Thread: New Policy on Vaccinations...

Thanks Topdog,

for years i had wondered about the annual vaccination and being a veterinary nurse myself i was taught that it was a critical thing YOU MUST have done every year to help prevent your dog from nasty diseases.

The clinic i use to work for years ago, the old vet had been practising for nearly 40 years (and still is, bless him!) and said that he hasnt seen nor heard of some diseases for nearly 20 years that we still vaccinate for currently.

I personally made the decision to vaccinate either every 2-3 years, titre test 12 months after vaccination, and only vaccinated if it had been more than 12 months since the last if my dogs were going into boarding kennels, that would not accept a phone call or reports of titre's (which was only on 1 occasion)

I still take them twice a year for health check ups.

I was fortunate enough to have my old obedience club on side so that i did not have to produce a vaccination certificate every year, i simple just produced documentation of the titre tests.

I think most vets will still push for yearly vaccinations simply because this is going to loose them an income, so it is my mission to inform as many ppl as possible that if they are not comfortable with the idea, then dont let your vet persuade you. But remember to keep your health checks up to date...

You Australians are way behind.

Most up to date vets in NZ are completely behind the idea of 3 yearly core (C3) vaccinations instead of annual core vaccinations, I believe the American vets are also generally convinced that triennial core vaccines are better. Not sure why it's taking the ANKC so long to change its mind!

Maybe the ANKC is too busy trying to please everyone but their own members, for example, the RSPCA and Vets.... who knows!

Originally Posted by Staranais

You Australians are way behind.

Most up to date vets in NZ are completely behind the idea of 3 yearly core (C3) vaccinations instead of annual core vaccinations, I believe the American vets are also generally convinced that triennial core vaccines are better. Not sure why it's taking the ANKC so long to change its mind!

Originally Posted by Staranais

You Australians are way behind.

Most up to date vets in NZ are completely behind the idea of 3 yearly core (C3) vaccinations instead of annual core vaccinations, I believe the American vets are also generally convinced that triennial core vaccines are better. Not sure why it's taking the ANKC so long to change its mind!

Because we have to follow the trend of other countries, they sat back and let them do all the research then when they decided, the approach was, well lets just sit on it a lil longer and see what happens.

When you think about it, do we vaccinate our children every year for diseases...!

Good to hear that NZ has the brains on vaccinations...

Well, to be fair Blackdog, it does depend on the vaccine. Some human and veterinary vaccines do need to be given repeatedly to give continued protection.

This can happen because:
a) like Influenza, the virus mutates so rapidly that your immune system thinks it is a "new" virus each year so you need a new version of the vaccine to guarantee ongoing immunity, or
b) if the body just inherently loses immunity to that particular organism or toxin over time (such as with tetanus immunisations), or
c) if we only have an ineffective vaccine to use - some vaccines are far worse at stimulating the immune system than others are, so if we only have a poor vaccine for a particular problem, we may need to use it repeatedly to give continued immunity (until someone comes up with a better vaccine that gives a stronger response!)

But as far as the three core canine vaccines go, well, all studies in vet publications that I've read indicate that when dogs are vaccinated with the these the vast majority retain a perfectly adequate level of immunity for at least 3 years and possibly far longer.

I'm currently at vet school, and I can tell you they're more than happy for us to use and recommend three yearly core vaccines here at the teaching clinic. I guess regular vet practices will catch on in time.

Hi Blackdog

Thanks for the useful information.

There has been a lot of talk and studies over the years that with vaccinations "More is less" with some people even choosing to stop vaccinations all together.
It is said that it can take six generations to cleanse the damage done by over vaccinating.

Do you think that "over vaccinating" could cause a break down in a dogs natural immune system ?

For the Record i do vaccinated,

Cheers Mick

I'm not Blackdog but I'll answer anyway, because this discussion is fun, and because this is a topic I'm passionate about.

It seems to me that there are two distinct issues with the whole "canine vaccination debate". Firstly is the question, do vaccines have adverse effects, and if so, how common and how severe are they? Secondly, if we do know that vaccines can harm as well as help, how infrequently can we vaccinate and maintain protective immunity?

In some ways, the whole subject of canine vaccination is like chinese whispers. Most people get their information from websites and popular articles, and most of these are based on hearsay, without the authors actually going to the source material and critically evaluating the studies they are quoting. As a result, there is a huge amount of confusion about the risks of vaccination.

"It is said that it can take six generations to cleanse the damage done by over vaccinating."
This is an example of the kind of vague, untested, unreferenced, and scaremongering statement you will see all over the internet (absolutely no offence intended to you for asking about it, MalorNothing).

Unsubstantiated statements like these, presented as fact, do dog owners a huge disservice as most do not have access to the studies to go and do their own investigations so must rely and trust popular media.

There are risks inherent in vaccines, but most popular literature on canine vaccination both misrepresents and exaggerates them. Many websites also muddle them up and make them all out to be dangerous and unexpected, to the confusion of the reader - dog owners should know there are several distinct type of adverse reaction that can be caused by vaccines, some which are reasonably common and which are expected to occur in a small proportion of vaccinated dogs, some much more uncommon and dangerous.

Of course, many vets simply deny that any vaccination risks exist. This is IMO just as bad as exaggerating the risks, both because it is untrue, and because it undermines trust in the veterinary profession - it lends credence to the idea that vets and vaccine companies are part of some big, bad, conspiracy to hide the negative effects of vaccination from the public.

