Vaccinations can make you sick – our dogs too

Pets get way too many puppy vaccinations. Find out for yourself about necessary and unnecessary vaccinations and protect your dog from harmful vaccinations.

Animal vaccinations for the benefit of the veterinarian

Usually, the dog, cat, and ferret owner is encouraged to have annual revaccination. Unfortunately, the reason for this is not the veterinarian’s comprehensive concern for the well-being of the pets, but rather his desire for a flourishing practice. And so the vaccination programs that are common today form the economic basis of many veterinary practices, but their diversity and frequency can make our animals sick. It is now the responsibility of the animal owner to obtain information and then to make a decision in terms of the health of his animal.

Unnecessary puppy vaccinations

The British animal welfare organization Canine Health Concern recently announced that vaccines could make dogs sick. Pharmaceutical companies and veterinarians would use subtle methods to urge dog owners to vaccinate their animals more often than necessary. The multiple mini golden doodle puppies for sale vaccinations that are usually carried out three times in a row in puppyhood could cause serious problems.

According to Canine Health Concern, autism and epilepsy have been observed in a number of puppies after extensive vaccination campaigns. Catherine O’Driscoll, a vaccination critic from chronic illness and premature death of her dogs, is the press officer for Canine Health Concern.

She says:

“We are not against vaccinations. But we are against superfluous vaccinations that benefit the veterinarian but harm our animals. “

Vaccine damage – yes or no?

Research into vaccine damage in humans leaves much to be desired. Probably there are simply no interested sponsors for such studies. It is understood that the relevant data situation for pets can be described as even more inadequate.

Veterinary practices that are supposed to register vaccination damage will of course only do so if the respective symptom is, in their opinion, vaccination damage. This is only the case if the symptom occurs within three days after the vaccination and no other reason can be found. Of course, veterinarians are very good at finding other reasons why vaccination damage is extremely rare in veterinary clinic surveys. The reality shows a different picture.

Harmful additives in vaccines

Animal vaccines contain nearly the same additives as human vaccines. Thimerosal is a highly toxic mercury compound that can damage the nervous system. Aluminum hydroxide is also a neurotoxin and can lead to tissue changes (granulomas or sarcomas in cats) at the puncture site.

Further additives are formaldehyde, antibiotics, foreign proteins, and oil adjuvants. The latter had triggered autoimmune diseases such as arthritis, rheumatism, and lupus erythematosus in animal experiments.

Negative vaccination results

One of the best-known series of vaccinations is the so-called vaccination sarcoma in cats, a mostly fatal cancer that develops at the preferred puncture site. Other much more common side effects of vaccinations (in dogs as in cats) are the following:

Allergic reactions of the skin,

Itching,
Shock states (up to cardiac arrest and sudden death),
strange behaviors (crawling up, running back and forth)

Drowsiness,
Restlessness,
Swelling of the head,

Vomit,
Diarrhea,
Discoloration of the coat,

Hair loss at the puncture site,
Necrosis,
immune-related inflammation of the blood vessel walls (vasculitis),

Anemia,
Shortness of breath,
Coordination disorders,

Polyarthritis,
immune-related diseases of the thyroid gland and increased susceptibility to bacterial infections such as ear, urinary tract and intestinal infections.

It is precisely the latter susceptibility to infection and the increase common autoimmune disease that is associated with immunosuppression caused by vaccination.

This manifests itself in a change in the immune system and not only in the desired antibody formation but in a general change in the natural balance of the immune system. Officially, this is not considered to be a question. To what extent this “shift” in the immune system has long-term effects is unknown.

Vaccination damage after distemper puppy vaccination

Distemper vaccination can have two very specific side effects. First, there is distemper virus encephalitis, which can occur one to two weeks after vaccination and is usually fatal.

Second, the so-called immune thrombopenia, which leads to internal bleeding, can be noticed due to bleeding from the nose and can possibly be controlled with medication. The basic immunization against distemper can be described as acceptable, but not the annual booster vaccinations can make you sick our dogs, which lack any scientific basis.

Combination products do more harm than single vaccines

Individual vaccines are hardly ever given to this day. Dogs routinely receive so-called combination products. A label (or several) with this sequence of letters, for example, SHPPi / LT, is usually stuck to the vaccination pass. This is a six-fold vaccination against distemper (S), hepatitis (H), parvovirus (P), parainfluenza virus (Pi, = kennel cough), leptospirosis (L), and rabies (T).

Of course, there are other puppy vaccinations available to vaccination enthusiasts, which are often strongly recommended by their vets, such as against Lyme disease or tetanus. The latter can be said in advance they are unnecessary. The one against Lyme disease is highly controversial and tetanus is almost non-existent in carnivores.

In general, the more vaccines it contains, the more stressful a vaccination is on the organism, which is why individual vaccinations should be given whenever necessary.

The reason for three or more puppy vaccinations

Many people believe that all the multiple multiple vaccinations for puppies continuously build up an ever-higher level of vaccination protection. Unfortunately, this is not true. Puppies are only vaccinated several times in a row because – as long as they still have the so-called nest protection, i.e. are equipped with their mother’s antibodies – they do not react to vaccinations as one would like (with the formation of new antibodies and training an immune memory).

