Booster jabs - fraudulent vets?

[Rolfe]

and for the record I DO NOT BELIEVE IN HOMEOPATHIC VACCINATION. This is not how I practice homeopathy and I do not treat in this way.

Well, good for you. So why are you so all-fired supportive of this nonsense? The whole thing is about opposition to vaccination, and the guys you make out your so pally with are mostly nosode-pushers to a man.

Rolfe.

 

[Suezoled]

Okay, so let me get this straight. Supposedly:
1.) Homeopathy works
2.) it has been tested and proven
3.) there are no scientific tests that correspond with a homeopathic assertion that proves it works
Conclusion: Homeopathy cannot claim it works, as it is not proven to work after all. There are no valid studies which would verify its viability status. Even Homeoskeptic admits it sometimes when he/she is not lying about the studies that prove it works

Or:
1.) Homeopathy works
2.) Is has not been tested. There are no viable, reproducible tests that prove it works.
3.) Even if a test is shown to work it is flawed. If it doesn't work, the homeopaths say it's a flawed test
Conclusion: If there is no verifiable data supporting in a non-biased study that it works, why is the homeopath so confident it does?
Conclusion: as Naturalhealth himself/herself has failed in a week's time to bring forth any reproducable tests that are acceptable as true tests, though he/she said he/she would, I conclude that this is another lie by Naturalhealth.


Oh, and you try taking care of a puppy that has been afflicted with parvo virus.

In a case of pavo virus as in any case, you need to look at the symptoms and select the remedy on this basis.

With PARVO virus, the symptoms are pretty much the same from canine to canine. With PARVO virus, you don't decide a remedy; it's a virus; it needs to run its own course. But I guess giving due credit to the wonders of the body and its self-corrections system is too much?

 

[Jas]

There's a girl at the animal shelter who thinks we should switch to homeopathic medicine.

Although, in her defense, it would definitely reduce the shelter population.

 

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

It is all about knowing how to treat and in the right way. I am a classical homeopath and practice in a classical way and for the record I DO NOT BELIEVE IN HOMEOPATHIC VACCINATION. This is not how I practice homeopathy and I do not treat in this way.

So what do you propose to do about the dispensers of nosodes, one of whom appears to have been complicit in wiping out that litter of puppies?

My own dog had a skin problem recently. I took him to the vet and the vet wanted to give me steroids to help stop the itching and antibiotic cream. I worked out the remedy, which actually came down to Sulphur. I treated him with Sulphur and amazingly, his skin improved and is now better. This is after about 6 doses of Sulphur 30c and no more problems.

I am a classical homeopath

This is after about 6 doses of Sulphur 30c


I'll let geni or MRC_Hans point out the hilarious contradiction here. Clue: count the doses.

 

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

I have treated all my pets homeopathically and they have all lived very full, healthy and long lives. My last dog died at the age of 15.

I know you love these little worthless anecdotes, but you pretend to be a doctor, so you might benefit from having the irony of what you say pointed out.

My grandfather smoked 20 a day all his life and ... lived very full, healthy and long life. [He] died at the age of 95.

So, by application of your method we can prove that smoking is safe. Do you understand why your little anecdote isn't worth much? I'll still mention it to my Uncle when I see him over Easter. I'm sure he'll feel a lot better about not getting his dog vaccinated.

 

[epepke]

So, by application of your method we can prove that smoking is safe. Do you understand why your little anecdote isn't worth much? I'll still mention it to my Uncle when I see him over Easter. I'm sure he'll feel a lot better about not getting his dog vaccinated.

Eubie Blake drank gin and smoked every day of his life since age 13 or so and still lived to be over 100.

Excellent musician and composer, too.

 

[Deetee]

Rolfe,

We know there are no significant adverse effects from vaccines other than feline sarcoma.

We know immunity lasts at least a year.

I follow your arguments about cost effectiveness etc and practicalities supporting annual vacccination.

Nevertheless...........

Immunity for some vaccines might last longer (2 yrs?). I think you have to agree that if this could be clearly demonstrated, then it would make sense to only immunise every 2 years for those vaccines. (Who knows, perhaps this might even reduce incidence of sarcoma, as low as it already is??)

