By Merlin Tuttle

6/16/16

This is an outrageously distorted story, obviously planted by those who profit most from public fear. Rabies transmission from bats to humans is extremely rare (just 1.5 Americans per year) and normally involves a bite that is detected at the time. However some people fail to seek medical advice and post-exposure vaccination, and thus are at risk of contracting rabies. When we put risks in perspective, our own beloved dogs kill approximately 20 times more Americans annually than die of rabies from bats.

                                                                                                                                                                    We’ve learned to live reasonably safely with dogs. It’s even easier to live safely with bats. Just don’t attempt to handle them, and the odds of being harmed by one are exceedingly remote. If indeed one assumes that 8 of 10 Chicago homes harbor bats as claimed, that is proof in itself that bats make safe neighbors. If they are anywhere nearly as dangerous as implied, then rabies should be vastly more common in Chicagoans.