More and more pet owners understand now that vaccines do not provide immunity. A healthy immune system does. Veterinarians in general don't know much about vaccines, they know little about immunology and even less on canine nutrition. Many are still giving yearly shots, even though research has shown that is an arbitrary timetable. Vaccine companies have also really taken advantage of this schedule that was devised in the 1970’s. Vaccine companies and Vets thrive on vaccinating your pet. They will vaccinate now and attempt to repair damage created later in your pets life, usually providing no long term benefit or being able to view and your dogs health from a position of surviving to “thriving” to your animal. Increasingly Holistic Vets and in particular those who study immunology tell us over and over again that if you feed a species appropriate raw diet (prey model), eliminate toxins in the form of vaccines, heartworm, flea/tick medications and allopathic meds. Strive to provide clean water, fresh air, exercise combined with reasonable amount of exposure to diseases (distemper/parvo via dog-dog socialization then you “should” have a healthy dog and she/he "should" resist disease, including fleas and ticks!
Unless a veterinarian has a special interest in immunology, he or she probably will not have all the information needed to give you an informed response on vaccinations. I also wish I could tell you that there is a definite answer to these questions, based on science and research; there isn't. I have read so much information on this subject (some of which is conflicting -so keep an open mind about this subject), I have also queried Vets and homeopaths about it. Ultimately, no matter what your Vet suggests, or what I believe, or what you read as you research this issue, this is your decision to make.
What About Vaccines?
Vaccinosis
by Betty Lewis, RVT, Dr. A.N.
When I started to write this article, I decided to see if there were any trends I could discover by looking back in my own history as a Registered Veterinary Technician. I quickly found that I could characterize the various veterinary hospitals where I worked by half decade, as well as by the reasons that it seemed to me most people took their animals to the veterinarian. These are my recollections: nothing “scientific” or etched in stone, but I found the trends to be interesting.
I first started working in the veterinary profession in 1973. The word “trauma” sums up my memory of those early years. Outside of routine spays and neuters, the main reason that animals showed up at this vet’s included what we called “HBCs” or “hit by cars”, also, cats who got caught in car fan belts, dog fights, cuts and scratches and broken limbs. In other words, there were a lot of otherwise healthy animals who ended up needing veterinary attention because of accidents. We did not see an overwhelming amount of chronically ill animals.
I left that practice in 1976, so my memory of the next veterinary hospital pertains to the late 1970s. In that hospital, the character had changed a little and now we saw more allergies, bloats and growth issues, like panosteitis.
The next hospital was in the early 1980s and by that time we were seeing parvovirus cases, and more metabolic diseases like diabetes in dogs, cancer and heart failure.
By the late 1980s, animals were showing severe signs of illnesses. Even more diseases began to be commonplace such as dental diseases, kidney failure, hypothyroid (dogs), hyperthyroid (cats), diabetes continued in dogs, but now emerged in cats as well, cardiomyopathy, cancers, and serious autoimmunities such as lupus, myasthenia gravis and others.
From the late 1990s to the present, all of the above diseases continue across breed lines, sometimes across species lines and there are new problems being added all the time. IBD/IBS (inflammatory bowel disease/syndrome) was unheard of when I left veterinary practice in 1987 to open my holistic consulting business, but is now nearly at epidemic proportions. Seizures and temperament problems are common now and there are more cancers and autoimmune diseases.
I find this trend to be incredibly alarming. When charted in this cut and dried fashion, it is obvious to me that animals are *much* sicker now than they were a mere 30 years ago and the diseases are very serious.
I have mulled this situation over, trying to decide why animals (and probably humans) appear to be sicker than they used to be, and have come to the conclusion that I can sum up the fundamental reason for this trend in two words: “toxic exposure”. Our focus has changed from acute disease, leading to quick death, to chronic disease and long, drawn-out, painful death. We really have gone from having animals who weren’t really sick much at all to animals who are always sick.
Toxic exposure takes many forms, from industrial waste in our water, such as chlorine and fluoride, to toxic cleaning supplies, to so-called preventive products for parasites such as the topical “spot-on” products or heartworm “prevention” products. There are many other environmental toxins that our animals are exposed to, but, in my opinion, the two biggest husbandry or management mistakes that we make in caretaking our animals represent two sides of the same coin. One is species inappropriate diet and the other is the use of vaccines.