All we have to do is demonstrate safety and efficacy of a different vaccination schedule to the one currently in place. Surely a suitable trial can be done, which would not be expensive, giving pets of consenting owners a placebo vaccine every other year on a randomised double blind basis. Pets would be monitored, both for adverse events and clinical evidence of infection, and blood tests for antibody levels if needed can be done annually as well.

I can't see why trials like this cannot be set up, and perhaps the only disincentive to do so is a financial one on the part of vaccine manufacturers (and vets)?

 

[Rolfe]

All we have to do is demonstrate safety and efficacy of a different vaccination schedule to the one currently in place. Surely a suitable trial can be done, which would not be expensive, giving pets of consenting owners a placebo vaccine every other year on a randomised double blind basis. Pets would be monitored, both for adverse events and clinical evidence of infection, and blood tests for antibody levels if needed can be done annually as well.

No, you can't do that. It's totally contrary to all the legislation on animal experimentation. You aren't allowed to experiment on people's pets, even with consent. Also, you'd never in a million years get approval for something which would potentially put pets' health at risk like that, and finally it's such an uncontrolled trial that the information wouldn't be much use anyway. (If an animal didn't get distemper, was it because it was still immune? Or because distemper is so rare these days that it didn't encounter any virus? If an antibody level is still high, is it because it persisted, or because exposure to field virus during the period of potency gave the antibody a natural boost? And so on.)

In order to extend the licensing period for these vaccines it is necessary to repeat all the work that was done at the time the original one-year licences were granted. For each vaccine a group of experimental animals has to be vaccinated, and kept in isolation. At the end of the time you want the approval for, they are challenged with virulent virus (as well as having antibody levels monitored). Of course you need quite a big group to get meaningful statistics. And as these are experimental animals, they are killed at the end of the study whether they contract the disease or not.

I just hope the anti-vivisection mob are proud of what the homoeopaths have stirred up.

The cat situation is different. The identification of the vaccine-site-related sarcomas has thrown the risk/benefit equation right out. So it is now routine procedure to talk this over with cat owners and decide on the most appropriate use of vaccine for each individual cat's situation. Two-yearly boosters, and maybe stopping leukaemia boosters entirely after a few years, are certainly viable options.

This is a big research area, because even though the condition is rare, it's devastating when it happens. We need to know exactly what the risks are, which vaccines, which adjuvants and so on. We don't. It's only suspected to involve rabies vaccine because that is compulsory in America and the condition is a lot commoner there. (But there's no way that will become optional, 1 in 10,000 cats getting a fatal disease is better than one single human getting rabies in anybody's book.) Leukaemia vaccine is suspected too. But in fact it seems to be related to a particular thing about cats, which maks them react like this to any foreign injection. I've heard Program, the anti-flea injection, is potentially implicated, and one cat got a sarcoma apparently from vitamin injections. And yet, we've been injecting all sorts of things into cats for a long time, and these sarcomas weren't recognised until about 10 years ago.

The cat thing will be clarified and hopefully solved, because it's obvious the problem needs to be addressed. In the mean time, fully-informed owners participating in the choice they make for their cats is the best way to go. (Caramel is fully vaccinated by the way, but I'm considering stopping his leukaemia boosters now that he's nearly six.)

The dog thing - well, since there isn't a problem, and extending the vaccine intervals will cost a great deal (and may not be successful anyway - as I said, what if only 70% of dogs stay immune for two years?), one does just wonder why we're being bounced into fixing something that ain't broke.

Rolfe.

 

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

But there's no way that will become optional, 1 in 10,000 cats getting a fatal disease is better than one single human getting rabies in anybody's book

I was thinking about the non-identification of uncommon to rare problems in veterinary medicine recently and it's actually quite an interesting conundrum- for anyone who isn't interested pass by to the next anti-anti-vax rant!

