Vaccinations....yes or no after a certain age?

ester said:
I never said they were never made from the toxins produced by some bacteria, they sometimes are particularly when it is the 'toxic' form that causes pathology, as they (toxins) are a protein BUT more often that not it isn't, it is coat protein (ie not a toxin) (as your wiki :rolleyes: says.) and afaik this is the case with parvo and lepto (ie no toxins involved)- Microbiologist so the meaning of toxin is very specific I'm afraid.

I think we are talking at very different levels, after your first post I was hoping you could give some insight on what you were saying linking it to B and T cells and immunological memory but it appears not.
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Well stab me and strike me dead ... SO sorry I don't come up to your expectations :rolleyes:
 
Alec Swan said:
Assuming that terriers, many of whom will never have seen a needle, for vaccine, or anything else for that matter, and if we also assume that these hardened little ratters will have built up their own immunity, I wonder how that immunity manages to keep up with the constant changes of the disease itself.

Alec.
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Well, my boys - current and past - have managed to avoid all doggie diseases for 15 odd years, since I took the decision not to boost. All of them have/do come into contact with foxes every day - both out in the fields and in their own garden, where rarely a night goes by when we don't hear them out there.

Whereas I am going to look into these single vaccines, I take your point Alec.
 
I only wondered where you were actually coming from that was all! I think it is important to know how things work as much as possible before making decisions on them.
 
Dry Rot said:
Inoculations are a bit like believing in God.

If you don't believe in God and there is one, you are up ***** creek without a paddle.

If you do believe in God and there isn't one, you've lost nothing.

If you do believe in God and there is one, you are quids in.

If you don't believe in the danger of these diseases, weighed against the cost, don't inoculate. I don't (at least, not more than once), haven't, and so far (in over 60 years of dog keeping) haven't found myself up the creek far enough to worry about it.

At the end of the day, it's your choice. Just don't expect it to be an informed choice because there are too many vested interests out there giving biased advice!;) So very much like believing in God!:D
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Yet again, DR, such wisdom!
 
ester said:
I only wondered where you were actually coming from that was all! I think it is important to know how things work as much as possible before making decisions on them.
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For a lay person, I probably know more than many about the importance and power of the immune system. I don't take offence easily at all, but I have to say I have taken just that at your high-handed tone. And now you have done it again ... managed to insult me by insinuating that I don't know enough about vaccinations to be able to take the decision that it is not right to constantly expose a dog year on year to a dead vaccine.

Something I think important ;)
 
dingle12 said:
Maybe if you can go do some work experience at a vets if you come across a parvo dog people may think more towards vaccination.
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The other side of the coin though Dingle is dogs who die or are seriously impaired by unnecessary vaccinations - I agree that parvo is a killer, and now I know that you can get the vaccination in isolation I am warming to the idea - but whereas I do not know of any dogs who have died from parvo, I know of several Malamutes, huskies and wolf crosses who have died from anaphylactic shock caused by vaccinations. My own wolf cross suffered a bit of a reaction after his third booster, and after that I remained in the veterinary surgery for a couple of hours each year just in case - at the age of 5, I took the sensible decision to no longer boost. My vet spent a long time trying to find lepto and parvo vaccinations in isolation, and unfortunately couldn't, but I now know that this has changed so I will be looking into getting the boys vaccinated after discussion with husband and vet.
 
Having lost my dog of a lifetime to Lepto( he was only 4years old) which he was vaxed against in less than a weekend I refuse to be take chances with my dogs. The vet said we were very unlucky as it must have been a very rare strain but the current vaccine only covers certains strains and there are many.

I am toying with the idea of having blood titres but I will always vax for Lepto as the vets will do a single jab.
 
Nikki J said:
As a PS, I believe the reason why we need to vaccinate annually for parvo and lepto is because these are live vaccines - am I right anyone?
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Almost the opposite, apart from your right parvo is a live vaccine. Live vaccines are most effective so don't need to be boosted regularly as when the vaccine is administrated they naturally replicate so get a really good immune response.


Lepto on the other hand is a bacteria rather than a virus and bacteria are a pain to vaccinate against. Along with this lepto is inactive (dead) so cannot trigger the same degree of immune response thus must have annual/6 monthly boosters, if you consider your risk level worth it.

Generally a vaccines effectiveness comes down to what your are using for the vaccine, parvo triggers the immune system using a modified live virus, this doesn't cause disease but there is a slight risk that if it mutated it could. However it provides much better protection than using a dead virus or just an antigen or toxin from that virus. This is why it is recomended that parvo only needs to be boosted every three years.

It may be argued that if you vaccinate just once successfully with parvo, once a pup is old enough that its mothers antibodies are no longer protecting it from the disease you may never need to vaccinate it again. (The same way as if you contract measles you'll hopefully never get it again) However, there is a risk immunity will wane so we may boost to be on the safe side. Titre testing can assess this risk reasonable well.


