Althouse: "[A]n Idaho man was on his rural property in October 2024 when a skunk approached him and scratched him on the shin."

December 7, 2025

"[A]n Idaho man was on his rural property in October 2024 when a skunk approached him and scratched him on the shin."

"About five weeks later, the man started to hallucinate, have trouble walking and swallowing, and had a stiff neck.... Two days after his symptoms started, he collapsed of what was presumed to be a heart attack, the report said. The man was unresponsive and taken to a hospital, where he died. Several of his organs were donated.... A Michigan man received the donated kidney. Five weeks after the transplant, he started to experience tremors, weakness, confusion and urinary incontinence, the report said...."

From "Kidney Recipient Dies After Transplant From Organ Donor Who Had Rabies/Only four donors have transmitted rabies to organ transplant recipients since 1978, according to federal officials" (NYT).

52 comments:

RCOCEAN II said...: That's sad but getting a kidney in the first place is lucky. There's a long waiting list.; 12/7/25, 8:43 AM
RCOCEAN II said...: I more feel more sorry for the guy who died of rabies. What a way to go. Scratched by a killer squirrel.; 12/7/25, 8:44 AM
RoseAnne said...: Given the man's additional symptoms, why was the kidney donated to start with? It's one thing if someone just drops dead of a heart attack, but his issues seemed systemic and not limited to the hear.; 12/7/25, 8:48 AM
Achilles said...: This story should not be possible.; 12/7/25, 8:53 AM
Big Mike said...: Only four donors have transmitted rabies to organ transplant recipients since 1978, according to federal officials

That’s four too many.; 12/7/25, 8:59 AM
Achilles said...: It took 5 weeks after the transplant for symptoms to start.

Rabies is treatable before symptoms start.

There is no way they did not know what the donor died from is there?

So what is the rational for not testing the recipient for rabies?

I want to know if there was a finders fee for the kidney and if those people failed to report what the kidney donor died from.; 12/7/25, 9:00 AM
Joe Bar said...: How in the world did they let this happen?! There should be safeguards in place.; 12/7/25, 9:01 AM
Eric the Fruit Bat said...: I don't know whether it's worse to die from kidney failure or rabies and I don't want to know.; 12/7/25, 9:08 AM
tommyesq said...: Wasn't that an episode of Scrubs?; 12/7/25, 9:20 AM
Derve said...: Ya think they'd screen for that...
Damn incompents everywhere.
I blame DEI... all the un(der)qualified women who want to "have it all"... great jobs, and families too. Look at what you've contributed to America, ladies. Proud of your work? (really??) lol...
Keep serving up the hot takes, annie O.
They needed somebody with a bigger penis in power, but you ladies have castrated your sons it seems. Something G-d demanded, I guess...; 12/7/25, 9:27 AM
Martha said...: My son was bitten by a dog last month while walking around his neighborhood. Because the attack was unprovoked and vicious (several bites), the dog without a collar, and the owner untraceable , the ER recommended a full course of rabies vaccine shots as well as rabies immune globulin (RIG). The entire ER bill was $30,000–$24,000 for RIG. Worth every penny.; 12/7/25, 9:31 AM
Aggie said...: The key question is, when and how did they find out 'a skunk approached him and scratched him on the shin'? Sounds like the finding of a Medical Examiner, but of course the organs have to be harvested when they're hot.; 12/7/25, 9:32 AM
Old and slow said...: Why would they simply kill the dog and examine its brain for rabies? I thought that was the norm unless the animal escaped.; 12/7/25, 9:49 AM
Kevin said...: Did the recipient start biting people?

Because that's how the zombie apocalypse begins.; 12/7/25, 9:51 AM
Peachy said...: layers of incompetence.

old and slow - it was a wild skunk.; 12/7/25, 9:53 AM
Ann Althouse said...: "I more feel more sorry for the guy who died of rabies. What a way to go. Scratched by a killer squirrel."

1. The recipient of the kidney also died of rabies.

2. It was a skunk.

3. If a skunk comes up to you and scratches you, you should get rabies shots. The donor shouldn't have died. He had the info he needed to do the sensible thing and get the shots.

4. But once he was showing symptoms and it was too late to save him, they should at least have noticed his symptoms indicated rabies and not presumed a heart attack. They could have run a test before using him as a donor.

5. So I feel more sorry for the recipient.; 12/7/25, 9:58 AM
Iman said...: Pepe le Bundy.; 12/7/25, 10:01 AM
Iman said...: It appears the Idaho rural property owner was a few spuds short.; 12/7/25, 10:03 AM
Old and slow said...: I should have specified that I was talking about Martha's son who was bitten by a dog. In the case of the skunk, of course it wasn't an option.; 12/7/25, 10:09 AM
Peachy said...: Yes - the recipient didn't know. how horrible.; 12/7/25, 10:12 AM
Laurel said...: “presumed to be a heart attack”.