I was faced with a litter of mastiff puppies, one of whom started to show obvious neurological signs. It looked like a cerebellar ataxia. I searched MedLine and sure enough such a condition has been reported in two papers in this breed, and is thought to be inherited as an autosomal recessive. Now this breeder had never seen it and nor had any in her immediate circle of acquaintance. Maybe it's rare. The I did the sums. Say 1 in 50 dogs carry the defective gene. A bad litter would turn up only once every 2500 matings (assuming random combinations, which is not true in practice). No breeder or group of breeders is ever going to know about that number of matings to even know about one defective litter, yet at 1 in 50, the gene could hardly be called 'rare'.

But, what does rare mean? Cystic fibrosis is a 'common' genetic defect in people and there are thousands of sufferers in each country. But the populations of our countries are tens of millions, the individual risk in 1 in several thousand (actually the gene is 1 in 20 of us and the incidence is 1 in 2500 of live births, which must mean that a lot don't make it to term I suppose).

The practical upshot of this is that we need to be careful about definitions of 'common' and 'rare'. This common genetic disorder is probably outside the circle of acquaintance of everyone taking part in this thread. A GP could go many years without having a mother in his care deliver a CF child. But, we live in societies with organised healthcare systems where there is a central bureaucracy counting things so we know they exist. So, the telescope gets turned round and instead of seeing the tiny per capita risk we see the thousands of sufferers. Having defined them as a group, resources can then be applied in an organised manner to investigate both the disease and its treatment.

In contrast, in the veterinary world, it is much harder for even a 'common' genetic disease to get itself discovered. If, once in my life, I see an odd thing happen in one breed I may well shrug it off as unexplained or inexplicable and move on to the next solvable problem. Thus, there is less opportunity for the '1 in several thousand' disease ever to come to light.

On the other hand, we deal a lot of the time with purebred animals derived from tiny gene pools, so we are up to our ears in genetic diseases but this means that they are 'common' in a way utterly unlike CF, by 1 or 2 orders of magnitude.

For us, the CF-level disease probably occasionally gets written up as an individual journal report that sits unregarded on library shelves and because there is no central bureaucracy (or large scale science establishment or Big Pharma) to pursue these things we have no way of telling whether such a case reports is the result, literally, of 1 in a million mutational freak or is the tip of a small iceberg (icecube?) like CF in man.

The relevance to this thread is that is pretty impressive that so much effort is being put into the feline sarcoma problem, but the jury really is out as to whether a 1 in 10,000 risk of sarcoma should change our whole attitude to vaccination. I've never seen a case and probably never will. I have seen animals killed by the diseases we vaccinate against. However, unlike our superstitious anti-vax colleagues I will await a systematic review rather than using my anecdotes as definitive proof. Conversely, I must accept that there are other 1 in 10,000 risks that no one has bothered to report, but really should we worry about them, or at least worry to the degree that we talk of ceasing vaccination against deadly disease to avoid that risk?

Dealing with probability in an irresponsible way is one of the greatest limitations of the unscientific mind. I will admit, though, that knowing how to do the arithmetic doesn't necessarily win out over the emotional response to risk. I vaccinate my animals without a second thought. I vaccinated my kids with a little worry courtesy of Wakefield. I hate flying and basically don't do it! The difference is that I acknowledge my irrational emotive responses for what they are, I don't turn them into a philosophy.

p.s. The puppy spontaneously recovered. My breeder client has now heard from others that they get 'wobbly' puppies from time to time and since most of them get better they don't ever see a vet, so I suspect this may be a largish icecube in that uncommon breed

 

[Rolfe]

The thing is, working in a lab, I do see the relative rarities. This can be really useful - I can often spot something unusual just because I've seen it before. And sometimes I can tell people that supposedly "rare" things aren't as rare as they think.

But on the other hand, checking through the histopathology reports every day, from time to time I come across a feline injection-site sarcoma report. My blood tends to run slightly cold at that point, and I think it's seeing those (and knowing that there isn't much FeLV risk round here, and FeLV isn't a compulsory vaccination for catteries) that's making me consider stopping Caramel's FeLV boosters.

I was at a meeting a couple of weeks ago where one vet reported that he had seen a case, and the BBC managed to dredge up one owner when discussing the affair at the weekend. So yes, if you like, the telescope does tend to get turned round sometimes.

It's 100% of your cat if it happens to you though, that's the problem.