I'm not sure about how often the strains in lepto are updated but I pretty sure the parvo vaccine is updated quite rarely as although new strains do develope (some vaccines have been updated recently as a new strain is going round Italy at the moment), the vaccine is very effective at protecting against different strains.
 
I don't think Ester was being offensive, insulting, or high-handed?! I found her info very interesting, as an actual scientist (I believe very little I read on Wikipedia :p)
 
I didn't intend to be either CC so I'm glad you didn't think so either. My very last comment was just a general comment to all, I do think it is important that people find out as much as they can so that they can then be happy in the decisions they make rather than worrying that it is the wrong one. I only ever mention what I do so that people can understand where I am coming from and I am therefore interested where they are coming from if they are taking a slightly different direction because there may well be something of interest/validity worth considering/challenging what you think with (especially when most of my immunology came from trypanosomes avoiding it!).

Plus you never know peoples backgrounds on here, we have had many a scientific conversation on topics such as this previously.
 
There have been some interesting responses on here Amicus, and your's was one of them. I had a litter of cocker pups last year, and my vet, a thoroughly practical sort of a girl, asked me if I wanted a Kennel Cough Vaccine. Apparently it's live, and with my partner suffering from RA, she cannot come into contact with live vaccines, so that was out, and the second point that my vet raised was that as there were so many strains and mutations, her words were "At best, they're (the vaccines) better than nothing".

With diseases constantly reasserting themselves, I wonder how or if the vaccine manufacturers ever actually catch up!!

Alec.
 
I put to sleep a dog with parvo today. I have been in practice 2 years, and it is no where near the first dog I have seen with parvo, nor will it be the last. It was the sweetest, happiest little dog, a rescue with unknown vaccination history.

All those who have gone for years without vaccinating and claim to have never had a problem have been protected by herd immunity. As more and more people stop vaccinating, we will lose herd immunity, and hey presto we are back to the days where parvo and distemper were rife. The measles outbreak in Wales is a prime example - normally those few who don't vaccinate against measles are protected by the many that do, in Wales is a large population who didn't get MMR, and look what happens.

I vaccinate my own dog and will continue to do so. I have never known a dog die following a vaccine, and my mum's dog (as MM has already mentioned) is the only dog I have seen a vaccine reaction in first hand.

But hey, what do I know, I'm only in it for the money.
 
I think when you see if first hand it changes your views really, my sil has a cocker with Addison and she is adamant it was the vac that caused it what a load of rubbish she is o e that reads and reads the Internet but doesn't go on first hand experience or advice.
 
Murphy88 said:
I put to sleep a dog with parvo today. I have been in practice 2 years, and it is no where near the first dog I have seen with parvo, nor will it be the last. It was the sweetest, happiest little dog, a rescue with unknown vaccination history.

All those who have gone for years without vaccinating and claim to have never had a problem have been protected by herd immunity. As more and more people stop vaccinating, we will lose herd immunity, and hey presto we are back to the days where parvo and distemper were rife. The measles outbreak in Wales is a prime example - normally those few who don't vaccinate against measles are protected by the many that do, in Wales is a large population who didn't get MMR, and look what happens.

I vaccinate my own dog and will continue to do so. I have never known a dog die following a vaccine, and my mum's dog (as MM has already mentioned) is the only dog I have seen a vaccine reaction in first hand.

But hey, what do I know, I'm only in it for the money.
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Are you still at CFields? If so I'm coming up one day next week with that little black and white jrt think I've found a place in rescue for him.
 
ester said:
I didn't intend to be either CC so I'm glad you didn't think so either. My very last comment was just a general comment to all, I do think it is important that people find out as much as they can so that they can then be happy in the decisions they make rather than worrying that it is the wrong one. I only ever mention what I do so that people can understand where I am coming from and I am therefore interested where they are coming from if they are taking a slightly different direction because there may well be something of interest/validity worth considering/challenging what you think with (especially when most of my immunology came from trypanosomes avoiding it!).

Plus you never know peoples backgrounds on here, we have had many a scientific conversation on topics such as this previously.
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In that case, no offence taken Ester, I'm a bit sensitive at the moment.

As a mum of a child with an ASD (autistic spectrum disorder) plus LD's and Crohn's, my OH (medical background) and me have done an awful lot of reading - pre and post internet - on vaccines for all animals, not just humans. Our personal opinions is that Wakefield was not entirely wrong.

Bearing in mind the type of dogs that I have, anaphylactic shock is not uncommon, and I will not annually vaccinate willy nilly with vaccinations that they do not need. Parvo and lepto, a possibility I shall discuss with my vet, but nothing else for my boys.
 
Murphy88 said:
I put to sleep a dog with parvo today. I have been in practice 2 years, and it is no where near the first dog I have seen with parvo, nor will it be the last. It was the sweetest, happiest little dog, a rescue with unknown vaccination history.

