What your Vet Doesn’t Know About VACCINES Could Harm Your Dog
adapted from "Dogs Naturally Magazine", May 2013 issue
Any vaccine given to
any dog at any point in his life has the ability to cause harm. This makes it
incredibly important to limit vaccinations to only those that will protect your
pet. After all, the entire point of vaccination is to protect your pet from
harm, isn’t it?
If improved health is
the true goal of your dog’s vaccination program, then your vet must understand
that any unnecessary vaccine should be avoided. Yet this almost never happens.
The reasons vets over
vaccinate are varied: some are just unaware that they are vaccinating too
often. Other vets don’t believe that vaccines have the ability to harm your
dog. Others just stick to outdated schedules out of comfort or habit. It really
doesn’t matter why dogs are over vaccinated – what really matters is that this
practice is stopped.
If you don’t think
your dog is being vaccinated too often, the following information about the
distemper vaccine might offer a glimpse into how many unnecessary vaccines our
dogs are exposed to.
What
You Need To Know About Distemper
In a study at the
University of Wisconsin-Madison, renowned veterinary infectious disease expert
Dr. Ronald Schultz vaccinated puppies with just one dose of distemper vaccine
just four hours prior to placing the puppies in a room with distemper infected
dogs. All of the puppies (which were vaccinated at 12 weeks), were protected
against distemper in this challenge study.
In fact, the distemper
vaccine works so well, that it can even be given up to three days post exposure
to healthy puppies and still offer protection. Dr. Schultz offers his expertise on the
subject in the following video taken from New Canine and Feline Vaccination
Guidelines: What Has Changed and Why:
What
About Booster Shots?
Many pet owners (and
some vets) believe that it takes more than one vaccine to protect a puppy. This
isn’t true in most cases. It only takes one vaccine to confer immunity, if
delivered at the right time. Although two and even three doses of vaccine
were the original recommendations made in the AAHA 2003 Canine Vaccine
Guideline, Dr. Schultz’s research shows that the series of vaccinations is
unnecessary. Puppies vaccinated for distemper once at 12 to 16 weeks of age
with a high titer vaccine have a virtually 100% chance of being protected. And
that protection is most likely for life.
In 2003, The American
Animal Hospital Association Canine Vaccine Taskforce warned vets in JAAHA (39
March/April 2003) that “Misunderstanding, misinformation and the conservative
nature of our profession have largely slowed adoption of protocols advocating
decreased frequency of vaccination … Immunological memory provides durations of
immunity for core infectious diseases that far exceed the traditional
recommendations for annual vaccination.”
“This is supported by
a growing body of veterinary information as
well-developed epidemiological vigilance in human medicine that indicates
immunity induced by vaccination is extremely long lasting and, in most cases,
lifelong.”
“The recommendation
for annual re-vaccination is a practice that was officially started in 1978”,
says Dr. Schultz. “This recommendation was made without any scientific
validation of the need to booster immunity so frequently. In fact the presence
of good humoral antibody levels blocks the anamnestic
response to vaccine boosters just as maternal antibody blocks the response in
some young animals.”
Below is the result of
duration of immunity testing on over 1,000 dogs.
Both challenge (exposure to the real virus) and serology (antibody titer
results) are shown below:
Table 1: Minimum Duration of Immunity for Canine Vaccines |
||
Vaccine |
Minimum Duration of Immunity |
Methods Used to Determine Immunity |
CORE VACCINES |
||
Canine
Distemper Virus (CDV) |
||
Rockbom
Strain |
7
yrs / 15 yrs |
challenge
/ serology |
Onderstepoort
Strain |
5
yrs / 9 yrs |
challenge
/ serology |
Canine
Adenovirus-2 (CAV-2) |
7
yrs / 9 yrs |
challenge-CAV-1
/ serology |
Canine
Parvovirus-2 (CAV-2) |
7
yrs |
challenge
/ serology |
It’s important to note that this is the
MINIMUM duration of immunity. These ceilings reflect not the duration of
immunity, rather the duration of the studies. Dr. Schultz explains “It is
important to understand that these are minimum DOI’s and longer studies
have not been done with certain of the above products. It is
possible that some or all of these products will provide lifelong
immunity.”
So Why Are Dogs Vaccinated Every Year Or Three Years?
That’s a good question and here’s one answer:
“Profits are what
vaccine critics believe is at the root of the profession’s resistance to update
its protocols. Without the lure of vaccines, clients might be less inclined to
make yearly veterinary visits. Vaccines add up to 14 percent of the
average practice’s income, AAHA reports, and veterinarians stand to lose
big. I suspect some are ignoring my work,” says Schultz. “Tying
vaccinations into the annual visit became prominent in the 1980s and a way of
practicing in the 1990s. Now veterinarians don’t want to give it up.”