And what about Program? How much do we know? Caramel was hopping when I got him as a kitten, but after Program it's just been "fleas - what fleas?" for five years. And he sleeps on my bed. Decisions are never easy.

Rolfe.

 

[Darat]

...snip...

The relevance to this thread is that is pretty impressive that so much effort is being put into the feline sarcoma problem, but the jury really is out as to whether a 1 in 10,000 risk of sarcoma should change our whole attitude to vaccination. I've never seen a case and probably never will. I have seen animals killed by the diseases we vaccinate against.

...snip...

When I was fostering strays(quite a while ago) the small cattery I had became infected with panleukopenia (sp?). I had 4 cats at the time, 2 nursing queens with 6 kittens between them and 2 toms.

I lost both of the queens, all the kittens and one of the toms.

For someone who has gone through that I can tell you on a personal level 1:10,000 chance of a problem just isn't worth considering, vaccinate your kitten or cat.

 

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

panleukopenia (sp?): US

panleucopaenia UK

Syn: Infectious Enteritis.

 

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

I was at a meeting a few days ago and there was passing reference to an informal study which was looking at autoantibody generation after vaccine injections in dogs. The treatment arm of the study produced them to blood cell components, but the control (saline injection) arm produced them to connective tissue components! The conversation extended to a story about Polly Matzinger (http://cmmg.biosci.wayne.edu/asg/polly.html) doing a 'quick and dirty' experiment on her students. She divided her class roughly into active sportspeople and couch potatoes. She then looked for autoAb's in them. The sports people turned up much more. This fits with her 'Danger Model' of immune system function and the modern acceptance that we have autoantibodies swilling about all the time.

Clever people like Dr Matzinger are genuine iconoclasts with genuinely novel insights. Unlike the woos and wannabe doctors of the alt med fringe who just like to think they are iconoclasts.

Which is to say...biology is quite a difficult subject if one is looking for simple causal processes. Which is why designing homeopathy trials in a way that suits the woos has to be so laborious. So, the placebo/verum identification challenge that HS and its friends have been offered is such a neat idea because it buries all that complexity in the minds and bodies of the only people who claim to be able to perform this trick, the homeopaths themselves. Perhaps it is precisely the unequivocal results that would be obtained that so frighten them! But that's the subject of another thread.

 

[Wrath of the Swarm]

Wrong. No side effects have been identified as being due to the vaccine. Possible adverse effects have been investigated, but apart from the feline sarcomas, none of them could be substantiated as being related to the vaccine.

First of all, I haven't made any claims, so this proclaimation of 'wrong' is a non-sequitur.

Secondly, human vaccines are known to have several side effects whose severity depends on the vaccine and the age/health of the patient. Human drugs and vaccines are better-tested and generally safer than those for animals. I find it highly unlikely that there are no detectable side effects of the vaccinations, regardless of whether they're significant enough to be worrisome.

 

[Rolfe]

First of all, I haven't made any claims, so this proclaimation of 'wrong' is a non-sequitur.

Yes, you did. You claimed that animal vaccines had been demonstrated to be entirely without side-effects (or that this had been asserted). This is wrong.

Secondly, human vaccines are known to have several side effects whose severity depends on the vaccine and the age/health of the patient. Human drugs and vaccines are better-tested and generally safer than those for animals. I find it highly unlikely that there are no detectable side effects of the vaccinations, regardless of whether they're significant enough to be worrisome.

Oh, I'm tired repeating the same things to you. Anyway, Badly Shaved Monkey explained it better than I did. Go and read his posts again.

The point is that if none of the allegations against the vaccines have been substantiated, and the standard safety tests have been satisfactorily passed, why should we suddenly start making major changes to a vaccination schedule which is known to be satisfactory just on the possibility that there are things happening at such low frequency that we haven't yet identified them?

Human vaccines are more closely studied in the field than animal vaccines for several reasons, including the fact that they don't have the benefit of experimental studies on the target species, and they have a much larger population of treated individuals to look at. Yes, there are some things that turn up at very low level, but if you read the reports carefully, you'll find that for most of them the incidence is so tiny that they can't actually prove any causal relationship.

