Vaccination- Friend or Foe? by DogtorJ
I will be honest with you. This is going to be totally off the cuff. I have been bombarded by questions concerning the safety of vaccines and have been answering numerous Emails that have been asking my opinion on this vital topic. I am not complaining, mind you. I have been more than happy to write these dissertations to those in need, but it has come time to write one that all of you can refer to collectively. Hopefully, this will stimulate both the reader and the pundits (I love that word. You hear it a lot on news stations) into addressing the real issues at hand. This vital concern also illustrates many of the medical principles that I lay out in my writing, especially in The Answer, so I have an ulterior motive for taking this one on as well.
The issue at hand is whether we are administering vaccines too frequently to our pets (and to ourselves). The simple answer is "Yes, we are." But, is it really that simple? I certainly believe that if it has been proven that immunity from vaccines lasts much longer than the intervals at which they are administered, then we should lengthen those intervals. Who can really argue with that? Well, we know who can argue with that but I promise that I will try not to make a moral issue out of this topic. But sometimes, it is hard not to mention things like greed when we know that the money is the object of so many desires. (There. I managed to get by without saying that it was the root of all evil, didnt I?)
The fact is that studies have now shown that some vaccinations do last longer than the current recommended intervals. The newest guidelines and formal changes are forthcoming, much to the chagrin of your local veterinarian.
At this point, let me state something I feel is very important. If the consumer is met with any resistance on this topic by their local veterinarian, it does not automatically mean that they are a money-grubbing, no good scoundrel. Most people really do not understand the economics of a veterinary hospital and think that we are making money hand over fist like our human counterparts. Hey, look at our cars and come to our houses. Do they look like your surgeon's or your internist's? How many vets do you know that have a vacation home at the beach and travel abroad once or twice per year? So, we really do need to get something straight here. Veterinarians have a very different economic structure, and the first clue should be that $30 office call or that charge of a little over a hundred dollars for a total ovariohysterectomy. I'd like to see a human doctor come within $5000 dollars of that cost. Point made?
The fact is that veterinarians have desperately needed the income from vaccination programs in order to survive while providing relatively low-cost care for the multitudes of pets out there. Many of the same people who complain about the cost of vaccinations and veterinary care are the first to pick up stray pets they find injured or crossing the street and bring them to their "overcharging vet" so that they will treat it and house it for free. Although most of us want to help as much as we can in this regard, this honestly does not always fit into our usually tight budget. Also, we must be the only business on the planet that will allow people to run up a large bill and walk out without so much as a credit check in order to demonstrate how much we care about animals (which the vast majority of us honestly DO). So, please excuse me for stepping out of character for just a moment, but this idea fits right in with most of the other concepts about which I write: things are not always what they seem. Our overhead is tremendous and our bottom line is nowhere near the level of prosperity that most clients think. So, if your veterinarian does not take this change totally in stride, please cut him or her a little slack. It may actually mean the difference between success or failure.
Enough said.... almost. The veterinary client should be ready for the cost of other services to possibly rise as veterinarians scramble to stay afloat during this transition. I believe that you will witness a number of hospital closings as a result of this vaccine trend. Many veterinarians will be forced to join forces, combining hospitals in a way that we probably should have done years ago. We pay a dear, dear price for autonomy, operating fully-equipped hospitals rather than sharing resources like a "real" hospital. Veterinary clients are very likely to be forced into just what I hear the most complaints about: multi-man practices in which the client is fortunate to see the same vet twice. Get ready for this. It is probably on its way.
This sounds like sour grapes but it is not. These are just the facts and I feel it is important to tell the Truth, the whole Truth, and try your best to tell nothing but the Truth. The last part is the hardest, isn't it? I spend a lot of my time uncovering and remedying the "ignorance" of the medical professions, including my own lack of knowledge. (Ignorance sounds like such a horrible word, but it really simply means unknowing, unaware, or uninformed. There is much of which we are all ignorant. We have simply ruined a perfectly good word by over-using it in a slanderous way.)
So, what are we ignorant of in this vaccination issue? (I'll get off my high horse and get to the issue, I guess.) I believe the answer lies in the nature of the vaccines that we use and have used for years and years. Yes, we have made improvements in the vaccines but we have excluded one of the most important improvements of all, especially in the canine vaccines.
Let me start with a historical reference. When I graduated from veterinary school twenty-four years ago, we were administering a modified-live rabies vaccine. This type of vaccine is one that has been attenuated...made less infectious...so that it stimulates immunity without causing the actual disease. The vaccine then contains virus particles that are alive but have been changed in the laboratory so as not to cause the disease itself while conferring immunity to that disease.
As most of you know, the other vaccine type is a killed vaccine. This is one in which, as the name implies, all of the virus particles have been killed so that it would (hopefully) be impossible to contract the disease from the vaccine itself. Historically, the killed vaccines have not been able to induce as strong of a response or as long of immunity as the modified live vaccines. This just speaks to the way in which our immune system works.
But...BUT...recent technology has shown us that killed vaccines can be very effective in producing immunity while lowering the risk of long-term side effects. Short-term side effects like fever and malaise can be greater with the killed vaccines, but what we are all concerned about now is the long-term consequences of vaccination. Those will be covered in depth in a moment.