Fresh organs meets too good to check.

Trust the science!; 12/7/25, 10:31 AM
NT Dave said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 12/7/25, 10:39 AM
NT Dave said...: "Only four donors have transmitted rabies to organ transplant recipients since 1978, according to federal officials"

"Only about 1-3 human rabies cases are reported in the US each year"
National Foundation for Infectious Diseases
https://www.nfid.org/infectious-disease/rabies

"From 1960 to 2018, a total of 125 human rabies cases were reported in the United States"
Center for Disease Control
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/68/wr/mm6823e1.htm?

"Best estimate for U.S. human rabies cases from 1978 through early 2025:
≈100 cases total (roughly 96–105, depending on the exact 1978–79 count).
So: order of magnitude is about one hundred human cases in nearly 50 years, with only 0–5 per year and many years with none."
ChatGPT
https://chatgpt.com/share/6935ad62-1d20-8013-82d6-55bc0e7e0896; 12/7/25, 10:40 AM
FredSays said...: Who allows a skunk to approach them close enough to be scratched? Who doesn’t get treated if they are scratched by a skunk? Why was an organ from an obviously sick patient allowed into the transfer pool? Seems odd and improbable all the way around.; 12/7/25, 10:48 AM
Wince said...: Sounds like a man wearing short pants to me.

[A]n Idaho man was on his rural property in October 2024 when a skunk approached him and scratched him on the shin."; 12/7/25, 11:15 AM
Martha said...: Old and Slow said: I should have specified that I was talking about Martha's son who was bitten by a dog. In the case of the skunk, of course it wasn't an option.

The dog that bit my son in three separate places on both of his legs ran away after my son finally kicked him off one of his legs. My son was bleeding profusely and his first thought was to stop the bleeding and get to an ER—not to chase down the offending dog. It was a bite and run situation.

12/7/25, 10:09 AM; 12/7/25, 11:40 AM
Mary Beth said...: According to the article, the family included the skunk incident in the medical records. At the very least, the transplant team should have known about it. I don't know if the organ recipients would get all of that information, or even the information about how the donor had been having hallucinations, trouble swallowing and all of his other symptoms.

Does HIPAA allow the transplant doctors to tell the recipients the donor's health history?

Three people got ocular grafts from the same donor. All three had to be removed and they were treated for rabies. They were not showing symptoms.; 12/7/25, 12:03 PM
Mason G said...: I remember learning that you should avoid wild animals (mammals) that don't appear to be afraid of humans specifically because they might be rabid. Don't remember where I heard that, probably in Scouts.; 12/7/25, 12:04 PM
Jamie said...: Now I have to go look up what constitutes an "ocular graft," as it sounds as if the donor also had three eyes; 12/7/25, 12:08 PM
RCOCEAN II said...: Interesting:

"Skunks are a primary carrier of rabies in the U.S., often showing signs like daytime activity, aggression, disorientation, or foaming at the mouth, and bites are a major source of human infection, requiring immediate washing and medical care as untreated rabies is nearly 100% fatal. If you encounter a skunk acting strangely or get bitten, contact animal control and seek medical help for post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) to prevent the deadly virus from reaching the brain. "; 12/7/25, 12:11 PM
RCOCEAN II said...: Rabid Skunks have actually bitten humans in sleeping bags.; 12/7/25, 12:12 PM
RCOCEAN II said...: I'll never look at skunks the same way again. I've always kept my distance, for obvious reasons. But now, I''ll run not walk.; 12/7/25, 12:14 PM
boatbuilder said...: Wait. "...a skunk approached him and scratched him on the shin..."
And then the guy started hallucinating and then had a heart attack.
And they saved his kidney. And sold it.
This is way outside the ordinary course of things (I hope). I'm guessing that "Kidneys R' Us" isn't vetting too carefully.; 12/7/25, 12:27 PM
NT Dave said...: Taking my previous post one step further:

"Despite every advancement, very few people die in a way that allows for organ donation. For organs to remain viable, a donor typically needs to die in an ICU, while still on a ventilator. This rare set of circumstances means that only about one percent of people registered as donors are actually able to donate."
Columbia Surgery
https://columbiasurgery.org/news/look-organ-donation-and-people-who-make-it-possible?