The diet issue is a huge one, but not the focus of this article. The rest of this article will focus on vaccines and vaccinosis.
In the 1800’s, a homeopathic physician named F. Compton Burnett, coined the word to mean chronic disease induced by vaccination.
In 1993, a well-known American homeopathic veterinarian and immunologist, Richard Pitcairn, DVM, PhD, presented a paper to a veterinary conference. The paper can be found by going to the link below.
http://www.drpitcairn.com/Talks/TalksSet.html
In the paper, he showed the correlation between acute diseases, such as canine and feline distemper, rabies and feline panleukopenia and chronic symptoms we are commonly seeing in dogs and cats today. The chart below is re-printed from his paper. You can see the frightening implications when reading the chart and you can understand his premise that it’s very likely that the vaccinations we’ve been giving our animals for several generations to combat acute infections from the diseases, are now conferring lifelong chronic afflictions on those same animals.
On the left side of the chart, you see the acute symptoms of canine distemper and on the right side are the common chronic symptoms. To see charts for the other diseases Pitcairn studied, please go to his website and read the whole article.
Now, let’s examine some myths concerning vaccines which have somehow been elevated to the level of gospel truths in conventional medical circles.
Myth #1: that the administration of vaccines is safe.
A British group, called Canine Health Concern (CHC) analyzed the post vaccinal histories of 3800 dogs. The whole report can be viewed at http://www.bogartsdaddy.com/bouvier/health/vaccination-concerns-uk.htm
The quotes below point out some of the pertinent points which I would like to emphasize, however.
“We have been able to show a definite statistical correlation between a vaccine event and the onset of a number of specific illnesses. Our published conclusions have satisfied mathematical or inferential statistical tests at a level of confidence of 99% or better.
"Overall, we found that 66% per cent of all sick dogs start being sick within three months of vaccination, which is considerably more than double the expected rate of illness. Worse, 49% of all illnesses reported in the survey occurred within 30 days of vaccination. This is over five times the expected percentage if vaccination had no bearing on subsequent illness. More damning still, 29% of sick dogs first became sick within seven days of their vaccine jab. This means that a dog is 13 times more likely to become ill within seven days of vaccination than at any other time.
In the study, 69.2% of allergic dogs first became allergic within three months of being vaccinated - more than double the expected number. 55.8% of dogs with autoimmune disease developed the condition within three months of being vaccinated - again, more than twice the expected figure. Of dogs with colitis, 65.9% developed the complaint within three months of being vaccinated and, of dogs with dry eye/conjunctivitis, 70.2% developed their conditions within three months - both nearly three times higher than expected. 73.1% of dogs with epilepsy first became epileptic within three months of vaccination. As 2% of all dogs in the UK are epileptic, vaccines are clearly causing horrendous damage. For statisticians, our Chi score for epilepsy is 96: any Chi test statistic higher than twelve gives a 95% confidence about the conclusions. Without doubt, then, the majority of epileptic dogs in our survey are vaccine damaged.
"But perhaps most astonishing is the fact that a majority of dogs (64.9%) with behavioral problems appear to have developed their difficulties within three months of vaccination. Similarly, 72.5% per cent of dogs with nervous or worrying dispositions became nervous within three months of their jabs (with a Chi score of 112), and 73.1% per cent of dogs with short attention spans lost their attentiveness within three months of vaccination.
"Other diseases that were highly represented within three months post vaccination included cancer (35.1%), chorea (81%), encephalitis (78.6%), heart conditions (39.2%), kidney damage (53.7%), liver damage/failure (61.5%), paralysis of the rear end (69.2%), and pancreas problems (54.2%)."
