Vaccinating Your Pets – What You Should Know Part 4

Article posted with permission from the author, Suzanne Hamner.

If you have been reading this series on vaccinating your pets (Read parts 1, 2, & 3), there has been a lot of information dispensed about rabies, other illnesses for which vets vaccinate, core and non-core vaccines, some adverse events, and immunity. Now, a look at vaccine adverse events in animals, why vets are not recognizing adverse events, and the reason(s) for over-vaccination.

Vaccine reactions in dogs can mimic the disease for which the dog was vaccinated against. Giving a distemper vaccine can produce chronic disease and pathologies that “mimic” distemper. It’s the same with all animal vaccines. Symptoms often seen in chronic canine illness include “chronic runny eyes and conjunctivitis (tear stains in dogs, dry eye, chronic eye allergies); chronic vomiting, diarrhea, appetite issues; emaciation; pancreatitis, inflammatory bowel disease, GI lymphoma;  chronic spasms and seizures (epilepsy, brain tumors); skin eruptions and swelling of feet and red feet pads; itching from lifelong skin allergies; and eruptions around the mouth (seen in lip fold dermatitis).  That is, adverse reactions from vaccination may mimic symptoms of the very disease the vaccine was meant to prevent.  Reactions may occur immediately or months or even years later.”

Other symptoms indicative of an adverse event reaction to vaccines given to your animal can be “reverse sneezing”; increased mounting by neutered pets (can occur in spayed females as well); changes in behavior – aggression, unusual fears, suspicion, tail chasing; chronic coughing; and chronic skin allergies and diseases to name a few. Some of these can lead to very serious chronic illnesses such as kidney disease, liver disease, heart disease, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). As we have seen previously, some vaccines can result in the development of tumors and cancers in animals.

• Activate Your Own Stem Cells & Reverse The Aging Process – Choose “Select & Save” OR Join, Brand Partner & Select Silver To Get Wholesale Prices
• Get your Vitamin B17 & Get 10% Off With Promo Code TIM
• How To Protect Yourself From 5G, EMF & RF Radiation
• Protect Your Income & Retirement Assets With Gold & Silver
• Grab This Bucket Of Heirloom Seeds & Get Free Shipping With Promo Code TIM
• Here’s A Way You Can Stockpile Food For The Future
• Stockpile Your Ammo & Save $15 On Your First Order
• Preparing Also Means Detoxifying – Here’s One Simple Way To Detoxify

Vaccination can also cause autoimmune diseases, eczema, and yeast infections. The skin reactions that occur are not always acute and may take weeks or months to develop. This is a delayed reaction. “Your dog’s body, and particularly her immune system, is very complex and sensitive. It’s evolved to be able to react to pathogens in such a way that most dogs in a population survive even dangerous, deadly diseases like parvovirus.”

You can read about a dog’s immune system and response here.

It is important to understand the work of Dr. Ronald Schultz in order to prevent vaccine adverse events and injury to our furry family members. The term used for vaccine adverse events and injury in animals is vaccinosis. Based on the research by Dr. Schultz, many adverse reactions were identified.

Common reactions – lethargy, soreness, stiffness, conjunctivitis, hair loss, hair color change at the injection site, sneezing, refusal to eat, fever, and oral ulcers.

Moderate reactions – immunosuppression, lameness, respiratory disease, behavioral changes, granulomas/abscesses, allergic uveitis (blue eye), vitiligo, hives, reduced milk production (maternal), weight loss, facial edema, and atopy.

Severe reactions – vaccine injection site sarcomas, anaphylaxis, hemolytic disease of the newborn, myocarditis, arthritis/polyarthritis, thyroiditis, post-vaccinal encephalitis, polyneuritis, glomerulonephritis, seizure, and a host of others that those of us who are not veterinarians would not even know.

“Dog vaccines must be given only when necessary. Every vaccine has the potential to kill the patient or create debilitating chronic diseases including cancer and allergies.”

Dr Schultz summarizes his 40-plus 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.”

But the problem is, many vets are ignoring this research. If your vet is vaccinating your dog every year – or even every three years – he’s vaccinating too much! Your dog is already protected by vaccines he’s had as a young dog … and any additional vaccine will give him all of the risk with no benefit.

From all the research completed, it appears that over-vaccination is resulting in many of our furry family members suffering from chronic diseases and illnesses. As we know, any initial vaccine can cause injury, but repeatedly vaccinating yearly or every three years with these vaccines when our four-legged friends are already immune from earlier vaccinations (if you choose to vaccinate at all) exposes them to an increased risk of injury. It cannot be repeated enough that the research by Dr. Ronald Schultz, THE expert in immunology in animals, has indicated our furry family members obtain long-lasting immunity, more than likely a lifetime immunity, from vaccines given to animals after 16 weeks of age.

