PET lizards, turtles and other reptiles make most unsuitable pets and should carry a health warning, believes Dr Guy Makin of the Sheffield Children's Hospital in the UK. In The Lancet of May 18th, there was a report of a young man who lost his job in a food processing factor after he became infected with salmonella from his pet lizards. This was followed up on July 20th with a report of a six week old baby girl who nearly died from meningitis caused by salmonella which she caught from her family's monitor pet lizard, which had free run of the house. The risks of catching potentially deadly salmonella infections from reptiles are well known in the US, where in the 1970s the Federal government banned the sale of turtles to prevent infection.