Are Dog Vaccines Really Safe?

After the administration of the puppy vaccines, why are vets re-vaccinating our pets year after year for the duration lives of our pets?  The 2011 AHAA Canine Vaccination Guidelines were published to inform veterinarians of the new guidelines based.  The AHAA (American Animal Hospital Association) sets the guidelines and rules to create standard practices within veterinary practices.  Despite a three year protocol was recommended for the core vaccines many vets disregard these guidelines.  Interestingly, AAHA and AVMA (American Veterinary Medical Association) state that the core vaccines can protect for at least five years, but they still maintain the 2011 guidelines which suggest core vaccines should be given every 3 years.

The published protocols are excessive in light of the admission that every 5 years would be acceptable.  Either vets haven’t read about these widely published protocols?  Vets who are vaccinating cores more often than every 5 years are irresponsible, unethical, and reckless.  The rabies is a given legal requirement so I won’t go into that mess (and it is a mess).  Some states have lagged behind with the rabies research so they need to amend legislation.  Research shows that these vaccines last far longer than what the industry is leading us to believe.

When humans are vaccinated, do we require re-vaccination every year for the duration of our lives?

Research is proving that vaccinations are not safe to give on a yearly basis.  Traditional vets are over-vaccinating our dogs.  Since the 1970’s, Dr. Ronald Schultz, PhD Dipl ACVIM is the Founding Chair of Pathobiological Sciences at the School of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Wisconsin in Madison has been the and principal investigator of the efficacy of these vaccines.  Some of his other credentials include he is a member of the American Animal Hospital Association’s Canine Vaccine Task Force, the American Association of Feline Practitioner’s Feline Vaccine Task Force, and the Veterinary Vaccine Group of the World Small Animal Veterinary Association.  Dr. Schultz recommends the core vaccines that are given to puppies.  His findings have revealed that a dog’s immunity can last far longer than what we have been lead to believe.  In some cases, antibodies have remained active for the lifespan of many dogs.  Due to a major roadblock in the latest study we might not know about lifetime immunity, but tittering would reveal the answer for your dog.  You can see the results of his and Dodds’ research in my article  2020 Rabies Vaccine Study – How Long Does the Shot REALLY Last??? 

 

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Prior to Dr. Schultz’s research, the Rabies vaccine was recommended annually by the American Animal Hospital Association (AAHA).  Due to Dr. Schultz PhD Dipl ACVIM ’s work, the recommendation for Rabies re-vaccination has been revised to every 3 years.  Dr. Schultz has found that Rabies vaccines can be effective for between 3 to 7 years.  It is unsure when immunity takes effect in puppies.  It can vary from puppy to puppy.  Sometimes the vaccines reach a full working level sooner than others depending on the dog and the vaccine.  This an important reason for vets to administer antibody titer tests (I will go over that later in the article).

The rabies vaccines are required, but laws differ from state to state. Unfortunately, the governing bodies that create and enforce these regulations are not immunologists so they don’t they are forcing pet owners to vaccinate inappropriately. I wonder if pharmaceutical corporations have anything to do with that. Vaccines contain such ingredients as aluminum, thimerosal (a form of mercury), MSG, formaldehyde, and other dangerous toxins.  There are rabies vaccines available that are mercury-free. Ask your vet for a thimerosal-free (mercury-free and aluminum-free) vaccines. Merial makes thimerosal-free rabies vaccines: IMRAB® 1 TF and IMRAB® 3 TF. Make sure you see “TF” on the label. I would question a vet who doesn’t have this vaccine when it is available and less toxic than the original vaccines. It’s a question of education and ethics.

Despite the clear scientific proof that vaccines last longer than most vets are telling us.  A couple of great articles that explain this are  Despite the Law, Here’s Proof Your Pet Probably Doesn’t Need This Vaccine and Does Your Pet Really Need That Rabies Shot?

The Lyme Disease vaccine only protects against Lyme-carrying ticks which are only an issue if you are located in regions where this particular tick live.  Do dogs outside of those regions really need this vaccine?

Dogs usually don’t require vaccination for Kennel Cough unless they are coming from crowded, enclosed, poorly ventilated places like many breeding kennels where the likelihood of infection would be higher due to those conditions.

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Some Research About Annual Vaccinations:

In his website, Vital Animals and the Natural Path, William Falconer states: “The following was printed in Current Veterinary Therapy, Volume XI, published in 1992 (this is a very well-respected, peer-reviewed textbook that is updated every four years). The authors are veterinary immunologists Ronald Schultz (University of Wisconsin) and Tom Phillips (Scrips Research Institute).”

