Get Rabies Law On Books Now

January 21, 1986|The Morning Call

Adread disease is moving toward the Lehigh Valley. It has spread death and suffering throughout portions of the East Coast for the past six years. Most of its victims succumb to the ravages of the illness away from the eyes of man. The victims are animals. The disease is rabies.

Wild animals are not the only creatures susceptible to this terrible killer. Domesticated animals, dogs and cats, can carry it and suffer from it and die from it. Humans, too, have died from infection of rabies, and others have endured the painful medical procedures necessary for treating persons exposed to the disease. Why then does Pennsylvania still not have a law requiringrabies immunization for dogs and cats and for the licensing of both types of pets? How can our legislators justify the commonwealth's being the only continental state without such protection for its people and its animals? In 1985, Pennsylvania's General Assembly, for the fourth straight year, permitted a bill to die that would have required rabies immunization. And last year's effort was a weak bill that would have required such preventive measures only in "high-risk" areas of the state.

Allentown is the only community in this part of the state to have a law requiring inoculation of dogs and cats for prevention of rabies. That's a credit to the city health bureau. But a question of this seriousness is not one that should be left to the discretion of the thousands of municipalities in Pennsylvania. It should become state law - and quickly.

Lawmakers interested in the welfare of pets and their owners should move as soon as possible to enact legislation requiring rabies immunization and licensing for all dogs and cats in the state.

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