So, 1 out 100 people in the (registered) population have organs healthy enough to donate yet 4 out of (approximately) 100 people who had rabies were able to donate .; 12/7/25, 12:28 PM
NT Dave said...: And how many out of the approximately 100 people that had rabies were donors?; 12/7/25, 12:36 PM
Cloudesley Shovell said...: This same scenario was the plot in an episode of "Scrubs" titled "My Lunch", season 5, episode 20, first aired on April 25, 2006. The Scrubs episode was, in turn, based upon an actual case of rabies transmission by transplant (4 transplant recipients died) that happened in Texas in April-May 2004. New England Journal of Medicine article about the Texas case: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa043018; 12/7/25, 12:45 PM
Rabel said...: "When you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras"

That will get you burned when a zebra actually shows up.; 12/7/25, 1:25 PM
gspencer said...: Lesson - whenever a skunk or raccoon approaches you, shoot it. Shoot it dead, dead, dead.; 12/7/25, 1:38 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: Althouse missed the men in shorts tag. Unless the skunk was up on the man’s chin and it was misspelled. I’m sure that’s not it though because Althouse would have caught it. And now we would be mourning her ;-); 12/7/25, 2:06 PM
Jaq said...: Here is a hint, if a wild animal does something weird, if a nocturnal animal like a skunk or a raccoon is wandering around in the daytime, it has rabies.; 12/7/25, 2:36 PM
Jaq said...: It probably seemed cute, since it had lost its fear of humans.; 12/7/25, 2:37 PM
Quaestor said...: "If a skunk comes up to you and scratches you, you should get rabies shots."

Any contact with a wild skunk ought to be treated as a bite from an obviously rabid skunk. Rabies has been transmitted by contact with infected saliva.

"Only about 1-3 human rabies cases are reported in the US each year"

Rabies might well be much more common than public health statistics suggest. As in other pathogenic treatments, whether viral, bacterial, or fungal, vaccines, antibiotics, and antifungals exert evolutionary pressures on the disease agents themselves. Over time, pathogens evolve immunity to our medical treatments or means to evade our innate defences. Vaccines and antibiotics save lives in the short term, but accelerate the evolution of the threats in the long term.

Many of the classic symptoms of rabies -- anxiety, confusion, agitation, seizures, excessive hypersalivation, and hydrophobia -- weren't presented in these cases. Both the organ donor and the recipient were infected with the same viral strain, which suggests the existence of a more subtle form of rabies that could be mistaken for non-transmissible diseases such as coronary thrombosis and Parkinson's disease. Statutory rabies vaccinations for dogs began over a hundred years ago. Profound changes in the disease are overdue.; 12/7/25, 2:52 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: In certain Latin American countries (or maybe just in the DR) when you want to say that something makes you really really mad angry, you say “a mi me da una rabia” 😡
Just one of those things.; 12/7/25, 3:46 PM
Eva Marie said...: Raccoons and coyotes are vaccinated (a significant number of them) against rabies. Maybe it’s time to start on the skunk population.; 12/7/25, 3:53 PM
Scott M said...: The basis of Max Brooks' "World War Z" novel :); 12/7/25, 4:03 PM
Canadian Bumblepuppy said...: My boss got rabies shots after an encounter by a bat, and now he can't stand his favourite Scotch; a curious side-effect we should all bear in mind.; 12/7/25, 4:20 PM
Mr. T. said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 12/7/25, 4:23 PM
Mr. T. said...: The whole organ (and especially tissue) "donation" racket is rotten to the core. Like a poster mentioned above, viscera (heart, kidney, lung, etc) donation has a very short time frame and is extremely limited in availability. And if you think this rabies story is a one off and you're getting someone's squeaky clean organ because they only use well-vetted ones, guess again. Demand is too high Most of the heart transplants (families can track them) here in Wisconsin. are coming from a recent OD methhead from Froedert Milwaukee. And there is the rarity factor that brings in the high $$ value for organ and tissue "donations..."

I have the dubious distinction of having to deal with Versati all the time. All these tissue companies are selling off other people's "donations" for big bucks and these "nonprofit" tissue company barons are getting 7-figure incomes.

Google the lawsuit by the family of Brittany O'Conner to see how organ groups and hospitals work. It will make you seeth with what they are getting away from.; 12/7/25, 4:26 PM
Jaq said...: I saw one raccoon wandering around in a field in full daylight three days in a row while driving by, which suggests that he was probably wandering around all day having those hallucinations the victim complained of. I didn't go up and try to pet it.; 12/7/25, 4:40 PM
Old and slow said...: It's funny, I dreamt last night that my basement was flooding, and when I went down there dozens of raccoons came rushing past me in the narrow entrance.; 12/7/25, 5:34 PM
pious agnostic said...: Back the truck up!

The man died, and they didn't even determine a proper cause of death, before farming out his organs?; 12/7/25, 7:31 PM
Mr. T. said...: pious agnostic said...
"Back the truck up!

The man died, and they didn't even determine a proper cause of death, before farming out his organs?

In some (all blue-where feelings and fads rule instead of law and logic) states, tissue/organs companies can harvest before a medical examiner/coroner can investigate and even overrule a ME hold for autopsy/investigation:

"https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-how-body-brokers-took-over-county-morgue-20190408-story.html; 12/7/25, 9:04 PM