In The News: Straits Times, 3 April 2001. By JEAN LAU, President, Cat Welfare Society. We have recently completed our research on the matter and conclude that there is a lot of misinformation concerning the spread of diseases from cats to human beings. Unfortunately, many of our local doctors continue to spread myths about cats. Cats cannot and have never been able to pass any airborne diseases to humans. In other words, the viruses carried by cats are species-specific, so Mr Boey and his family will never contract anything from a cat that stays next door. While there is a slim possibility of contracting cat scratch disease (a minor infection with symptoms like our common flu), this is very rare and can easily be avoided by ensuring that you do not go near enough to a cat to be scratched. As for the threat of toxoplasmosis about which doctors often warn their pregnant patients, the British Medical Journal in its July 2000 issue stated conclusively that contact with cats was not a risk factor. We do agree with Mr Boey that pet owners should be responsible and do everything in their means to ensure that the intolerable stench and the indiscriminate disposal of waste do not occur. The Cat Welfare Society firmly believes in responsible pet ownership and we have been emphasising this in our talks and exhibitions. However, to penalise all pet owners because a few are not acting responsibly would be over-reacting. There are already laws which are adequate to deal with such behaviour. To have a blanket regulation would be too harsh. As an analogy, if Mr Boey's neighbour plays loud music late into the night, he would have recourse against him under the law. We doubt Mr Boey would advocate the passing of a further law to prohibit all citizens from playing any music at all in order to deal with his one recalcitrant neighbour.