[Wylie's Mom]

Non-Core Vaccines

Knowing The Difference

By Catherine O'Driscoll

Many of the vaccines vets use on your dog are categorized as core or non-core.

The core vaccines include parvovirus, distemper, adenovirus (canine hepatitis) and rabies. These vaccines all protect against viruses, which are easy to protect dogs against. In fact, viral vaccines are so effective that, when given to a dog over four months of age, they’ve been scientifically proven to protect that dog for years, and most likely for life.

The non-core vaccines aren’t in included in this group for three main reasons:

--They don’t work as well
--They don’t protect for very long
--They’re more dangerous

Leptospirosis

The majority of dogs with known leptospirosis have been found to be without symptoms – they live with it without getting ill.

This isn’t to say that leptospirosis can’t cause illness in dogs. In some cases lepto can be fatal.

However, in the 1996 Canine Health Concern vaccine survey 100% of dogs with leptospirosis had been vaccinated within three months prior to infection. This can only be because:

1. The vaccine caused the disease, or
2. The vaccine didn’t contain the serovar that caused the illness, or
3. The vaccine contained a non-local serovar that the dog hadn’t adapted to, or it just didn’t work.

If your vet recommends a lepto shot, you need to ask him two questions. The first is whether he has seen a case of lepto in the last, say, six months (i.e., is the vaccine necessary?). The second is which serovar is involved, and is that serovar in the vaccine? For if it’s not, the vaccine won’t help. There are over 200 versions of leptospirosis and vaccination against one form will not provide protection against the others.

The WSAVA VGG states,

The leptospirosis vaccine is the one least likely to provide adequate and prolonged protection, and therefore must be administered annually or more often for animals at high risk. Protection against infection with different serovars is variable. This product is associated with the greatest number of adverse reactions to any vaccine.”

If you take time to understand the above advice, you’d have to conclude the vaccine doesn’t work and is dangerous. If something doesn’t work and is dangerous, why keep doing it?

The VGG adds,

Leptospira vaccines provide short-term immunity (e.g., 3–12 months) and the efficacy is often less than 70%. Also leptospira products often prevent clinical disease but fail to protect against infection and shedding of the bacteria, especially when infection occurs more than 6 months after vaccination. The immunity among the serovars varies and immunity varies among vaccinated dogs. Persistence of antibody after vaccination will often be only a few months and immunological memory for protective immunity is short (e.g. 1 year or less). Thus, revaccination may be required as often as every 6–9 months for dogs at high risk.”

So, in summary:

--The lepto vaccine doesn’t protect a third of dogs;
--It might not protect any if the form of lepto in your area is different to the form in the vaccine;
--An annually vaccinated dog can be unprotected for up to nine months of the year; and infected dogs – irrespective of vaccination – are hidden infective reservoirs, capable of spreading lepto to humans and other animals.
--And yet – despite all this – leptospirosis is still a very rare disease in most parts of the world. There are virtually no records of dogs passing lepto onto humans, and we don’t hear of dogs with lepto often.

No human vaccine is currently available in the United States or the UK for lepto. Why, do you think?

The Lancet, Infectious Diseases Vol 3 December 2003 might explain why:

Several problems confront the development of a vaccine to prevent human leptospirosis. First, an unacceptable side effect profile of killed bacterial vaccines has often been reported. Second, the killed bacteria vaccines are likely to provide only short-term and possibly incomplete protection, similar to that reported with anti-leptospiral vaccines in animals. Third, the locally varying patterns of Leptospira transmitted may preclude the development of a suitably generalisable vaccine. Fourth, there is theoretical potential for inducing autoimmune disease such as uveitis and, lastly, there is incomplete knowledge of mechanisms of protective immunity against leptospiral infection.”

The Lancet also stated: “Vaccination of animals such as dogs or cattle may prevent illness but not leptospiruria and hence transmission to human beings."

Scientists have been trying to develop a human leptospirosis vaccine for decades – one that’s safe and effective and which governments will license around the world. They have failed.

But a dangerous, ineffective, substandard canine vaccine is out there, and will remain out there until pet owners educate themselves of the risks.

What is the leptospirosis vaccine doing on the WSAVA non-core list? It has no place there. It should be on the “not recommended” list. Leptospirosis is not even a vaccinatable disease, and the vaccine can kill!

Ask Alison Lovell what she thinks of this vaccine. Her beautiful GSD puppy was a perfectly normal little man the day before she was persuaded to give him the lepto shot. The day after he was brain dead, and the week after he was literally dead.

Ask Sue and Zoe Lewsley whose Champion Doberman, Tommy, experienced inflammation in his entire body after a lepto shot. Tommy was screaming in pain and couldn’t move. Within three months, despite extensive veterinary support, the nerve damage in Tommy’s body was so severe that he had to be put to sleep. An adverse vaccine event report was filed by Tommy’s vet.

But over 99% of vaccine reactions go unreported in dogs and cats.

Lyme Disease

As with leptospirosis, Lyme disease is also caused by a bacteria, but is transmitted through tick bites. Lyme disease exists in most states in America.

As with leptospirosis, not all dogs who test positive for Lyme disease suffer symptoms, and the disease can be treated with antibiotics or good holistic care.

The American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine (ACVIM), stated in 2005, “The ACVIM diplomates believe the use of Lyme vaccines is still controversial and most do not administer them.” Neither do the American veterinary schools recommend the Lyme vaccine.

Dr Patricia Jordan writes,

In some cases, dogs develop Lyme disease despite the vaccine, or maybe because of the vaccine. Research dogs develop all the symptoms of Lyme disease up to six weeks after receiving the shot, while tests for the Lyme disease bacteria show up as negative. Left untreated more concerning issues develop.”

Cornell University’s School of Veterinary Medicine researchers suspect long-term side effects are associated with the Lyme disease vaccine for dogs, but nothing definitive has been documented or exhaustively studied, says Allen Schoen, a doctor of veterinary medicine in Sherman, Connecticut. “These side effects may vary from rheumatoid arthritis and all the major symptoms of Lyme disease to acute kidney failure.”

There is some controversy about how long a tick must be on your dog before it injects the Borrelia bacterin that causes Lyme disease into him. Some say five hours, others say up to 70 hours. Therefore the safest and most effective “vaccine” would be to inspect your dogs daily and remove ticks before they attach, or as quickly as possible.

Other preventative measures include keeping your lawn short, not feeding wildlife near your garden and using other non-toxic forms of tick preventation.

Given the evidence, it is difficult to imagine why the Lyme vaccine isn’t on the “not recommended” list.