All those who have gone for years without vaccinating and claim to have never had a problem have been protected by herd immunity. As more and more people stop vaccinating, we will lose herd immunity, and hey presto we are back to the days where parvo and distemper were rife. The measles outbreak in Wales is a prime example - normally those few who don't vaccinate against measles are protected by the many that do, in Wales is a large population who didn't get MMR, and look what happens.

I vaccinate my own dog and will continue to do so. I have never known a dog die following a vaccine, and my mum's dog (as MM has already mentioned) is the only dog I have seen a vaccine reaction in first hand.

But hey, what do I know, I'm only in it for the money.
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wow the last line of your post is so sad-it does seem that most people who post on here have a very distorted view on vets and vet practices. the vets where i work are all still in it for the love of the animals and the help they can give them,

parvo is terrible and on the rise,
 
Maybe I should have clarified alec,

so essentially we can vaccinate against the current strain.
We cannot vaccinate against any future strains because we don't know what changes they will make. We can only act reactively and sometimes that can take time to develop.
 
Jools2345 said:
wow the last line of your post is so sad-it does seem that most people who post on here have a very distorted view on vets and vet practices. the vets where i work are all still in it for the love of the animals and the help they can give them,

parvo is terrible and on the rise,
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Don't misunderstand me, I think vets are mostly terrific and I for one am extremely grateful for all the effort mine put in to try and find isolated vaccines for my boy all those years ago. However, I do think it a disgrace the amount that they charge for stuff like wormer. For any drugs that we need - such as metronidazole when my boys got giardia - we bought a prescription so that we could have it filled cheaper on line - they still charged £15 just for the prescription!! I call this daylight robbery quite frankly!
 
CaveCanem said:
You're lucky, it's duped a fair few journalists and obituary writers. You know it can be edited by absolutely anyone, right?
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I mainly use it for looking up medical terminology, in particular the abbreviations that clinicians love to use on the front of histology cards, and also the various acronyms, short forms etc. that our lab staff love to use.
 
CaveCanem said:
I've tried typing out a reply to this several times, but all I can say is...'wow'.
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I remember sitting down in my first ever lecture at university, and being told in no uncertain terms that wikipedia was no longer an appropriate resource for research, and that as adults undertaking a degree we were expected to source verified and peer-reviewed information, rather than rely on a page to which anyone can contribute. I seem to remember it caused much amusement as at that stage in our lives most of us did still rely on wiki! I still use wiki sometimes but even when I am doing research where web-based search results can be used as references, I still cannot bring myself to use wiki!
 
Nikki J said:
For any drugs that we need - such as metronidazole when my boys got giardia - we bought a prescription so that we could have it filled cheaper on line - they still charged £15 just for the prescription!! I call this daylight robbery quite frankly!
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some medication is sold online cheaper than the vets can source it themselves-that is fact-it is due to the buying power these large companies have.

so after there many years at university (which they have completed being left with huge debt), paying for facilities, insurance, licences, printers/headed paper, all the other overheads plus the computer system and programme, the staff that answer your call and log your request, then the vets time to read through your animals notes and look at any test results, then give the ok for the repeat prescription, so some one can print off an individual request for your animal, then it is presented to the vet to check/ok/sign is put in an envelope awaiting your collection.

how much would you like to pay for your repeat prescription that can be presented up to 3x depending on the animals health/age/condition thereby providing you with up to 6 months medication for said animal?
 
Jools2345 said:
some medication is sold online cheaper than the vets can source it themselves-that is fact-it is due to the buying power these large companies have.

so after there many years at university (which they have completed being left with huge debt), paying for facilities, insurance, licences, printers/headed paper, all the other overheads plus the computer system and programme, the staff that answer your call and log your request, then the vets time to read through your animals notes and look at any test results, then give the ok for the repeat prescription, so some one can print off an individual request for your animal, then it is presented to the vet to check/ok/sign is put in an envelope awaiting your collection.

how much would you like to pay for your repeat prescription that can be presented up to 3x depending on the animals health/age/condition thereby providing you with up to 6 months medication for said animal?
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I am fully aware of the very long time that student vets have to serve at university, and I certainly do not begrudge them their salaries ... they probably don't get paid enough for their level of skill and competency. However, in this case of the prescription for metronidazole there were no results to look at, no test results, we had already diagnosed our dogs from previous infection. We probably know more than the vets about giardia, having suffered from this for several years due to the disgusting practice of human sewage sludge being spread on the fields feet away from my kitchen window! Thank goodness the farmer has ceased using this stuff, and since he stopped, no more giardia. However, I digress. The vet had to do nothing but listen to what we said, check the boys over, weigh them, which he did, and for which we paid £50 or £60. We had never used this practice before, so there were no notes to be read. All that happened was that the receptionist printed out the script for us according to the dosage that we told her we required. I thought it was a bit steep to charge us so much on top of the examination fee, but we had no choice, we needed the Metro, we had to play the game.

It is the gross overcharging for drugs and other bits and pieces that I object to with vets, not the charges for their skill and care. To charge £20 for a Drontal tablet £15 years ago is just plain robbery IMO.
 
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