Together we are stronger
The veterinary pharmaceutical industry and the pet food industry are each multi-billion international concerns. They spend many millions each year to promote their products. They also receive the backing of veterinary colleges, wealthy animal charities and even governments – and all of these groups benefit financially from these industries.
This leaves the pet products industry largely unregulated – despite the claims that it is subject to regulation.
The Pet Parents’ Action Group:
· Brings together an international community of people to act as a watchdog for
the poorly legislated multi-billion pet products industry.
· Comprises pet owners and veterinarians from around the world who join together
in strength to take practical, positive action to protect the wellbeing of pets.
· Expands awareness and understanding of the multi-billion international pet
products industry, and the harm that is being done to pets.
. Raises awareness within the pet owning community to effect positive change on
behalf of our pets.
Did you know that the pet food industry is largely self-regulated, or that the wealthy veterinary pharmaceutical industry has revolving-door access to legislators worldwide? Are you aware that government legislators frequently rule in favour of big business - with committee members receiving research and consultancy money from the very industry they are allegedly protecting our animals from? This is why there are harmful products on the market for our pets.
Did you know that veterinary teaching establishments, wealthy animal charities, professional veterinary bodies, government advisors, and research organisations all take financial incentives from big business?
Do you appreciate that this leaves our pets largely unprotected from multi-nationals that wish to make money out of us, irrespective of the harm being done to the animals? No-one is truly being kept in check.
Consider this: For the past few years, Canine Health Concern has been corresponding with the British Veterinary Medicines Directorate (VMD) which licenses veterinary drugs. We asked for the withdrawal of one-year vaccines against the core canine diseases, since it is known that there is no justification for vaccinating annually. This government licensing department consistently refused to do this. Its then chief executive – Steve Dean – insisted that dogs should be vaccinated at least every three years, which is in itself contrary to World Small Animal Veterinary Association guidelines.
But once Steve Dean retired, he wrote publicly in Dog World:
“Whatever you choose for your dog, the minimum immunisation in the form of a course of puppy vaccines, offers protection that could prove life-long.”
What this indicates is that someone is pulling the strings behind the government’s official face. Someone, or some powerful lobby, is trying to protect vaccine industry income. Despite writing to our political representatives, no-one is prepared to legislate to prevent over-vaccination.
Veterinarians leave college largely unaware of the scientific studies relating to vaccine adverse effects – because the colleges rely upon vaccine industry funding. They continue to vaccinate annually because this is something the profession has ‘always done’. Neither are vets educated impartially with regard to diet. Most veterinary colleges allow commercial pet food companies to ‘teach’ this vital subject to trainee vets. And due to the financial power of the veterinary pharmaceutical industry, student vets are discouraged from investigating complementary therapies that might improve health without the side-effects of drugs.
Direct Practical Action
The first practical action the Pet Parents’ Action Group will undertake is to write to every veterinary practice in the UK to:
· Update vets on World Small Animal Veterinary Association (WSAVA) guidelines on
vaccine frequency (click here to view the WSAVA Guidelines)
See also: An Update on Canine and Feline Vaccination
· Update vets on the duration of immunity studies (the fact that vaccines against the
core dog and cat diseases have been shown to protect for up to the lifetime of the
animal).
· Update vets on the science of vaccine adverse effects.
· If we have support from outside the UK we are also prepared to extend the
campaign so that the voices of animal lovers are heard loud and clear around
the world.
· We are prepared to do the work so that every pet owner can visit their vet, free
from pressure to vaccinate more often than is scientifically necessary – on a
worldwide basis.
· We will work as a cohesive whole to achieve our aims. We need dog and cat lovers
to get behind this initiative and make it practically possible.
. Once the mailing to veterinarians has been successfully accomplished, we will
extend the initiative and write to boarding kennels, animal charities, and other
dog-related organisations, so that no-one can be unaware of the current science.
We believe that if vets truly knew the damage caused by over-vaccination, they wouldn’t do it.