To the level of study that has been done, the animal vaccines fulfil all the safety criteria laid down by the Veterinary Medicines Directorate. Allegations of apparent adverse effects are investigated as they come up, most recently the abstract BSM quoted from. None of them stands up (apart from the cat sarcoma, which as I said is being addressed).

I'm not against further testing, but there are practical limits, and just how many hundreds of thousands of pounds do we spend testing something that appears not to be a problem, and how many beagles have to die in the process?

I certainly am against random abandoning of current safe and effective practice just because a few homoeopaths published a highly subjective questionnaire and made some entirely baseless allegations just to further their own anti-science agenda.

Rolfe.

 

[Wrath of the Swarm]

Yes, you did. You claimed that animal vaccines had been demonstrated to be entirely without side-effects (or that this had been asserted). This is wrong.

No, I've said that vaccines need to be totally side-effect free before we can dispense with considering whether there's a better way to administer them.

Human vaccines are more closely studied in the field than animal vaccines for several reasons, including the fact that they don't have the benefit of experimental studies on the target species, and they have a much larger population of treated individuals to look at. Yes, there are some things that turn up at very low level, but if you read the reports carefully, you'll find that for most of them the incidence is so tiny that they can't actually prove any causal relationship.

Fevers and injection-site-swelling are known and fairly common. The causal relationship is known and generally accepted.

 

[Rolfe]

No, I've said that vaccines need to be totally side-effect free before we can dispense with considering whether there's a better way to administer them.

Fine. When they appoint you Director of the VMD, you can decide how much money needs to be spent before you think you've established "totally side-effect free" to your satisfaction. And see how much of a drug industry, or how many licensed medicines you have left when you're through.

Also, do read previous posts, including your own, before you start rewriting history. If you assert that something has been claimed which has not been claimed, you are wrong, however much you revise your position.

Now, the place we are is that for dog booster vaccines we have products which have passed all safety and efficacy tests, and for which no allegations of suspected adverse effects in the field have ever been proved. We're talking about animals here, and whatever you have read or heard about human reactions isn't necessarily terribly relevant.

My position is that with that in mind no change should be made to current practice until and unless efficacy has been proved for any suggested variant regimen.

I'm still waiting to find out what your problem is with that.

Rolfe.

 

[exarch]

Originally posted by Wrath of the Swarm
Secondly, human vaccines are known to have several side effects whose severity depends on the vaccine and the age/health of the patient. Human drugs and vaccines are better-tested and generally safer than those for animals. I find it highly unlikely that there are no detectable side effects of the vaccinations, regardless of whether they're significant enough to be worrisome.

Yet highly unlikely as it is, that's apparently the case.

Let's assume this is due to the fact that the animal's vaccines could be tested on animals without worrying about their fate, while for the human vaccines they have to jump through any number of hoops before even being allowed to test on a single human subject. Also the (human) control subjects can't be administered potentially lethal viruses at the end of the test period (to test efficacy of the vaccine), because that would be extremely unethical and inhuman, not to mention illegal as hell and basically could be murder. Ergo, it doesn't happen, while it does when testing on animals.

So when the experts say that your assumption is incorrect, I will take their word for it: Feline sarcoma is the only known vaccination side effect detected so far, and from what they've told us, I think the pet vaccines are tested much more thoroughly than human vaccines.

(Edited for clarity)

 

[Wrath of the Swarm]

Also, do read previous posts, including your own, before you start rewriting history. If you assert that something has been claimed which has not been claimed, you are wrong, however much you revise your position.

Feel free to point out the things I've claimed, been wrong about, and revised. Until you do so, enough with the well-poisoning, please.

My position is that with that in mind no change should be made to current practice until and unless efficacy has been proved for any suggested variant regimen.

I'm still waiting to find out what your problem is with that.

Merely that the research to find out if it can be changed isn't being done.

 

[Darat]

...snip...

Merely that the research to find out if it can be changed isn't being done.

Out of curiosity when would say enough research has been done?

As I mentioned before to even research just one factor for every possibility i.e. timings is impossible (or so infeasible as to rank it as impossible in the real world).