What Are The Dangers
Of Over Vaccination?
It’s important that vaccines are only given
when necessary because every vaccine has the potential to kill the patient or
create debilitating chronic diseases including cancer and allergies. Below
is a list of potential adverse vaccine reactions:
Common Reactions:
·
Lethargy
·
Hair Loss, hair color
change at injection Site
·
Fever
·
Soreness
·
Stiffness
·
Refusal to eat
·
Conjunctivitis
·
Sneezing
·
Oral ulcers
Moderate Reactions:
·
Immunosupression
·
Behavioral changes
·
Vitiligo
·
Weight loss (Cachexia)
·
Reduced milk
production
·
Lameness
·
Granulomas/Abscesses
·
Hives
·
FacialeEdema
·
Atopy
·
Respiratory disease
·
Allergic uveitis (Blue
Eye)
Severe Reactions
triggered by Vaccines:
·
Vaccine injection site
sarcomas
·
Anaphylaxis
·
Arthritis,
polyarthritis
·
HOD hypertrophy osteodystrophy
·
Autoimmune Hemolytic
Anemia
·
Immune Mediated
Thrombocytopenia (IMTP)
·
Hemolytic disease of
the newborn (Neonatal Isoerythrolysis)
·
Thyroiditis
·
Glomerulonephritis
·
Disease or enhanced
disease which with the vaccine was designed to prevent
·
Myocarditis
·
Post vaccinal Encephalitis or polyneuritis
·
Seizures
·
Abortion, congenital
anomalies, embryonic/fetal death, failure to conceive
How
Much Is Too Much?
It’s well established
that vaccines can be harmful and should therefore be limited to as few as
possible to protect our pets. “The patient receives no benefit and may be
placed at serious risk when an unnecessary vaccine is given” says Dr Schultz. He adds, “Few or no scientific studies have
demonstrated a need for cats or dogs to be revaccinated.”
So if the goal of
vaccination is to protect animals from harm, how do the following vaccine
schedules for distemper make sense when only one is needed to protect a puppy,
most likely for life?
Yearly Vaccination
Any dog who is
vaccinated three times as a puppy and again at a year, then annually will be
vaccinated for distemper 15 times if he lives to 12. Now read Dr Schultz’s research above. Most puppies are protected for
distemper within hours of vaccination and most dogs, once successfully
vaccinated, are protected for life.
If your dog is
vaccinated yearly for distemper, then he will receive 14 unnecessary
vaccinations in his life – if he’s lucky enough to survive those vaccinations
for 12 years.
Triennial Vaccination
Many vets pride
themselves on not vaccinating annually. Triennial vaccination, although it
delivers fewer vaccinations to your dog, is just as flawed in its logic as annual
vaccination. Most 12 year old dogs who are vaccinated triennially will be
vaccinated eight times for distemper. While that’s certainly better than 15,
it’s still most likely 7 times too many!
What
Should Your Dog’s Distemper Vaccine Schedule Look Like?
One. Uno. That’s it. Some dogs may require a second distemper
vaccine as puppies if maternal antibodies block the first one, but if a puppy
is vaccinated after 12 to 16 weeks of age, he will most likely be protected,
for life, with just one distemper vaccine.
What About The Other
Vaccines?
We’ve just focused on
distemper here. Most dogs also receive other components in their vaccines
including parvovirus, coronavirus, adenovirus, parainfluenza, Lyme disease, leptorspirosis,
bordetella, rabies and more. Clearly, the number of unnecessary vaccines our companion dogs endure –
and the potential damage they pose – are out of control. So what can you do?
Take
Back Control
If the information
we’ve presented in this article makes you think that you should lighten your
dog’s vaccine schedule, then do it. Don’t expect your vet to do it for you. And
don’t go to groomers, training facilities or boarding kennels that require too
many vaccines. There are enlightened vets and businesses out there and your
dollars would be much better spent supporting these fine people instead of the
businesses who are asking you to subject your dog to an unnecessary and
dangerous vaccination protocol.
Dr. Schultz summarizes
his 40 years of research with the following:
“Only one dose of the modified-live canine ‘core’ vaccine
(against CDV, CAV-2 and CPV-2) or modified-live feline ‘core’ vaccine
(against FPV, FCV and FHV), when administered at 16 weeks or older,
will provide long lasting (many years to a lifetime) immunity in a very
high percentage of animals.”
Like anybody who is exposed to too many drugs, the first step is
to admit you have a problem. The second step is to stop the vaccine addiction
immediately. That may mean saying no to your vet or, preferably, it means
finding a vet who is paying attention to the damage vaccines can cause and is
using vaccines (or not using them) to do what they were designed to do:
protect your dog!