What You Can Do Now
Pet owners, and their pets, are the pawns in a massive chess game. Some vets demand that you vaccinate your dogs and cats every year. Others have adopted the three-year vaccination policy. A few understand that once dogs and cats are immune to the core viral diseases, they have lifelong immunity. Some vets say that leptospirosis and kennel cough vaccines are needed every year – despite the fact that the World Small Animal Veterinary Association says they are optional. Leptospirosis is arguably a rare disease, but the prevailing policy seems to be to vaccinate ‘just in case’. However, the leptospirosis vaccine is the one most associated with severe adverse reactions.
The Pet Parents’ Action Group is therefore establishing a record of veterinary practice vaccination policy – with your help. Take part in our on-line survey by clicking here. You can tell us whether your vet has adopted an annual, tri-annual or once in a lifetime vaccination policy, and whether they offer titer tests in place of vaccination.
Your information will form part of a resource for pet parents, who can choose the vet they visit on the basis of vaccination policy – avoiding the annual battle to protect their pets from unnecessary and potentially harmful yearly shots.
What We Are Doing in Return
The Pet Parents’ Action Group will be sending Awards to every veterinary practice that adopts the minimum vaccination protocol. We will reward and praise the veterinary practices which keep abreast with current science.
The information you provide will then enable us to campaign further to effect change in veterinary vaccine policy.
Why this survey is needed
Since 1994 Canine Health Concern has researched and made known the available science regarding pet vaccination, and we have sought to bring about change in veterinary practice so that our dogs and cats do not have to suffer unnecessary adverse reactions to vaccines. We have also played a central role in uncovering the truth about industrial-waste-laden pet ‘food’ and promoted natural canine healthcare.
Despite spending years researching and communicating directly to dog lovers, and years lobbying government, veterinarians, and the pet industry itself, there are still too many vets vaccinating annually worldwide, and still too many dog lovers who are being misled into over-vaccinating their friends. The result is that there are too many dogs suffering from vaccine-induced diseases. Here is the list of adverse events known to be induced by vaccines (Schultz, 2007):
Since 1994 Canine Health Concern has researched and made known the available science regarding pet vaccination, and we have sought to bring about change in veterinary practice so that our dogs and cats do not have to suffer unnecessary adverse reactions to vaccines. We have also played a central role in uncovering the truth about industrial-waste-laden pet ‘food’ and promoted natural canine healthcare.
Despite spending years researching and communicating directly to dog lovers, and years lobbying government, veterinarians, and the pet industry itself, there are still too many vets vaccinating annually worldwide, and still too many dog lovers who are being misled into over-vaccinating their friends. The result is that there are too many dogs suffering from vaccine-induced diseases. Here is the list of adverse events known to be induced by vaccines (Schultz, 2007):
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Common Reactions: . Lethargy . Hair loss, hair color change at injection site . Fever . Soreness, stiffness . Refusal to eat . Conjunctivitis . Sneezing . Oral ulcers Moderate Reactions . Immunosuppression . Behavioural changes . Vitiligo (skin reactions) . Weight loss (Cachexia) . Reduced milk production . Lameness . Granulomas/abscesses . Hives . Facial edema (swelling) . Atopy (hereditary allergies) . Respiratory disease . Allergic uveitis (Blue Eye) Severe Reactions triggered by Vaccines: . Vaccine injection site sarcomas . Anaphylaxis (rapidly progressing life-threatening allergic reaction) . Arthritis, polyarthritis . HOD hypertrophy osteodystrophy . Autoimmune Hemolytic Anemia . Immune mediated thrombocytopenia (IMTP) . Hemolytic disease of the newborn (Neonatal Isoerythrolysis) . Thyroiditis . Glomerulonephritis . Disease or enhanced disease which the vaccine was designed to prevent . Myocarditis . Post vaccinal encephalitis or polyneuritis . Seizures . Abortion, congential anomalies, embryonic/fetal death, failure to conceive |
A real problem, as stated earlier, is that vets are not educated about these possible adverse reactions in college. Many reactions happen days, months or even years after a vaccine is given. Vets are not told about this, and therefore they are largely unaware of the damage caused by over-vaccination.