“‘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…’”

Most conventional vets are not following the newer vaccine protocols that were published in 2011!  To see those protocols, read Good News About the Latest Canine Vaccination Guidelines.

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With regard to annual vaccinations a veterinary textbook called, Kirk’s Current Veterinary Therapy XI (Small Animal Practice) states “A practice that was started many years ago and that lacks scientific validity or verification is annual revaccinations. Almost without exception, there is no immunologic requirement for annual revaccination.”

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Shocking Information About 1-Year vs 3-Year Rabies Vaccines:

There is NO difference except for the label.  When the vaccines were compared in the lab, their content was IDENTICAL!!!  The one-year vaccine was only studied for the duration of one year; the study did not continue until it lost its efficacy.  The same with the 3-year.  Funding these studies are very difficult because the pharmaceutical companies (and the vets) have a lot to lose.

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Rabies Challenge Fund:

The Rabies Challenge Fund supports vaccine research without the influence of pharmaceutical corporations who create the vaccines.  Dr. Jean Dodds serves as the Co-Trustee of the Fund and supervises the project. Dr. Dodds is a world-renowned veterinary research scientist specializing in hematology, immunology, endocrinology.  Dr. Dodds has done extensive work alongside with Dr. Schultz for the Rabies Challenge Fund.  The goal of this project is to extend the Rabies re-vaccination schedule from the current 3 years (which many vets are still unaware of) to 5 years and eventually to 7 years and on and on.  Together they are finding that the antibodies are active for a much longer time than our traditional vets are informing us.

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So what are some side effects of vaccinations?

*Autoimmune Diseases
*Behavioral Changes such as aggression and separation anxiety
*Obsessive behavior, self-mutilation, tail chewing
*Pica – eating wood, stones, earth, stool
*Destructive behavior, shredding bedding
*Various types of abscesses and growths by vaccination site
*Hives
*Vitiligo
*Facial swelling
*Weight loss
*Allergic hypersensitivity
*Respiratory disease
*Muscular weakness and or atrophy & lameness
*Eye diseases
*Injection-site sarcomas (cancer)
*Kidney disease
*Arthritis
*Encephalitis
*Seizures & epilepsy
*Bone disease
*Anemia
*Infertility
*Blood disorders
*Thyroid disease
*Anaphylaxis
*Inflammation of the heart
*Chronic digestive problems
*Autoimmune diseases such as those affecting bone marrow and blood cells, joints, eyes, skin, kidney, liver, bowel and central nervous system

How come vets don’t warn us about this?  How come vets don’t identify these symptoms when they are present?

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Why are these vets following old procedures? 

Here are some of my guesses:

1.  The cost of vaccine serums are extremely cheap.  Vets make a fortune of money from administering these vaccines year after year.

2.  Testing is much more expensive than vaccinating so vets wouldn’t profit as much.

3.  The testing is more complex.  When puppies are tested, each vaccine requires a different amount of time to become effective.  In other words, tests would need to be administered at different times for puppies to find out the onset of an immune response.  This is time-consuming.

4.  Traditional vets are just not keeping up with the research.  For example, the same vaccines are given to a 2-pound dog as a 200-pound human.  Studies have shown that administering a fraction of the vaccine to a tiny dog has the same effect as administering the entire dose.  The difference is that the smaller dose is not as overwhelming or toxic as the dose for a 200-pound person.

5.  It used to be the case that very few labs perform the diagnostic testing for titer tests.  Those labs were associated with veterinary schools.  The actual testing of the blood is usually mailed to the lab.  Although there are products that can be used at a veterinary office my guess that most vets are unaware that these products exist or they would prefer to just profit from administering the vaccines.

What infuriates me is that vets can administer tests called antibody titers.  TiterCHEK and VacciCheck are two diagnostic test options that doctors can administer that measure the presence of disease antibodies in an animal’s blood.  They are not designed to analyze for rabies antibodies so the blood needs to be sent to an outside lab.  These diagnostic kits are designed for on-site testing at the veterinary facility; there is no need to work with outside labs for analysis for some other diseases.  If vets genuinely care about our pets as they claim they do, why are they negligent in educating us about this?  There are vets out there who are still administering rabies vaccinations on an annual basis.  Those vets are probably unaware that the vaccination schedule has been changed in 2011.  Some states require the vaccinations, but that is another issue.  There are ways to get around that if vets were genuinely concerned.  Many vets send out notifications to their clients advising them to come in to have their dogs vaccinated in order to keep them healthy.  This implies that foregoing vaccinations would put a pet’s health in jeopardy.

