't matter (except for settling the tort); even if this was completely an accident, a fluke, people have to accept some personal responsibility. It appears that someone made a decision to test the bears instead of treating the kid just in case; I think that decision was wrong.

There was clearly no fault on the part of the park or the bears themselves, so the child's discomfort is not adequate reason for killing the bears. The child, and the mother, could have gotten a valuable lesson about personal responsibility here, but they didn't. It probably didn't even occur to the parents, because we increasingly live in a world where the meme is "protection over everything, and when that doesn't work find someone to take it out on". But that doesn't help kids grow up into responsible adults, and you can't child-proof (and idiot-proof) the world anyway.

We are becoming, and raising, a nation of spoiled brats, who think that if they're unhappy, there must be someone to punish -- as if that makes anything any better. Punishment should be reserved for willful acts (including negligence). When there is clearly no fault, we need to minimize the overall damage, not our personal damage.

By the way, the bears tested negative.

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I could rant on this subject at some length, but I'll just say: Seconded.

Uh, were you not reading my journal about my rabies scare?

Rabies treatment is not merely painful -- it's has a non-zero chance of being fatal. It's a live virus vacine. Sometimes the treatment kills the patient.

And that's why they don't simply give it to anyone, least of all children.

I was, but I forgot about the "live virus" part and probably fixated on the "really painful (and thus to be avoided if possible)" part.

So your interpretation is that killing the bears (in order to test them) was punishing them for biting someone?

I don't think the park people were punishing the bears. The parents who decided not to treat absent a test might have been.

I didn't read the article, so my question may have no merit. But you do seem to be blaming the parents here. Are you certain that the parents were the ones who unilaterally decided not to test in the absences of knowing if rabies was even present?

Rabies treatment in children is a very dangerous thing to be avoided if possible.

In other circumstances where animal life is not as highly regarded as human life I generally agree with you. But in the absence of more facts, I'm not sure how I feel about this incident. I think it's tragic, but I'm not sure there's really anyone to blame.

A little digging has turned up the following timeline. The child was bitten on a Saturday but no one told the park officials. On Tuesday the family went to the hospital and the incident was reported. On Thursday they killed the bears. I haven't found anything that says what the parents did or didn't say, but they had two days after going to the hospital in which to consider treatment and they did not choose that. I assume, though of course I don't know, that the doctors at the hospital advised them about all possible courses of action.

The parents probably didn't get to make the call to kill the bears directly. However, all they had to do to stop it was to treat their child. Now maybe there were good reasons not to do so; treatment is non-trivial. (The parents aren't talking to the media, and the family's identity hasn't been released.) Personally, I think if I were already at day 3 of a possible rabies infection I might treat sooner rather than waiting several days more for test results, but I've never had to make that decision so I'm speculating.

First, I may be completely naive, but my guess is that the family did talk to their doctors about prophylactic treatment for their child. My guess is that the pros and cons weren't evenly balanced particularly if the animals were available for testing.

As for the bears... are you absolutely certain that the bears wouldn't have been killed if the parents had started just-in-case-treatment? My guess is that it isn't that clear cut. Treating the kid still doesn't answer whether you've got a rabid bear. Though I suppose they could have waited to see if the bear became symptomatic down the line.

How long does it take a human to become symptomatic of rabies?

I can't imagine why the parents would have waited three days for medical attention, but maybe rabies didn't occur to them until their doctor brought it up.

As for the bears... are you absolutely certain that the bears wouldn't have been killed if the parents had started just-in-case-treatment?

I'm not certain, of course. I strongly suspect that if the child were being treated anyway, quarantine would have been an option (as it is for pets who bite and are suspected of carrying the disease). Treatment changes the problem from "we have to know or someone will die" to "we have to know lest someone get bitten and die in the future".

How long does it take a human to become symptomatic of rabies?

According to this, two to eight weeks.

good point on the quarantine. I'm not sure why I didn't think of that.

I still stand by the fact that the medical professionals may have (and possibly with good reason) discouraged the family from beginning treatment without knowing for sure, since it WAS possible to determine the facts.

I'm not disagreeing that it's a tragedy and that people are stupid and coddled. However, if treatment had a strong possibility of being seriously detrimental to a 3 year old's long-term health, one can hardly punish the three year old who probably just isn't old enough to make judgment calls for his or herself. So yes, it's coddling, but punishing a 3 year old isn't really going to do anyone any good.

