Safety (Is It Free of Harm?)
Have you ever wondered why you get a reminder
every year to revaccinate your pet when your physician never prompts
you to do the same for your family or yourself? I'd like you to
question the notion that we need this frequent vaccinating, and go a
step further and listen to some evidence that this practice may
actually be harmful to our four-footed friends.
If someone, even someone in a white coat, suggests
that you take a drug or get injected with some substance, two logical
questions ought to immediately arise in your mind:
1. Is this beneficial to me (or does this work as intended)?
2. Is this safe?
If we ask these two questions about annual revaccination of
animals, and we ask the right people, we'll get a negative answer to
both. We've already covered the first question in
Part I: efficacy of annual revaccination is clearly lacking
according to immunologists. A more important question is the safety
issue, as a growing body of evidence mounts showing a correlation
between vaccinations and chronic disease.
The chronic diseases have many names, including arthritis, hypo- or
hyperthyroidism, allergies, asthma, inflammatory bowel disease,
repeated ear infections, skin disease, heart disease, diabetes, kidney
failure, and cancer. What makes them nightmarish is that they linger,
they are not easily cured, and they are slowly, progressively
degenerative, meaning the patient declines in health over the time
they are present. The best that conventional medicine can do with
chronic disease is to control symptoms through suppressive therapies.
This is fraught with problems, including side effects from the drugs,
and apparently "new," more serious diseases arising from the continued
course of suppression. So, our greatest goal as animal caretakers
should be to prevent chronic disease in the first place.
The onset of chronic disease after vaccination is often delayed,
coming about 1-2 months afterwards. This is not close enough for
conventional medical minds to appreciate the correlation, but it's
there nonetheless. The evidence of this comes from both anecdotal
sources and research studies.
A British veterinarian has, for the last 10-12 years, asked those
clients who present him with an itchy, allergic dog, "When did this
itchiness begin?" The response is striking. Some 75% remember clearly:
it began within 1-2 months of the "puppy shots." Anecdotal evidence in
human medicine is pointing to a cause and effect relationship between
childhood vaccines and autism. There has been a marked increase in
incidence of this devastating disease that parallels the increased
number of vaccinations now required of children. The interval between
vaccination and disease? About one month.
In a research study published in 1996, the authors looked at a
deadly canine disease of a confused immune system. Known as
immune-mediated hemolytic anemia (IMHA), it means the dogs' immune
systems attacked their own red blood cells as if they were foreign.
Needless to say, this is life-challenging and the death rate is high,
as one cannot live long without the oxygen-carrying red blood cells.
In the study, 58 dogs with the illness, presenting at a veterinary
teaching hospital over a two year period, were compared to a control
group presenting for other problems over the same time. The question
was asked, "Did anything precede the onset of IMHA?" Lo and behold, a
highly statistically significant group of the sick dogs had been
vaccinated with the usual yearly vaccines one month earlier. It was so
significant that the authors entitled their paper, "Vaccine-Associated
Immune-Mediated Hemolytic Anemia in the Dog." (Duval and Giger, J Vet
Intern Med 1996;10:290-295)
In cats, researchers have known for the last ten years about the
correlation between vaccines and a malignant tumor. This particular
tumor arises where the vaccines are commonly given, in the area of
loose skin at the back of the neck, or in the back of the hind leg. It
appears to be uniformly fatal, even with extensive surgery. And it has
been clearly associated with two particular vaccines, rabies and
feline leukemia. Finally, in 2000, recognizing the clear cause and
effect relationship between vaccination and this cancer, the disease
was renamed by the research community. It is now officially called
Vaccine-Associated Sarcoma.
In the early days of homeopathic veterinary practice, a number of
us would see something we would later call the "vaccinosis
phenomenon." It was instructive to us as to just how significant an
impact vaccinations had had on our animal patients. We would be
presented with a chronically ill animal, and after carefully choosing
and giving the appropriate homeopathic remedy, we'd be met with
disappointing results. A second or third prescription would be made
with similar dismal responses from the patient. Finally, we'd go back
to the owner and ask about vaccinations. Inevitably the patient was
vaccinated. "Whenever we got the reminder postcard, we went in for the
shots." Then we would reanalyze the case in light of this knowledge,
and look at remedies that were particularly noted to have been
applicable in illness that arose after vaccination. When we'd
prescribe again with a "vaccinosis" remedy, the results were often
startling. Not only would the disease symptoms lessen by 50% or more,
but the patient would start acting more normally. The dog who was
hyperactive would settle down and pay attention, the angry cat would
become a lover again, or the animal terrified of visitors would come
out and say hello. The owners were so impressed with the changes that
they would often call before the next appointment to tell us how great
things were going!
The inference we have made from this experience, repeated over and
over in different parts of the country in different practitioners'
hands, is simple: vaccinations are responsible for a significant
portion of the illness we see in the patients with chronic disease.
The veterinary profession slowly continues to evaluate this
practice of vaccinating annually. In 2000, the American Association of
Feline Practitioners came out with an official statement against
annual vaccination in the cat. They based this position on research
from Cornell where kittens, vaccinated once, measured seven years
later still showing evidence of immunity from those vaccines. Quite
frankly though, I don¹t think we can afford to wait for the whole
profession to catch up. Our animals are at risk to become chronically
ill if we continue this baseless practice of annual revaccination.
And, years from now when we look back incredulously at how such a
practice was ever thought to be wise, wouldn't it be nice to be able
to smile and pat your healthy twenty-something pet and say, "We knew.
We stopped. That's why you're still here."
Read Part I
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