Since it cannot be said for sure whether the nest protection will evaporate at 8, 10, 12, or 14 weeks or even later, you simply vaccinate several times and hope that at least one of the many vaccinations will take effect.

Sick despite vaccination?

If dogs get the disease in question despite being vaccinated, which happens again and again, there can be various reasons. In the case of live vaccines such. B. Distemper may have had a mishap during vaccine production. Either the vaccine has been weak too much (so that it no longer induces an immune response) or it has not been weak enough for the vaccine to make the dog sick.

It is much more common, however, that vaccinated animals are affected by the disease for which they are actually vaccinated because there are different strains of the pathogen (which can also be constantly changing) and ultimately cannot be vaccinated against all of them.

No vet speaks of it: The real duration of vaccination protection

The 2003 US Canine Vaccination Guidelines contain a table that lists the length of time that various vaccines are protected against being vaccinate.

In view of the following information, which also applies to vaccines available in Germany, one can only wonder about the booster puppy vaccinations that are supposedly necessary every year:

Pathogen / disease	Duration of vaccination protection
distemper	at least 7 years
Parvovirus	at least 7 years
Hepatitis (CAV-2)	at least 7 years
rabies	at least 3 years
Canine influenza virus	at least 3 years

So why should we vaccinate our animals EVERY year? Just like humans, dogs and cats have wonderful immune systems.

If we assume that vaccinations work as their plausible but controversial theory makes it understandable, then protection against illness depends on what is known as immune memory.

The vaccine ensures that the immune system deals with a weakened or dead pathogen and forms antibodies against it.

If the real pathogen appears at some point, the immune system is already familiar with it and destroys it without any problems.

Protection even without antibodies?

And so it has been shown in many studies that dogs and cats had antibodies in their blood not just for a single year, but for many years after the vaccination.

In addition, experimental test infections showed that ultimately low or no longer detectable titers (antibody levels) were not synonymous with a lack of protection, which means that even animals that no longer had detectable antibodies (which is quite possible several years after vaccination) , did not get sick after contact with the pathogen.

Annual revaccination unnecessary

The latter could of course also point to a completely different aspect, namely that vaccination has nothing to do with susceptibility to disease, but perhaps completely different things and conditions are responsible for whether an animal becomes sick or not. But we still assume that puppy vaccinations will work.

From this point of view, the studies mentioned above mean that the immune system of animals does not need a new “reminder” every year, i.e. revaccination, but can and does remember the pathogen – even many years after the vaccination and without being refreshed in the meantime, therefore, remains immune.

What to do?

An animal should only be vaccinated when it is perfectly healthy. If a veterinarian does not examine the animal thoroughly before vaccination, if he does not answer the questions of the animal owner satisfactorily and/or if he does not give out the package insert for the vaccine, then it is better to leave the practice (before the vaccination) and look for a more cooperative veterinarian.

It should also be clarified in advance whether the veterinarian is willing to enter a three or four-year vaccination protection period for rabies vaccination in the passport. (More on this below under “Warning: rabies vaccination only every three or four years”)

Basic immunization in puppies: distemper and parvovirus

In order to save a (or a litter) lot of multiple puppy vaccinations, the maternal antibodies can be determined by blood tests. Since the half-life of the same is known (inquire in the respective laboratory), it can be calculated when the nest protection has disappeared and when the ideal vaccination time will be. Two weeks after the vaccination, a titer test can be arranged to show whether the vaccination was successful.

In this way, a puppy can be given primary immunization with just one vaccination. For this first (and apart from rabies vaccination also only) vaccination, dog owners who are critical of the vaccination insist on a combination product that consists of two, at most three vaccines. If the vet cannot get hold of the combination of distemper and parvovirus, the triple combination of distemper, parvovirus, and hepatitis is chosen, although hepatitis is extremely rare in dogs.

Basic vaccination against rabies

As far as the rabies vaccination is concerned, it has often been observed that dogs up to the age of four months do not develop sufficient protection, which is why vaccination in puppies under four months usually leads to another rabies vaccination. Therefore, some dog owners handle the matter in such a way that they only have their dogs vaccinated against rabies with a single vaccine after they have changed their teeth. The refreshment will then take place after three years.

Whether or not it is necessary is superfluous in this case because the euthanasia of a dog without a valid rabies vaccination can under certain circumstances be ordered by the court if the dog – for whatever reason, i.e. even if it was provoker only resist – should snap shut at some point.

Warning: rabies vaccination only every three or four years

Many rabies vaccines officially have a vaccination protection period of up to three years, for cats up to four years. However, veterinarians who would like to see you in their practice at least once a year are more than happy to include only one year of vaccination protection in their vaccination records.

For the animal owner, it is important to clarify two things before the rabies vaccination – preferably by telephone: Does the veterinarian in question have the desired three- or four-year vaccine in stock (if not, can he order it?) And is he ready to take the three – or four-year protection period to be entered in the passport.

In any case, we recommend further education in the specialist literature (see book tip under “Sources”) and then, with extensive background knowledge, to decide against what, if, and how often to be vaccinated.

In particular, do not forget that the state of health and the immune system of an animal does not only depend on the puppy vaccinations given (if at all), but to a much larger extent on its way of life and nutrition