Governments have put adverse reaction reporting schemes in place, but they are at best misleading. Firstly, vets are not compelled to file an adverse reaction form. Secondly, they are not fully aware of the adverse reactions that can happen, and therefore do not connect the dots. Third, although the science tells us that vaccines can create cancer years after the shot, how is anyone going to know that a dog’s cancer was definitely created by a vaccine? There are no tests to confirm this in individual cases – there’s only the science to say that it’s possible. These, and other, adverse reactions slip through the net, giving a falsely safe picture of the vaccine procedure.
The first direct action by the Pet Parents’ Action Group will be to send vets the scientific references so that they can satisfy themselves that vaccines can indeed create a wide range of life-threatening diseases.
For example, a paper published last year showed that a number of canine and feline vaccine brands in the UK are contaminated with RD-114, a feline retrovirus. Retroviruses are associated with the development of autoimmunity, cancer and leukaemia, but it can take around five years for the cancer to show itself. Five years! No-one will connect the dots unless they are educated to do so.
The British Veterinary Medicines Directorate (the government licensing body) and its European counterparts voted recently to allow RD-114 to stay in pet vaccines, possibly for years. Removal is technically easy – but it would take years to re-license the clean products, which means years of lost revenue for the vaccine industry. As usual, government legislators vote in favour of big business to the detriment of our pets.
See our correspondence with the licensing body
Canine Health Concern and its members wrote repeatedly to the British Veterinary Medicines Directorate (which licenses veterinary drugs) during 2010 and 2011. We asked that one-year core vaccines be removed from the market, since it isn’t necessary to vaccinate every year, and the existence of one-year shots leaves the door open for unnecessary annual shots. You can view this correspondence, and the supporting scientific evidence, by clicking on 'background'. Clicking on 'response to the VMD' will give you access to our lengthy report.
The VMD stated that: "the most qualified person to assess what the animal needs is the veterinary surgeon, engaged by the owner". This would be true if veterinarians were educated to understand the many illnesses that can be caused by vaccines. Unfortunately, they are not.
Unrecognised damage
At one time, it was thought that the vaccine process was a fairly harmless procedure, with only rare and minimal adverse events. Scientists have known about anaphylactic shock for a long time, which is where an individual (whether human or animal) will have a rare but immediate and severe allergic reaction to the vaccine. Without adrenaline or similar drug, the individual will die. Because this reaction is so rare, and because the diseases we vaccinate are so serious, it was decided by the powers that be that vaccines were worth the risk.
It was also known that individual dogs and cats could have a mild and temporary reaction to their shots, involving lethargy, fever and diarrhoea. More recently, scientists have shown that autoimmune haemolytic anaemia (a severe and life-threatening blood disease) and vaccine site cancer, especially in cats but also in dogs, can be created by vaccines.
However, scientific understanding has moved on considerably in recent years. The problem is that the science – which is detailed and complex – has not been adequately shared with the veterinary profession and its clients.
The truth is that vaccines can, and do, provoke serious and life-threatening adverse reactions that are not easily connected to the vaccine itself, although scientific research does point towards the trends. The fact is, there is no test to show whether an individual dog or cat has had a vaccine reaction. To make a connection, vets must tie the onset of the disease in with a recent vaccine event, and understand the science: they need to know what vaccines have been scientifically shown to do. The fact is, mostly all of the illnesses experienced by dogs and cats have the potential to be vaccine-related.
Unless you know that vaccines can cause arthritis, for example, you may not connect a vaccine with arthritis arising months after an animal is vaccinated. You may not know that vaccines can trigger leukaemia or cancer months, or even years, down the line. You might not realise that your dog’s brain damage, involving sudden aggression, epilepsy, and/or fearfulness, can be vaccine-induced. Few people understand the science to say that skin and digestive problems can also be vaccine-induced, or that diabetes, thyroid disease, organ failure or genetic faults can be caused by vaccines.
Not knowing all this, vets continue to vaccinate annually as if it were a harmless procedure.