Research conducted at Purdue University shows routinely vaccinated dogs developing auto antibodies to a vast range of normal canine biochemicals - which corroborates our findings. “
Myth #2: that dogs, once vaccinated, need to be “boosted”
This myth has been perpetuated by veterinarians for at least 50 years, but I am astonished when I think about this fact, because it doesn’t even make logical sense to me. I am extremely annoyed at myself for ever allowing myself to have believed something so absurd. Now, from two top immunologists, Ron Schultz, DVM and Tom Phillips, DVM, here is a quote confirming that it just isn’t so. The quote is from Kirk’ Current Veterinary Therapy 1992:
"A practice that was started many years ago and that lacks scientific validity or verification is annual revaccination. Almost without exception there is no immunologic requirement for annual revaccination. Immunity to viruses persists for years or for the life of the animal...... Furthermore, revaccination with most viral vaccines fails to stimulate an anamnestic (secondary) response.... The practice of annual vaccination in our opinion should be considered of questionable efficacy..."
Myth #3: that vaccines protect against the diseases as advertised
First, of all, the insert that accompanies all vaccines says that only healthy animals should be vaccinated. Next, vaccines do not confer immunity on individuals; instead, they sensitize the body to produce antibodies. During the period after vaccination, the body is particularly susceptible to adverse reactions. Again, quoting from the CHC survey, they discovered the following information.
“Many contend that vaccines are a necessary evil; that we need them to protect our dogs against certain deadly canine diseases. However, our survey found that high percentages of dogs are developing the diseases we vaccinate against, soon after vaccination.
"Of dogs with hepatitis, 64% contracted it within three months of being vaccinated and, of those with parainfluenza, 50% developed it within three months of their shots. Also, 69% of dogs with parvovirus, 56% of dogs with distemper, and every single dog with leptospirosis in the survey contracted the diseases within three months of vaccination.
"Our figures support the view that vaccines don't confer guaranteed immunity and may actually cause the diseases they're designed to prevent. Our figures appear to demonstrate that vaccines cause illness in one in every hundred dogs - and this is a conservative estimate.
In conclusion, then, I want to make some suggestions. Also, be aware, that in the USA, almost every state requires the rabies vaccine. Therefore, my recommendations cannot include that vaccination. However, there are some pertinent articles about rabies vaccines in the resources below.
Ronald Schultz, DVM, is a vaccine researcher and he does believe in giving “core” vaccinations. I attended a day long seminar he gave on this topic and he made this important point. He says that you must vaccinate within the “window of opportunity.” He calls this “immunologic imprinting.” If you vaccinate an immature immune system, or one not capable of responding fully, he says you get only a partial response and will never again have the opportunity to get a complete response. That window, he points out, occurs after 12 weeks of age in the dog. Therefore, it is his opinion, that routine vaccinations given before 12 weeks are not indicated except under very special circumstances.
One of the tremendous advantages of the Internet, is the ability for “regular” people to communicate and for thousands of people to compare notes. Through this route, I have discovered that when unvaccinated puppies are exposed to recently vaccinated dogs (who are therefore shedding the viral particles), the unvaccinated puppies demonstrate a titer to the diseases. (A titer is a measure of circulating antibodies.) In fact, I had a conversation with Harm Hogenesch, another veterinary vaccine researcher on the Purdue Study. He said, “The very best way to protect your dog is to make sure your neighbor vaccinates *her* dog!”
So, if the veterinarians who are experts in vaccines say we should wait until after 12 weeks to vaccinate, and the best way to accomplish that is by allowing our puppies exposure to dogs shedding vaccine particles into the environment, then it makes sense to me to forgo the actual injection and simply take the puppy to puppy kindergarten or the park. Is there a risk that our puppies could get sick following this approach? Of course! Life isn’t safe, but there is also a risk that the puppies could get the diseases after being vaccinated. It also appears to be true, from reading many case histories on the Internet, that dogs who get parvovirus after being vaccinated, are sicker and more likely to die than their unvaccinated counterparts who also contract the disease.
Most of us, who are led to a study of vaccinosis, do so because one or more of our dogs (or children) have been irreversibly damaged or compromised by vaccines.
Anyone considering vaccinating needs to know that there are some consequences of any given vaccine.
Is it worth the risk?
http://cyberpet.com/cyberdog/articles/health/vaccin.htm Richard Pitcairn,DVM, PhD
http://www.drpitcairn.com/Talks/New%20look%20vaccines/New%20Look%20Vaccines.html- Richard Pitcairn,DVM, PhD A New Look at the Vaccine Question
http://www.newvaccinationprotocols.com/index.htm