How’s that for a title? If it got your attention, that’s good because this topic needs your attention. It used to be that dogs and cats visited the vet pretty rarely.They only needed a couple of vaccines, they weren’t eating veterinary prescription diets and they weren’t continually loaded with heartworm preventives, flea and tick meds and shampoos, de-wormers, pharmaceuticals and more.
Thinking back, maybe that’s why they didn’t need to go to the vet all that often.
Today, there’s a very different veterinary clinic. It’s true that we now have better treatment options at our disposal, such as MRIs and more technologically advanced surgery. I think it’s great that vets – and our pets – have access to these modern, life saving tools.
But somewhere along the way, the veterinary practice lost perspective.
The veterinary profession is broken and it isn’t about to change any time soon. Our pets are being over-serviced and we’re getting fleeced.
We pay for the unnecessary vaccinations, the overly-processed, synthetic prescription pet foods that contain ingredients from China, and we pay for drugs and chemicals that are damaging to the immune system.
After shelling out for these services, pet owners need to keep their wallets open because, sooner or later, the chronic disease caused by these products like allergies and cancer will start to kick in and require treatment.
After shelling out for these services, pet owners need to keep their wallets open because, sooner or later, the chronic disease caused by these products like allergies and cancer will start to kick in and require treatment.
They threaten the quality and quantity of life for our companion animals – and many of these diseases are caused by the products vets tell us are safe and effective.
The sad fact is, some common veterinary practices are harming our dogs.
The sad fact is, some common veterinary practices are harming our dogs.
Vets today have too many drugs, vaccines and chemicals at their disposal and they’re overly willing to dispense them. The worst part is, they hold no accountability for their actions. In short, they can and do ignore vaccine label recommendations or prescribe harmful or unnecessary drugs and we pet owners have no recourse.
I believe that the most common and most harmful veterinary practice is over vaccination. Not only do the vaccines cause a lot of damage in our pets, but nearly every vaccine vets give our pets is unnecessary.
Pay attention to that sentence: Nearly every vaccine given to our pets is useless – they get no benefit but all of the risk.
How could this happen? How can vets cause so much disease and devastation in our dogs and cats without even knowing it?
Vets Don’t Understand Immunology or Vaccines
I paraphrase Dr Ronald Schultz, the leading veterinary immunologist when I say that vets are not prepared to make vaccine decisions.
Pay attention to that sentence: Nearly every vaccine given to our pets is useless – they get no benefit but all of the risk.
How could this happen? How can vets cause so much disease and devastation in our dogs and cats without even knowing it?
Vets Don’t Understand Immunology or Vaccines
In the March 2012 issue of Dogs Naturally, we published an article where we interviewed various vets on their thoughts and experience with vaccines.
Here are some of the responses we got:
Here are some of the responses we got:
“I was taught vaccines were safe and it was implied there had been safety studies done on them before they were used on the general public.
They are not safe and there have not been any safety studies done on any of them. I was taught that if something adverse happens within a few hours after immunization it was related to the vaccines but, if it happened later than that period of time, it had nothing to do with the vaccines.
“My training in vet school was not complete with regard to the harmful effects that vaccines have on the immune system. The scientific evidence was not properly explored by the eighties. Vaccines were designed to help stimulate immunity.
Current research is proving just the opposite however. Even my graduate school immunology course (attended mainly by MD students) was incomplete. (Dr Jeff Feinman).
Vaccination in college was skimmed over with little discussion of potential risks involved.
"In practice I have seen what I believe to be vaccine related problems of skin disease (allergic) inflammatory bowel disease and epilepsy which appear to have been triggered or coincided with vaccination.” (Dr. Mark Carpenter)
So here we have a substance that we now know can cause many acute and chronic health issues – even death – and the vets themselves admit that they really weren’t educated in their use.
More importantly, because the veterinary colleges are financially aligned with the pharmaceutical companies, most of the curriculum is very pro-vaccine with little time spent discussing the very real issue of harmful reactions. How could this happen?
More Is Not Better
Back in the 1970’s, dogs were only vaccinated for only 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 coming down the pipe.
Today, dogs and puppies and cats and kittens are often vaccinated with seven or more viruses at the same time!
It’s been largely acknowledged for the last thirty or forty years that the core vaccines most likely last for the LIFE of the animal.
Not only are vets delivering more and more vaccines to our pets, they’re continuing to do so on a schedule that has clearly and consistently been proven to be both ineffective and dangerous.
In the 1970′s, all vaccines, with the exception of rabies vaccines, were licensed by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) based on challenge studies performed from only a few weeks to a few months after vaccination.
In the 1970′s, all vaccines, with the exception of rabies vaccines, were licensed by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) based on challenge studies performed from only a few weeks to a few months after vaccination.
All the vaccine labels included the statement ‘‘Annual Revaccination Recommended’’ without the knowledge of whether the true duration of immunity (DOI) was a year or a life time. So vets vaccinated yearly, even though field observation suggested that immunity after both natural infection and vaccination was long lived.
“The patient receives no benefit and may be placed at serious risk when an unnecessary vaccine is given.” Says Dr. Schultz. “Few or no scientific studies have demonstrated a need for cats or dogs to be revaccinated.”
Yet vets continue to send us postcards telling us we need to bring our pets in for even more vaccinations, either every year or every three years. Whichever schedule the vet chooses is a moot point because science shows that revaccination isn’t necessary in most cases.
Immunity is like being a virgin – you either are or you aren’t and once you change, there’s no changing back again.
Dogs are either immune or they are not, and once immune, there is every indication that this lasts a lifetime.
Distemper vaccines, for example, has been shown to last for 7 to 15 years. In fact, all of the core vaccines have shown this kind of lifespan.
So why do vets continue to vaccinate unnecessarily?
“Profits are what vaccine critics believe is at the root of the profession’s resistance to update its protocols. Also....beware of over medicating your pets!
“The patient receives no benefit and may be placed at serious risk when an unnecessary vaccine is given.” Says Dr. Schultz. “Few or no scientific studies have demonstrated a need for cats or dogs to be revaccinated.”
Yet vets continue to send us postcards telling us we need to bring our pets in for even more vaccinations, either every year or every three years. Whichever schedule the vet chooses is a moot point because science shows that revaccination isn’t necessary in most cases.
Immunity is like being a virgin – you either are or you aren’t and once you change, there’s no changing back again.
Dogs are either immune or they are not, and once immune, there is every indication that this lasts a lifetime.
Distemper vaccines, for example, has been shown to last for 7 to 15 years. In fact, all of the core vaccines have shown this kind of lifespan.
So why do vets continue to vaccinate unnecessarily?
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,” says Schultz, who claims some distemper vaccines last as long as 15 years. “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.”
Even those vets who want to do the right thing are vaccinating our pets too often and with too much.
Even those vets who want to do the right thing are vaccinating our pets too often and with too much.
As stated above, they’re not prepared to make balanced vaccine decisions because the veterinary colleges rely on the vaccine manufacturers to prepare their immunology curriculum. Clearly, no matter how much pet owners trust their vets, they can’t rely on them to protect their animals from unnecessary vaccination and the damage it causes.
But what about the veterinary associations – aren’t they looking out for our pets?
But what about the veterinary associations – aren’t they looking out for our pets?
Why are most pet owners unaware of vaccine dangers?
Contents of Page 2:
- What Can Pet Owners Do?
- List of Common, Moderate & Severe Symptoms Triggered by Vaccines
- Other Ways You Can Influence Vets Financially
Page 1 of 2 Page 2 >>