FYI, for those who are interested, there are three distinct "common" types of vaccine reaction in dogs:

1. Mild symptoms which are often similar to those caused by the agent being vaccinated against. These are things like transient vomiting, diarrhoea, coughing, itching, etc. These are reasonably common - one good study I read that surveyed 1.2 million randomly selected dogs in the U.K found that just under 4% suffered from a reaction of this sort after vaccination.

This type of reaction is predictable, expected to occur in a proportion of vaccinated dogs, and not generally dangerous. As most of you probably know, most modern vaccines deliver live virus particles into the animal. These vaccine strains have been modified from wild viruses so they shouldn't cause the actual disease, yet they still grow and multiply inside the dog at the injection site, stimulating the dog's immune system and causing a strong immune response. As the dog fights the virus, the presence of the virus in the body and the dog's immune response to it can manifest as temporary vomiting, coughing, etc.

However, these types of reaction are one good reason why immunocompromised animals should not be vaccinated, as they will not be able to respond to the vaccine virus nearly as effectively as a healthy animal, and the disease symptoms can be much more severe and long lasting, even life threatening in rare cases.

2. An allergic (anaphylactic, IgE) type response to the vaccine. This type of reaction is unpredictable and uncommon (the best study I have found suggests a rate of around 2 dogs dead from anaphylactic shock per million vaccinated), but very serious when it occurs. If you hear about a healthy dog "dropping dead off the end of the needle" after vaccination, this type of reaction is generally the cause.

It is important to note that this is not a problem unique to vaccines, animals can be severely allergic to most of the drugs that we inject into them (penicillin is a very common one). Any time you inject any drug into an animal, anaphylaxis is a rare but possible complication.

Interestingly, one study suggested that dogs that show an anaphylactic response to vaccines are most often reacting to calf serum in the vaccine which is a byproduct of the manufacturing process, not the virus itself.

Either way, any dog that has shown this type of rare response to a vaccine should not be vaccinated again, just like you wouldn't give penicillin again to a dog you knew had an allergy to it.

3. Ongoing immune system problems caused by vaccines. These are controversial, and likely to be very rare (although they are the type of reaction that anti-vaccine campaigners seem to really like to talk about for some reason!)

One (1) study has shown a link between vaccination and the subsequent development of immune mediated haemolytic anaemia in dogs. The jury is out whether the dogs were healthy and the IMHA was caused by the vaccine, or whether the dogs concerned were already predisposed to IMHA and the vaccine just happened to be what triggered it off. My personal suspicion is that the second theory is true - that the dogs had a genetic predisposition to IMHA, and the vaccine triggered it. In any case, I personally wouldn't vaccinate (or breed from!) any adult dog with IMHA in the family tree.

There was also one (1) study showing a link between vaccination and hypertrophic osteodystrophy in one line of weimeraners. This is also likely to be an inherited predisposition in these lines, since it has only been shown in this one study, and not in any other dogs.

The idea that "over stimulating" the immune system by repeated vaccinating can cause a "break down" of the immune system, often discussed by people who dislike vaccines, is not something that has ever been substantiated scientifically. You will often hear people talk about dogs that develop particular diseases within a few months of being vaccinated (or even within a few years of being vaccinated!) who then claim this disease was caused by the vaccine "stressing" the immune system. They ignore the fact is that just as many dogs that have not been vaccinated recently develop these diseases.

In fact, there is some evidence that repeated exposure to a virus can cause superior immunity, as during the immune response the B cells are selected for more efficient responses to that particular antigen. The immune system is supposed to be used! Using it won't break it, unless the dog is already broken.

Two additional theoretical risks of vaccination:

4. Reversion to virulence. Live vaccines are growing organisms, and it is possible for these viruses to mutate as they grow, reacquiring the virulent characteristics that we removed when we turned the wild virus into the vaccine strain. This can be demonstrated experimentally for most vaccines (i.e, if we set up ideal conditions for canine vaccines to revert to virulence in the lab, we can sometimes get it to happen). However this occurrence is almost unheard of in the field, in either human or canine medicine.

5. Fibrosarcomas caused by vaccines. These are malignant cancers that are more likely to develop at vaccine sites. These have been shown to occur in cats, but there is very limited evidence that these can occur in dogs (although people have been looking, only one study has been suggestive that these sometimes occur, and many studies have apparently shown that they do not.) Incidentally cats, unlike dogs, can develop cancers at injection sites when you inject all sorts of things into them, not just vaccines. They're funny like that. So I'd personally be surprised if we found that dogs have predisposition to develop cancers at vaccine sites, although I have no crystal ball and could be wrong.


As for the people who refuse to vaccinate their pups at all? I think we've probably all heard about people who haven't vaccinated their pups even with C3, and the pups were just fine. People who do this are relying on the hope that their pups will not come into contact with a virulent strain of the virus, at least until they are old enough to fight it off easily.

This works most of the time if the rest of the canine population is well vaccinated for C3. If there are few dogs who can give the disease to the pup, then there is only a small chance that puppy will catch the disease - this is the concept of "herd immunity". In effect, although these people may be anti-vaccine, they are free-loading off people who do vaccinate. It can be a good strategy, I suppose, as long as only a very small percentage of the population are doing it and the rest are still vaccinating. If a large proportion of dog owners decide to free load, we'll all be in trouble.

When I graduate, I will happily support clients who want to vaccinate adult dogs infrequently or not at all, or who want to only give the core vaccines and no others. I will not be supportive of the owners who refuse to vaccinate pups at all.

Wow, that turned out longer than I intended. Hope that was useful to someone, if anyone could be bothered to read the whole way through!

took me 3 times to read it all the way through.