If the child had been older, I'd likely have been in full agreement with you.

But if it's the parents you think are being coddled, and the treatment would be painful and dangerous for a three year old, why punish the three year old?

Rabies is an unpleasant disease, but it is treatable. The treatment is painful, but many people have to undergo it because they have no choice. Sometimes you do something stupid and have to suffer the consequences; sometimes you're just in the wrong place at the wrong time and, yet, you still have to suffer the consequences. Life isn't fair, and sometimes no one is at fault.

OK, this should be clarified a bit.

If you are known to be exposed to rabies (ie, the animal that does the biting is identified and tests positive), there is a preventative treatment involving vaccines to try to prevent the virus getting to the brain.

If you develop clinical rabies (ie, the virus has gotten to the nervous system), the current state of things is that you are going to die. There is a single case of a human surviving in the last few years - IIRC, a child of about 12 years who was maintained in a medically induced coma until the virus ran its course. I haven't seen anything about followup on that case, other than the child survived (no word of long-term outcome). The US averages 2 to 3 deaths from rabies each year, and I understand it's a particularly nasty way to die.

What happened in the case of the bears (leaving aside the idiocy of the child and parent), is a matter of public health laws. In WV, the letter of the law requires any unvaccinated animal (not given the rabies vaccine by a veterinarian) that bites a person be tested for rabies. The doctor treating the person is required to report animal bites to the local health department, which handles tracking down and testing the animal. For a vaccinated animal, there is a provision for a quarantine period (usually 10 to 14 days, and varies by state). If the animal dies in the quarantine period, it is tested. If it survives, all is OK (an animal is only able to transmit the virus for a short period after the virus gets to the brain, before it dies).

There are no provisions (at least in WV) for vaccination and/or quarantine of animals for which the rabies vaccine has not been studied and approved - most domestic animals are covered; wildlife isn't. Interestingly, wolf-hybrid dogs aren't allowed a quarantine here, as they are not specifically covered on the vaccine label, and there is a documented case of a wolf-hybrid vaccinate contracting clinical rabies.

There could definitely have been an argument made for quarantine of these bears, as they were confined and could be monitored. What likely happened is that someone went for the letter of the law, not the intent (I've had local health department authorities opt to quarantine cats or dogs that have bitten but not been previously vaccinated, but is definitely on a case-by-case basis).

(sorry, this just hit a bit of a sore point)

Thanks for the information; I appreciate it.

I don't know (and the article didn't say) what the laws in VA are on this. There was mention of a quarantine being considered and rejected.

Question: a rereading of your comment caused me to notice that you're talking about exposure, not suspected exposure. When I was in grade school one of my classmates was bitten by some wild critter, which they didn't catch, and he went through a series of rabies shots just in case. They didn't know that he was exposed, though; it was only a preventative measure. Do they not do that any more, or did my ten-year-old brain misfile what had happened?

My general understanding is that, given how bad the consequences of getting the decision wrong would be, that you err on the side of treatment if you can't catch the animal (even allowing for the non-zero chance of dying from the treatment). That may vary depending on what the local rabies footprint looks like.

I had a friend who was about five minutes ahead of me on the walk to school get bitten by a local dog when I was a kid; they ended up finding the dog and confirming it was uninfected, but it looked iffy for a bit while they were trying to track it down.

If the critter doing the biting isn't available for testing or quarantine, then the human gets vaccinated.

And actually, the vaccine used now is a killed one grown in human cell culture, so there are fewer risks of reaction to the actual vaccine. The immunoglobulin you get for immediate protection until you respond to the vaccine, OTOH, is what causes most reactions.

Not to mention the cost (pre-exposure vaccination, for those at "high risk" runs about $1000 at cost for the vaccine.

Okay, I was curious, so went a'googling....

Recovery of a Patient from Clinical Rabies --- Wisconsin, 2004 (http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5350a1.htm) was the only thing I was able to find.

On the 33rd day of illness, she was extubated; 3 days later she was transferred to a rehabilitation unit. At the time of transfer, she was unable to speak after prolonged intubation. As of December 17 [she was bit in September], the patient remained hospitalized with steady improvement. She was able to walk with assistance, ride a stationary cycle for 8 minutes, and feed herself a soft, solid diet. She solved math puzzles, used sign language, and was regaining the ability to speak. The prognosis for her full recovery is unknown.

