A San Diego ancestors is suing Petco afterwards the afterlife of their 10-year-old son from a bacterial infection they say he apprenticed from his pet rat.
Attorney John Gomez told The Associated Press on Tuesday that his close filed the accusation Monday in San Diego County gluttonous an bearding bulk for the adversity endured by the Pankey family, whose son, Aidan, died June 12, 2013, hours afterwards he was rushed to the hospital with astringent abdomen pains.
The San Diego County Medical Examiner's Office disqualified that the account of afterlife was streptobacillus moniliformis infection, frequently accepted as rat-bite fever, afterwards acknowledgment to an adulterated rat.
Attorney John Gomez told The Associated Press on Tuesday that his close filed the accusation Monday in San Diego County gluttonous an bearding bulk for the adversity endured by the Pankey family, whose son, Aidan, died June 12, 2013, hours afterwards he was rushed to the hospital with astringent abdomen pains.
The San Diego County Medical Examiner's Office disqualified that the account of afterlife was streptobacillus moniliformis infection, frequently accepted as rat-bite fever, afterwards acknowledgment to an adulterated rat.
"We are acutely afflicted by the Pankey family's adverse loss," Petco said in a statement. "The bloom and assurance of bodies and pets is consistently a top priority, and we booty the family's apropos actual seriously."
The boy's grandmother purchased the man rat, which Aidan called Alex, because her alone grandson capital a acquaintance for his changeable pet rat, Gomez said. The boy took the rat home May 27, 2013, and woke up the night of June 11 in astringent affliction with a agitation and abdomen problems. He was pale, apathetic and could almost walk, according to the lawsuit. He died at 1:09 a.m. the abutting day.
"He was a bright, energetic, friendly, blessed kid who absolutely had a above-mentioned rat, who was a female, and he had this abstraction in his adolescent arch of accepting his changeable rat get married," Gomez said.
The accusation was not filed until now because attorneys were apprehension the lab after-effects from the federal Centers for Ache Control, which activated the rat to affirm it was infected, Gomez said. The bureau could not anon affirm the after-effects Tuesday.
Gomez said the Pankey ancestors was not giving interviews, but they are devastated by the afterlife of their alone son and appetite to accession acquaintance amid parents.
"It's a bureau to ensure this doesn't appear again," Gomez said of the lawsuit. "Apparently there was some breakdown in procedures. They appetite tighter controls."
According to the lawsuit, the rat appeared safe. But the accusation says Petco should accept accepted about the rodent's bloom and did not abundantly analysis for the disease. It additionally says that apathy led to the boy's death, which has acquired his parents, Andrew Pankey and Vanessa Sauer, affecting and bread-and-butter hardship, and that the banker did not column able warnings about the abeyant risks, abnormally for children.
Petco Beastly Supplies Inc. said it is "in the action of investigating these claims and will acknowledge appropriately back we accept added information."
According to the CDC, bodies can arrangement rat-bite agitation from bites or scratches from adulterated rodents, such as rats, mice and gerbils, or alike aloof by administration an beastly with the ache afterwards a chaw or scratch. It can additionally be apprenticed by arresting aliment or alcohol attenuated with the bacteria. It is not advance from actuality to person.
Antibiotics, such as penicillin, are awful able at alleviative rat-bite fever, and it is rarely fatal, according to the CDC.
The CDC says those at college accident of application the affliction are bodies with pet rats or who assignment with rats in laboratories or pet stores, or alive in rat-infested buildings. The bureau recommends that bodies who handle rats or apple-pie their cages abrasion careful gloves, ablution their easily consistently and abstain affecting their mouths with their easily afterwards actuality in acquaintance with rodents.
Petco additionally mentions bactericide measures for rat-bite agitation in advice it posts online and provides in stores. The aggregation warns that all rats are abeyant carriers and that abundant women, accouchement beneath the age of 5 and bodies with attenuated allowed systems should acquaintance their doctor afore affairs a rat and "should accede not accepting a rat as a pet."
Only about 200 cases of rat-bite agitation had been accurate in the United States as of 2004, according to the Center for Aliment Security and Public Bloom at Iowa State University. Scientists accept the ache may be underdiagnosed because it is adamantine to ascertain and responds to frequently acclimated antibiotics. But the cardinal of cases, they say, may be increasing, abnormally amid children, with the growing acceptance of rats as pets.
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