Importantly, no-one may have told you that you don’t actually need to vaccinate your dog or cat every year.
Although this has been known since the 1970s, the veterinary profession has not taken it on board, and the veterinary pharmaceutical industry still tries to convince pet owners that annual shots are needed. Most shamefully in the UK, dog and cat owners are still being persuaded to bring their friends in for boosters if they have ‘lapsed’ by 18 months under Intervet’s National Vaccination Month, also called ‘Vaccine Amnesty’.
Although Canine Health Concern has vigorously brought the annual vaccination travesty to the attention of legislators, they will not act. Why? Because, worldwide, licensing bodies appear to act as a wing of the pharmaceutical industry. This doesn’t just apply to the UK – the problem is international.
Canine Health Concern members and supporters – including a good number of veterinarians – wrote to their political representatives in the UK to get one-year core vaccines removed from the market. Guess what happened? Our politicians wrote to the Minister (the politician responsible for the VMD), who contacted the VMD (the body we were complaining about) and everyone was sent a reply from the VMD. It appears that politicians may not over-rule VMD decisions. So if the VMD acts in favour of industry time after time, there appears to be nothing anyone can do about it.
Lax Legislation
. In the UK – and you can bet there’s a similar story in every ‘civilised’ country – vets are forced by law to prescribe expensive drugs rather than cheaper generic (copycat) drugs. Who benefits from this? Think about it: vets actively want to keep costs down for their clients, and to prescribe cheaper but equally effective drugs – but the government won’t let them. Why?
. It took the united action of pet parents in America to have the FDA demand that the makers of NSAIDs (like Rimadyl and Metacam) make datasheets available to pet owners warning that these drugs have death as one of their side-effects. Outside of America, where the FDA has no jurisdiction, pet owners remain in the dark.
. In the UK, when Carbaryl was withdrawn from use in children’s head lice shampoo, the VMD gave manufacturers 18 months to use up their stocks. Carbaryl is a carcinogen, and research shows that it was more carcinogenic to dogs than any other species. Who benefited from this 18-month concession?
. In every country where pet vaccines are used, annual vaccination is still legal, despite being scientifically unjustified. Vets are allowed to advise clients to pay for this unnecessary and potentially harmful medical procedure, and they’re encouraged to do so by at least one leading vaccine manufacturer. The science supporting lifelong protection from puppy and kitten shots has, incidentally, been known since the 1970s.
. When ProHeart6 was shown to provoke an unacceptably high number of damaging adverse reactions in dogs, an official at the FDA advised that this product be withdrawn from the market. The official was then subjected to ‘investigation’ by ProHeart’s manufacturer, and was dismissed from her job at the FDA. ProHeart6 is now back on the market.
. On the subject of pet food, the British Pet Food Manufacturers’ Association stated in its brochures and on its website that pet food is the waste product of the human food and agricultural industry. In one brochure it boasted that, without pet food, there would be more landfill sites! Pet food manufacturers claim that their food is complete and balanced, and sourced from animals deemed fit for human consumption – but as the North American pet food recall showed, this isn’t strictly the whole truth. The legislation for additives in pet food is extremely lax. In the UK a few years ago, people went to prison for putting rancid chicken, destined for pet food, back into the human food chain. There is very little legislation to protect our pets from inferior ‘food’. As a consequence, many of the illnesses experienced by our pets are diseases of malnutrition.
We pet owners have been largely unaware of what is going on behind the scenes. We have trusted that everyone has the best interests of our pets at heart. But this is a multi-billion international industry. There are huge profits at stake. It is time to join together and demand a better deal for our pets – because no-one else is.
As confirmed by the VMD, adverse reactions to vaccines are severely under-reported. If you have suspected a vaccine reaction (at any time - including in the past) please report this via the following links:
UK: Report a suspected adverse reaction (use the quick links)
Non-UK: Report a suspected adverse reaction (and what to do)
UK: Report a suspected adverse reaction (use the quick links)
Non-UK: Report a suspected adverse reaction (and what to do)