Also interesting for me to note, is that (according to the CDC), bats are the most likely cause for Americans to be exposed to rabies.

Bats like to drink out of my boyfriend's mother's pool when we swim there at night, though only once has anyone ever contacted one (he jumped up out of the water suddenly into a flight path).

One of the jobs of the attendant in the goat yard at the zoo is to keep an eye out and holler at people to get out of the camel enclosure. There's two fences and signs up that Molly the Camel bites.
We're usually hoarse by the end of the day.
Molly got one boy by the front of the shirt and picked him up. She dropped him when he screeched. I walked over, this is why you don't climb over fences at a zoo.

A little bit of current through that fence might do wonders. :-)

People are stupid, and every time we as a society coddle them instead of saying "well, you should have known better", they get stupider. I'm surprised that zoos don't require people to sign waivers at the door by now.

Why do you think people are stupider than they used to be? IIRC, there've been occasional cases of kids sneaking into zoo enclosures for a very long time.

I'm basing it on the increasing frequency, prominence, and vehemence of product and environmental warnings for things that ought to be obvious. At some level that's lawsuit-insurance, but I suspect there's an element of perceived necessity too. There are also a lot more automatic safety features in things than there used to be (even when they get in the way), which may be indicative.

I think

nancylebov may have a point; there are more lawsuits over these things, which are driving more defensive measures, but that doesn't mean that people weren't ignoring the obvious and it just didn't go to court as often.

That's a good point. There may have been more collective wiillingness to say "well, you had that coming, dummy" in the past than there is now.

I belive you are exactly correct.

Two days ago, I was completely astonished, as I read "Farmer Boy*" to the kids, to hear the father say that if the hoodlums at the school beat the teacher up, even to killing him, that was the teacher's look-out, because he was a Man, and he knew what he was getting into. "He wouldn't thank anyone for interfering."

*Laura Ingalls Wilder's husband's story.

When I worked at a zoo one summer (about 2 decades ago) our oft-repeated phrase at the children's zoo was "Don't lean on the Plexiglas". When asked why, the response was that if the glass broke and the animal (raccoon, skunk, etc) bit someone, we'd have to kill the animal to prove it didn't have rabies. We sometimes included a sentence or two on how the animal might well bite to protect itself from someone it would justifiably see as invading its home and/or attacking it...

So are you done yet? You don't get to spank someone else's kid, even if you really want to.

The other day in the grocery store a child was standing on the child seat of a cart and screaming itself silly. I walked up to it and told it that if it fell out of the cart and split its head open like a melon, it would hurt a lot, and I wouldn't take it to the emergency room. Mom, who hadn't been trying to get the thing to sit down and shut up, just gawped on. It sat down and shut up.

I will spank anyone who needs it.

(I usually don't feed the trolls, myself, but feel free.)

I realize that you're using the word "spank" loosely. I'll chastise a kid (and a parent for that matter) when needed, too, but I will never lay a hand on someone else's kid unless there is imminent risk of very serious damage to the kid or less-serious damage to anyone else. Some parents are wacky about such things, thinking that your push out of harm's way was spanking or the like, and I don't need the legal hassles.

Yes, I was using "spank" figuratively. I have a lethal tongue and a fair repertoire of facial expressions to go with it.

More constructive things to do:

Send a donation to the zoo.

Write to your congresscritter about tort reform.

Spend some time teaching or raising kids.

Stop reading the stupid people stories in the media.

Don't try to teach a pig to sing, it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

A couple years ago I was in Australia doing the tourist thing, and one day I went to a zoo in Cairns. Immediately I noticed that there were far fewer safety measures than in the U.S. If I'd wanted, I could have easily stuck my fingers in the monkey cage, whereas in the U.S. zoos I'd been to, there was much more distance between the animals and the people watching them. The zoo visitors were invited to just come into the kangaroo enclosure and hang out with the kangaroos. There were no zoo workers there monitoring the roos, just the visitors like me wandering up to the roos and feeding them. For the crocodile enclosures, it would have been so easy to just lean an arm over, no effort really required, and have it bitten off. For a couple seconds I thought, "This places is a lawsuit or two waiting to happen," but then I thought that maybe there was actually personal responsibility taught to kids here, so people DIDN'T lean their arms over into the crocodile pen. I tried to some people watching to see if people (including kids) did dumb things, but didn't see anything stupid, which I usually see in American zoos. I'm still pondering what it all means.

but then I thought that maybe there was actually personal responsibility taught to kids here, so people DIDN'T lean their arms over into the crocodile pen

I don't know if that's what it is, but it sounds plausible. It sure would be nice if we did more of that here.