Why are our vets not recognizing over-vaccination as a problem? Why are vets not recognizing these illnesses, diseases, and health issues as vaccine adverse events? The answers to these two questions are multi-faceted and are in no way meant to disparage vets. It is common observations by veterinarians who practice holistic, homeopathic, naturopathic medicine where animals are involved.

Over-vaccination has been occurring as a common practice in veterinary medicine for quite some time. Some of it has to do with veterinary medicine education. As research has indicated, vets do not understand immunology and veterinary schools are not teaching the true nature of vaccines. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Vets are taught vaccines are safe and studies were conducted on the vaccines before presenting to the public. The harmful effects of vaccines on the immune system are not taught. Vaccination is skimmed over in vet school.

Not surprisingly, veterinary medicine schools are aligned with the pharmaceutical companies, meaning the curriculum will be “pro-vaccine” without any attention to risks or adverse events those vaccines could cause.

Back in the 1970s, dogs were only vaccinated for one or two diseases. Today, there are vaccines for adenovirus, parainfluenza, bordetella, Lyme disease, leptospirosis, hepatitis, rabies, canine flu, coronavirus – and there are more and more every year. Nowadays, dogs and puppies are often vaccinated with seven or more viruses at the same time.

In the 1970s, all vaccines, with the exception of rabies vaccines, were tested for only a few weeks to a few months. So all the vaccine labels just said ‘‘Annual Revaccination Recommended’’ because nobody spent the time or money to figure out how long they would actually protect dogs. So vets vaccinated dogs every year, even though field observation suggested that immunity after both natural infection and vaccination was long lived.

Dr. Schultz suggested over-vaccination of animals has to do with money.

“Profits are what vaccine critics believe is at the root of the profession’s resistance to update its protocols” says Schultz.

“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. 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.”

Dr. Schultz published his work in 1978 – An Ideal (But Not Proven) Immunization Schedule for Dogs and Cats! The recommendation was a series of vaccinations for puppies and kittens, followed by a one-year vaccination, then only vaccinate every three years. His research has since shown animals obtain years-long often lifetime immunity. Despite this published study in 1978 and his continued research, it took the American Animal Hospital Association (AAHA) until 2003 to change the guidelines to vaccination every three years. This coincided with the 100s of vaccines that became available to vets.

In 2011, the AAHA updated its guidelines based on the research of Dr. Schultz indicating over-vaccination was causing chronic health conditions and cancers. The AAHA official guidance on distemper, hepatitis, and parvovirus (core vaccines) is “all commercially available [core] vaccines are expected to induce a sustained protective immune response lasting at least 5 yr.” Despite these recommendations by the AAHA and the American Veterinary Medicine Association (AVMA), vets are not required to follow these recommendations. It is left to the vet to determine the vaccination frequency for your furry family member. Moreover, State and local laws involving rabies vaccinations have NOT taken into consideration the results of Dr. Schultz’s research.

As mentioned previously, this over-vaccination could be money-driven. Vaccine prices vary by veterinarian and can be a hefty addition to the yearly annual visit cost. Remember, the “core vaccines” are usually combination vaccines of five to seven “viral/bacterial” components depending on what the vet uses in his practice.

If vets are not recognizing over-vaccination as a problem – one reason being education, then it stands to reason they would not recognize vaccine adverse events due to vaccine adverse events being left out of their curriculum.

Just like medical doctors, vets may not recognize vaccine adverse events because “they don’t see it”. This could be because animals suffering vaccine reactions are often seen at emergency clinics and/or specialists and it isn’t reported back to the primary vet. Vaccine reactions may not facilitate a visit to an emergency clinic or specialists – think itching (pruritis), skin problems, gastrointestinal issues, non-aggressive behavioral issues, etc. Then, when pet parents inform the vet of this issues, the question of vaccine injury is usually not considered.

Most education on vaccines are provided to vets by the pharmaceutical company.

Most continuing education is done by drug company representatives calling on veterinary practices — to sell vaccines.  Their message is that vaccines are safe and reactions are extremely rare. Vets buy the products and the message. Despite studies showing that each additional vaccine given during one visit dramatically increases the chance of an adverse reaction, reps peddle products with as many as 7 vaccines to be given at once — with no warnings.  Hear safety claims enough and the claims become the truth, true or not.

Other reasons vets are not recognizing vaccine injuries are they don’t want the blame for causing an injury; they worry they may have done something wrong; they lack the education to treat vaccine injuries; they might have failed to get “informed consent” before vaccinating your furry family member; and, because it is a big part of their business, they have to believe vaccines are safe.

All of these factors culminate together to produce the problem of over-vaccination of animals. Remember, vaccines are only to be given to “healthy animals”. With vets not recognizing vaccine injuries, animals can be determined “healthy” to receive additional vaccines, injuries can be slotted into other temporary health issues, and/or injuries can be determined as a “genetic predisposition.” But, would not any ongoing health issue – skin issues, joint issues, gastrointestinal issues, allergies, etc. – designate the animal to be “unhealthy” to receive a vaccine?