Let's get back to our old modified-live rabies vaccine. Why did we abandon that vaccine a good while back and begin using a killed vaccine? Because some animals that received that vaccine actually came down with rabies, especially cats!!! Oh, oh. Yes, in some cases (fortunately not many), the vaccine actually induced rabies. Clearly, the attenuation process was not fail-safe. This is also true of the distemper vaccine in the dog. Occasionally, we will see a dog that develops vaccine-induced distemper. This is a well-known fact.
So, what am I saying here? It is obvious that the attenuation process does not protect us from the possibility that there are virulent viruses in that vaccine that may actually cause the disease. But, more importantly...and be sure that you get this...we cannot be sure that some of these viruses do not escape the immune system's valiant attempt to deal with these live viruses and become latent in the tissues that they would normally inhabit.
Be not ignorant of this one thing.... THIS is the crux of the matter, dear reader. Take a moment and ponder this thought. Viruses are the enemy in most medical cases. They are the little "terrorists" that induce so many of the chronic problems from which man and his pets suffer, including cancer. We are slowly waking up to the fact that more and more cancers are induced by viruses, and many believe (including myself) that they are vitally involved in most immune-mediated diseases. Those of you who have read The Answer know my theories on their action. Those who have not read them may want to after reading this little dissertation.
I state in The Answer that we need to realize that we are walking "virus hotels", housing numerous latent viruses that we have acquired over the years, either naturally or through volunteering for them in the form of vaccines. The concept of latent viruses is critical for the reader to understand (I know use that word a lot, but these are critical issues). A latent virus is one that we acquire at some point in our life and which lays dormant for a period of time only to become active later and cause other problems. The varicella virus that causes chicken pox best illustrates this. After having this childhood disease, this virus...this terrorist...slips away into nerve roots and remains inactive for years. It is an opportunist and waits until the immune system of the host is weakened enough to allow its reactivation...its escape. When this occurs, the host suffers from what we call shingles, a painful condition involving the affected (infected) nerves. I now use the age at which this re-immergence occurs to categorize just how unhealthy the victim is in most cases. We can expect shingles to occur in the elderly, immune-suppressed, or the critically ill. But, we should not see this condition in 19 year-olds, should we? When this happens, I want to run to their parents and shake them to awaken them to the fact that this young person is in potentially serious trouble if they cannot keep this virus at bay longer than that. Wow!
Another example of viral latency is Epstein-Barr. This is the virus that causes mononucleosis. According to the medical literature, 50% of our children have E-B virus in them by age 5. The rest of us are likely to acquire this terrorist when we are in our teenage years. It has been linked (and rightfully so) to chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia. You can read about them in my Appetizers section as well as in The Answer. The bad news is that this virus has also been tied to two forms of leukemia and a form of lymphoma. Oh, oh.
So, do you get the picture here? These are just two examples of latent viruses that inhabit our body. How did they get there? How could this happen? Aren't our immune systems and that of our pet more efficient than that? Weren't we made better than that? "I'll tell you", "I'll tell you", "used to be", and "yes" are the answers to those questions, in that order.
We've partially answered the first question. These viruses got there by natural entry or infections and also through vaccinations. The real question is "Why didn't we completely eliminate them on entry?" The answer is simple but complex. We didn't let our body do its job. That's the simple part. The complex part is how we handcuffed our immune system while we lived our lives. It was like walking through a minefield without the battery pack to our metal detector being fully charged. It starts out OK, but sooner or later, we run out of juice. Just as importantly, many times we put a cover on that instrument that simply kept it from doing its job. How crazy is that? Let me explain.
You may remember the glaring example of what I mean by this last statement from The Answer. This was the use of fever-reducers to halt a fever caused by a virus. Think about that for a minute. Once again, ponder that thought. Got it? Who in the world came up with that brilliant idea? Who decided that they were smarter than our body and that it was proper to kill our fever's valiant attempt to kill that virus? By doing so, we put all of the pressure on our cellular immunity to handle the invader. The analogy I use is the war in Afghanistan. What if, at the last minute, we called off the air campaign back then? What if we decided not to bomb first but rather opted to just go in and take these guys on the ground? How successful would we have been, especially knowing that these people were dug into caves and scattered all over the countryside? We would still be fighting the primary campaign, we would have had countless casualties, and... get this...many, many more of the enemy would have gotten away. Do you see it? By killing our fever, we are calling off the air campaign and trying to take these viral terrorists on the ground.
Heres the bad news. We just aren't well-equipped enough anymore to do this. There is no doubt that we used to be better at it than we are now. This is reflected in the incidence studies of diseases such as West Nile. Ever year over the past 5 years, the incidence of West Nile has increased as has the death toll. Why? Because we are getting weaker and weaker. Nearly everything has skyrocketed in incidence in the past five years. Start reading medical statistics and you will see that cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, ADHD, autism, asthma, and everything else has risen in such a way that the statisticians no longer compare the incidence of these diseases to those of twenty or thirty years ago but rather to just five or ten years ago. What in the world is going on?