When I was a kid, if I did something I wasn't supposed to be doing and I got hurt in the process, I not only had to deal with the pain of the injury but I got punished for breaking the rules in the first place. It looks like I turned out ok.

The kid, with all of the faculties of a four-year-old, has been attacked and injured by a creature that ranks right up there with "Lion" in our culture for archetypal powerful wilderness beast that kills people single-handed. We have the capacity to know just how easily this turned out, but I'm fairly confident the kid got the point well enough that there may be therapy bills down the road, and the marginal instructive value of painful shots would be pretty minimal.

I'm also inclined to ask considerably less of a kid that age in terms of personal responsibility, simply because they have so few tools to make the right decisions even in perfectly good faith. We're mammals, and that means we start out in a very dependent form that requires the grownups to take the responsibility on our behalf for a while.

Which leads to the real question, which is what sort of personal responsibility does the mom (and the park) bear on behalf of a kid too young to know better. My intuition says that the mother is probably responsible for not running herd on the kid well enough, and (as a result) for the deaths of the two bears as the (tragic but unavoidable, I think, given the points other commenters have made) consequence. Given that newspaper accounts are never good authorities for the details, I can't rule out the possibility that the park has some responsibility.

I also give the mother less of a pass than the kid, but I'm still not entirely sure what she's going through when everything's totaled up comes out as "coddling". A more interesting, more useful, and (pretty much as a consequence) much more complex question than "how should we have dealt with this after?" is "why do so many people who haven't (yet) nearly lost their kid to a bear think defeating evident security measures around wild animals can possible be an OK thing?"

The kid is too young to have really understood. I don't know if a bite mild enough to not require stitches will leave a lasting impression, but that's an aside. The real issue is with the parent(s). (I've now seen multiple stories; some say the kid was there with mom and some say with the parents, plural.)

Since the kid is too young to know better, the parents have to bear the responsibility for his actions, just like the owners of pets gone bad, the owner of the oxe that gores, etc are responsible for the outcome.

"why do so many people who haven't (yet) nearly lost their kid to a bear think defeating evident security measures around wild animals can possible be an OK thing?"

An excellent question. It seems so obvious to me (and I presume everyone reading this) that bears with big sharp teeth are behind fences for a reason, and maybe helping Junior climb the fence or neglecting to monitor him when he's within touching distance is a bad idea. This family got lucky -- the kid wasn't killed or maimed; the inuries sound minor.

And that's the thing I'm curious about. I'm not convinced that it isn't simplistic to say that this is just a failure to take responsibility - I have no trouble believing that the parents wouldn't invite their kid to cross a four-lane highway, or take candy from strangers, or any of a laundry list of hazards, many of which are probably less risky than entering a zoo enclosure without appropriate training. I don't think it's because Mom figures "well, worst case, it will be a scratch and they'll kill the bears to confirm it's not rabies." I'd like to think that if she seriously considered that a likely outcome, she'd decide against this like all the other hazards she does protect the kid from. But for some reason, this didn't seem like as much of a risk as, say, wandering out of sight in the local mall, and that seems to be true of an awful lot of people that do manage to responsibly avoid an awful lot of risks.

Presumably the bears were fairly placid. I suspect she'd have paid better attention were they, for example, arguing and tearing apart a rabbit between them at the time.

Bears are *not* ranked up there with lions. Kids' videos are full of animated bears who are cute and entirely ineffective as warriors. Fat, friendly, slow, berry-eating bears. If I were to understand the world from 'family videos' I'd expect about as much peril from a cow as from a bear.

I agree that this is not reality, but you're assuming that real knowledge informs pupular culture.

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whence personal responsibility?

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pet peeve at the zoo

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