The pharmaceutical companies play a large role in this over-vaccination issue. Dr. John Virapen worked in the pharmaceutical industry for over 35 years. In fact, he was the general manager for Eli Lilly & Company.

Dr. Virapen said, “There are numerous opportunities for pharmaceutical companies to corrupt the marketing of animal medicine because nobody really checks them. These people make a lot of money because nobody questions them and the animals get the short end of the stick. Vets can do whatever they want without fear of malpractice suits because dogs are property and their value is insufficient to be much of a threat.”

These drug makers work extremely hard to push medication for pets.

When IndyStar reporter John Russell attended the 2013 American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) convention, he felt compelled to talk about the how drug makers were working extremely hard to push pet medicines:

“On the main floor of the convention, hundreds of veterinarians and technicians stood in a line that stretched to the far wall to enjoy a free lunch and hear from a world-class researcher on fleas.” 

During that lunch, people were treated to a speech from a rep from Merck Animal Health, then offered a chance to win a book on animal parasites.

Then Dr Michael Dryden took the stage. Dryden is a professor of veterinary parasitology at Kansas State University. And his talk was about flea control. But he wasn’t an impartial speaker. According to Russell:

“Dryden talked for more than a half-hour on how fleas nest and lay eggs in a pet’s fur. Then he listed the benefits of Merck’s Activyl — how the active ingredient blocks insect nerve impulse transmission, which halts insect feeding “and causes irreversible convulsions, paralysis and death” to the fleas.”

But this wasn’t about informing the masses for the good of our pets. Merck paid Dryden $56,705 to conduct research on the effectiveness of Activyl.  And his research at Kansas State received over $5 million in industry funding. That, to us, seems like the exact opposite of impartial.

Not surprisingly, pharmaceutical companies can legally refuse to talk about payments to vets. Pharmaceutical companies’ focus on pet medicines results in billions of dollars of revenue because it is faster, easier, and cheaper to get Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval for pet medicines. Pharma works with media through “seeding” campaigns and with vets in large practices to determine “target animals”.

The markup in pet medicines at veterinary clinics can be as high as 200% and these can account for about 15 – 30% of the clinic revenue, contributing to the problem.

In the last part of the series, actions that pet parents can take to help prevent over-vaccination, help avert adverse vaccine events, seek treatment for suspected vaccinosis, and promote more healthy furry family members.

Resources:

https://www.dogsnaturallymagazine.com/whats-in-your-dogs-vaccine/

https://www.dogsnaturallymagazine.com/what-do-we-really-know-about-pet-vaccines/

https://www.dogsnaturallymagazine.com/vaccination-reactions-can-mimic-disease-symptoms/

https://www.dogsnaturallymagazine.com/mystery-ingredients-in-dog-vaccines/

https://www.dogsnaturallymagazine.com/65-ways-rabies-vaccination-can-harm-your-dog/

https://www.dogsnaturallymagazine.com/the-rabies-threat/

https://www.dogsnaturallymagazine.com/the-big-scam-rabies-vaccination/

https://www.dogsnaturallymagazine.com/annual-dog-vaccines-are-they-necessary/

https://www.dogsnaturallymagazine.com/why-vets-are-getting-away-with-murder/

https://www.dogsnaturallymagazine.com/what-every-vet-should-know-about-vaccines/

https://www.dogsnaturallymagazine.com/vaccinations-skin-disease/

https://www.dogsnaturallymagazine.com/which-dog-vaccines-are-necessary/

https://www.dogsnaturallymagazine.com/lifelong-immunity-vets/

https://www.dogsnaturallymagazine.com/why-vets-dont-recognize-vaccine-reactions/

https://www.dogsnaturallymagazine.com/why-drug-makers-are-targeting-your-pet/

https://www.dogsnaturallymagazine.com/combination-shots-for-dogs-weapons-of-over-vaccination/

https://www.dogsnaturallymagazine.com/rabies-vaccine-labeling/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9634432/

https://www.cdc.gov/rabies/location/usa/surveillance/human_rabies.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9hXKeX1Axc

https://www.avma.org/javma-news/2019-05-15/schultz-honored-immunology-research

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1Xd5ghnlJ4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oroUkSsZ8-s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tghhWzD0ym8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1j4ZGfAJ2Jk

https://s3.amazonaws.com/dogsnaturally/Core+vs+Non+Core+Vaccines-DNM.pdf

https://s3.amazonaws.com/dogsnaturally/Vaccines-DNM.pdf

https://www.dogsnaturallymagazine.com/vaccination-reactions-can-mimic-disease-symptoms/

https://www.dogsnaturallymagazine.com/vet-distemper-dog/

https://www.dogsnaturallymagazine.com/dangerous-over-vaccination-of-dogs-is-alive-and-well-in-the-us/

Article posted with permission from Sons of Liberty Media