Most of you know my answer. We have crushed our immune systems through having them be overworked and underpaid. We have overloaded them with allergens and pollutants of all types and have handcuffed them through poor nutrition and immunosuppressive medications such NSAIDS and long-term cortisones. I will not go into the malabsorption and malnutrition induced by gluten, casein, and soy in this treatise. It is already getting long enough. But, I would refer the reader to other parts of this site to get the in-depth coverage of this vital aspect of the downward spiral into which we have put the plane of our health. Suffice it to say that by having 70% of our diet be comprised of the number one and number two primary human (and pet) allergens...cow milk and wheat... along with devastating amounts of hydrogenated oils, salt, sugar, and other artificial ingredients, we are unfortunately getting just what we "deserve".
In the pet, the replacement of corn (which was already bad enough) with wheat as the primary ingredient was catastrophic to the health of dogs and cats...absolutely catastrophic. This is one of the most obviously infamous landmarks in veterinary history. It happened during my career and it is so clear that I just want to cry. From that moment on, the pet was in dire straits. Vets spent their lunch hours talking about how the dog's health was going down hill instead of what kind of shape the golf course was in during their last round. I remember this like it was yesterday. And yet, it was about 15 years ago. Since then, it has been a steady downhill trend. We went from a handful of allergic breeds of dogs to the mutt from the pound having serious allergies. Cancer, immune-mediated diseases, musculoskeletal and neurological abnormalities, and the like were rising so fast that our heads were spinning. Studies were launched to study the phenomenon.
So we now come full circle. We are now faced with the results of one of such studies: the role vaccines have played in this pandemic of disease. ("Well, it took long enough", I hear some of you are saying.) The point is that this is not as cut and dried as the reader may have initially thought. I hope that you have gained some insights while reading this paper and have seen exactly where I am headed with this. If not, your waiting is over.
The bottom line? The frequency of vaccines is not the real culprit here. (Before I go on, ask yourself if you had already suspected that from what you have read thus far.) It is more the combination of the type of vaccine that we have used (the modified live virus) and what we have done to our body's ability to handle that vaccine, isnt it? Yes and yes. Certainly, an immune challenge of any type, including a killed vaccine or a certain vaccine diluent or chemical component, could be enough to decompensate a weakened immune system or cause a reaction. BUT, a truly killed vaccine would be incapable of providing us with more terrorists. Similarly, if our immune system was in optimal condition, it would be much more likely to handle the vaccine properly, disposing of the virus while creating immunity.
The fact is that all of the so-called vaccine-related problems have risen sharply over the recent past. We used modified-live vaccines for years and years and didn't have as many problems as we have today. Certainly, there were some because there will always be unhealthy individuals that will stand out in the crowd. Also, the pet foods of yesteryear were corn-based and corn certainly has its share of problems. However, theirs are nowhere near the level of problems associated with wheat, dairy, and soy.
When the reader fully grasps the damage done by these "glue"-containing foods, including corn, then it should be easy for one to see that the immune system of pets (and people) has seriously suffered as a result our dietary choices.
Combining this fact with a better understanding of the concept of latent viruses, we must come to the conclusion that reducing the frequency of vaccines may do little to alter the incidence of serious disease in the pet. In fact, it may do little more than change the face of veterinary economy, as we know it.
Is that why I wrote this article? Is that why I took the chance of turning you off with my opening remarks? Am I simply defending our ability to make money? Absolutely not! If the reader believes that, then they haven't read this article or the rest of the site with their mind fully in gear. Making money is not the issue on this site. Telling what I perceive as the Truth is the issue. And the Truth as I see it is that unless we develop KILLED vaccines for EVERY disease that we vaccinate against, we have done little to ward off the problems associated with vaccines. In lieu of doing that, we must work hard to keep our (and our pet's) immune systems as healthy as possible to handle the challenges that befall us, both naturally and through vaccination.
We have identified the enemy and it is called the virus. We have also identified an accomplice. It is called malnutrition. If we deem that vaccines are unnecessary altogether, then we should drop them like hot rocks. However, if we feel that they are still important to protect us and our beloved pets, then we better make absolutely certain that they are killed before we inject them into their bodies. Because (and I dont mean to be a fatalist here, just a realist) I dont envision the day that we stop doing the all of the bad things that we are doing to our bodies. I have been wheat and dairy free for 2.5 years now and when people hear that, they look at me like I am from Mars OR that my accomplishment means that I have some super-power like invisibility or the ability to fly. It seems so out of reach to most.
With the pet, it is a bit easier. We simply need to stop feeding them the foods that are doing them in and feed them more of what is healthy, like veggies and fruits. Feed and protect the immune system. This can be as simple as picking dogfood B instead of dod food A. Better yet, we can pick dogfood C...the new human-grade raw food diets that are now available. Then, when our pets are given those modified-live vaccines, whether it is annually or every third year or once every millennium, the terrorists in those shots wont get away, hide in caves, and re-emerge when the host's defenses get run down. An even better solution would be to kill all of the offenders in the vaccines before we get them anywhere near our beloved pets. That just makes sense, doesn't it?
DogTorJ
dogtorj@bellsouth.net