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Ronald Schultz’s Chart – Minimum Duration of Immunity for Canine Vaccines
Vaccine	Minimum Duration of Immunity	Methods Used to Determine Immunity
CORE VACCINES
Canine Distemper Virus (CDV)  Rock born Strain	7 yrs/15 yrs	challenge/serology
Canine Distemper Virus (CDV) Onderstepoort Strain	5 yrs/9 yrs	challenge/serology
Canine Distemper Virus (CDV) Canarypox Vectored rCDV	3 yrs/4 yrs	challenge/serology
Canine Adenovirus-2 (CAV -2)	7 yrs/9 yrs	challenge-CAV-l/serology
Canine Parvovirus-2 (CPV -2)	7 yrs/10 yrs	challenge/serology
Canine Rabies	3 yrs/5 yrs	challenge/serology

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That was just the core vaccines.  We must be more critical of practitioners and ask more questions.  Many vets don’t even offer titer tests.

Although the video is relatively long, I believe that it is essential for vets and pet owners to view.  It is an interview with Dr. Karen Becker who is a veterinarian who is trained in both traditional veterinary medicine as well as veterinary holistic medicine.  She strives to educate pet owners about healthcare.

To detox from vaccines, you can administer homeopathic remedies.  There are various products for vaccine detox.  It is important to clear out those toxins that have been unscrupulously administered to you dog for the purpose of cashing in at the expense of destroying the immune system, injecting known carcinogens, causing allergies, lumps & bumps, cancer, and a multitude of other disorders.  Three products that I would recommend include:

• Vaccine Detox 
• Vaccine Detox Advanced Kit
• Vaccine Detox Optimal Kit – I used this one for my dogs
  

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Find out about what vaccines are necessary and when they should be administered.  This information comes from the research of Dr. Ronald Schultz.  Read more:  Vaccines 101.  Another excellent article about vaccines is The Simple Guide to Titer Testing Dogs.  A great article was written in 2009 (prior to the AHAA guidelines in 2011) is called Over-Vaccination of Pets – An Unethical Practice.  Despite knowledge for years about the duration of vaccines and despite the excessive recommendations by the AHAA, most vets continue to abuse vaccines.  There is extensive proof of this abuse and the damage that over-vaccination is causing.  See more overwhelming evidence in Over-vaccination of Dogs with Parvo and other Vaccines Remains Prevalent Practice.  Another VERY comprehensive article is 65 Ways Rabies Vaccination Can Harm Your Dog (by Dr. Patricia Jordan) – the latter article has images which might be disturbing.

Please check out my article Vets Cash in on Vaccines.

 

Sources:

“2011 AAHA Canine Vaccination Guidelines.” American Animal Hospital Association. American Animal Hospital Association, Sept./Oct. 2011. Web. 20 Aug. 2015. <https://www.aaha.org/public_documents/professional/guidelines/caninevaccineguidelines.pdf>.

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Falconer, William. “Pet Vaccination Efficacy: Are All These Shots Working?” Vital Animal & The Natural Path. Dr. William Falconer, 20 July 2014. Web. 13 Feb. 2015. <http://vitalanimal.com/vacc-efficacy/>.

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Kirk, Robert Warren, John D. Bonagura, and Carl A. Osborne. Current Veterinary Therapy XI: Small Animal Practice. Philadelphia: Saunders, 1992. Print. p. 205

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Rasmusen, Jan. “Rabies Vaccination: Important Things You Need to Know.” Truth4Dogs. Jan Rasmusen, 16 Dec. 2014. Web. 27 Dec. 2014. <http://www.dogs4dogs.com/blog/2010/09/23/rabies-vaccination-12-ways-to-vaccinate-more-safely/>.

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Schultz, Ronald D.. “Duration of immunity for canine and feline vaccines: A review.” Veterinary Microbiology 117.1 (2006): 75-79. Print.Rodier, Lisa. “Vaccines 101.” Whole Dog Journal. Aug. 2008. Web. 13 Feb. 2015. <http://www.abrl.org/files/vaccinesWDJ0808.pdf>.

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Schultz, Ronald. “What Everyone Needs to Know About Canine Vaccines.” What Everyone Needs to Know About Canine Vaccines. Puli Club of America, n.d. Web. 08 June 2016<http://www.puliclub.org/chf/akc2007conf/what%20everyone%20needs%20to%20know%20about%20canine%20vaccines.htm>.

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