From the BBC: Pet hamsters banned in Vietnam
Vietnam has banned the sale and possession of hamsters, whose popularity has been soaring.
The Ministry of Agriculture says anyone caught with a hamster will be fined up to 30m dong ($1,900) - almost double the average annual wage in Vietnam.
The authorities say the creatures are a potential source of disease.
Well, then the "authorities" are retarded.
The only known hamster disease that can be passed onto humans is a kind of hamster meningitis that, while fatal to young hamsters, causes only mild flu like symptoms in humans. I know. I've had it.
A couple of years ago we got a little hamster we named Harrison. He was bright and active for the first two days we had him, but then he just grew listless and very quickly died. Given his age, he was only a few weeks old, it seemed likely he had meningitis which strikes only younger hamsters. A few days later I noticed I was a little under the weather, and I ran a low grade fever for maybe 24 hours. That was it. I'm not even sure I took a Tylenol for it.
But the government of Vietnam is encouraging a hamster massacre and using "health" fears as a cover, and let's make no mistake: the prohibitive fine will cause folks to "release" or outright kill the animals they already have. I'm sure the government policy is the result of complete and utter ignorance more than anything, but it is exactly the sort of ignorance you would expect in a country that doesn't allow for the free exchange of ideas and information.
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