Mackers
Wise Old Thumper
This is something that has worried me for some time and I'd like your opinions please. I do not intend for this to become a thread on 'I'd never forgive myself if I didn't vaccinate.......................etc'. I just want opinions on the reasons WHY we vaccinate at such regular and frequent intervals.
I DO NOT have my dogs annually vaccinated. They have their puppy jabs, a booster at a year old and then nothing else. I periodically have them titre tested but that in itself is not reliable since a low titre reading does not indicate low immunity. But it makes me feel better!
However, I continue to vaccinate my buns every 6 months for myxi and annually for VHD. And I have to ask myself why?
The following is taken from 'Dogs Today' magazine:-
QUOTE.........More than 30 years ago, Ronald D Schultz, chairman of the University of Wisconsin's Dept of Pathobiological Sciences and one of the foremost experts on dog and cat vaccines in the world, noted that immunity in adult dogs and cats lasted many years, and that there was no rhyme or reason to annual vaccination protocols.
Small Animal Practice (Current Veterinary Therapy, XI) published in 1992 notes that : "Annual vaccinations is a practice that was started many years ago and that lacks scientific validity or verification. Almost without exception there is no immunologic requirement for annual re-vaccination. Immunity to viruses persists for years or for the life of the animal".
More recently, the American Animal Hospital Association published Canine Vaccine Guidelines, Recommendations and Supporting Literature. This 2003 report notes "We now know that booster injections are of no value in dogs already immune and immunity from distemper and vaccinations last for a minimum of seven years based on challenge studies, and up to 15 years (a lifetime) based on antibody titre".
For decades now, veterinarians have known that cats and dogs inoculated with modified live virus vaccines create 'memory T-cells' that contain the code to fight off disease. If a vaccinated body is ever challenged again by that same type of infection, those memory T-cells swing into action and, using the old code, generate a vast reservoir of new antibodies to fight the infection and return the animal back to health.
Vets love their children but they have not been vaccinating their kids for measles, mumps, rubella, smallpox and polio every year, have they? Any why not? Simple: because they know that over-stimulating the immune system of any animal can trigger auto-immune disorders and increase (however slightly) the chance of a cancer occurring at the point of injection. And so vets do not over-vaccinate their own children and neither do any other doctors...........UNQUOTE
So my question is this.........if the above applies to humans, dogs and cats, why do we not apply the same rules to our bunnies? After all, the myxi vaccine is a modified pox virus. Why would it not create 'memory T-cells' in our rabbits in exactly the same way it does in dogs or humans? And the same goes for VHD?
I DO NOT have my dogs annually vaccinated. They have their puppy jabs, a booster at a year old and then nothing else. I periodically have them titre tested but that in itself is not reliable since a low titre reading does not indicate low immunity. But it makes me feel better!
However, I continue to vaccinate my buns every 6 months for myxi and annually for VHD. And I have to ask myself why?
The following is taken from 'Dogs Today' magazine:-
QUOTE.........More than 30 years ago, Ronald D Schultz, chairman of the University of Wisconsin's Dept of Pathobiological Sciences and one of the foremost experts on dog and cat vaccines in the world, noted that immunity in adult dogs and cats lasted many years, and that there was no rhyme or reason to annual vaccination protocols.
Small Animal Practice (Current Veterinary Therapy, XI) published in 1992 notes that : "Annual vaccinations is a practice that was started many years ago and that lacks scientific validity or verification. Almost without exception there is no immunologic requirement for annual re-vaccination. Immunity to viruses persists for years or for the life of the animal".
More recently, the American Animal Hospital Association published Canine Vaccine Guidelines, Recommendations and Supporting Literature. This 2003 report notes "We now know that booster injections are of no value in dogs already immune and immunity from distemper and vaccinations last for a minimum of seven years based on challenge studies, and up to 15 years (a lifetime) based on antibody titre".
For decades now, veterinarians have known that cats and dogs inoculated with modified live virus vaccines create 'memory T-cells' that contain the code to fight off disease. If a vaccinated body is ever challenged again by that same type of infection, those memory T-cells swing into action and, using the old code, generate a vast reservoir of new antibodies to fight the infection and return the animal back to health.
Vets love their children but they have not been vaccinating their kids for measles, mumps, rubella, smallpox and polio every year, have they? Any why not? Simple: because they know that over-stimulating the immune system of any animal can trigger auto-immune disorders and increase (however slightly) the chance of a cancer occurring at the point of injection. And so vets do not over-vaccinate their own children and neither do any other doctors...........UNQUOTE
So my question is this.........if the above applies to humans, dogs and cats, why do we not apply the same rules to our bunnies? After all, the myxi vaccine is a modified pox virus. Why would it not create 'memory T-cells' in our rabbits in exactly the same way it does in dogs or humans? And the same goes for VHD?