Titers and evidence
 

Intersting article...
Basically saying titers are not all that useful. That has been my opinion for a while, but I always like to read updated info when I see it. I'll stick with vaccination.

Antibody Titer Testing as a Guide for Vaccination in Dogs and Cats | The SkeptVet

As will I :thumbup:

Thanks for posting this when I get I few minutes I will read it. I have tried to warm people about them being that way before. My vet feels the same way and most of what I read does too.

I've said over and over that there is no real point to titering as the result doesn't actually mean anything, so I agree with this article.

Basically with titers, you can have a positive titer and still be susceptible to the disease. You could have a negative titer and actually be immune to the disease.

Also...I should've said - you can have cell mediated immunity, but no humoral immunity and vice versa...again, pointing the to the futility of titer results.

:thumbup::thumbup:

I'll stick to "neither" :p

Not "No Vaccines" but I won't be vaccinating yearly, or even every 3 years, for anything other than rabies and I also won't be titering. See no need.

Thanks for posting this. I do titers and now I may not anymore. I don't vaccinate annually either.

I'm glad people are finding the article as interesting as I did. The fact is that very few people know how immunity and vaccines work yet are highly opinionated on this subject. Since distemper is resurging around here, I'm opting to continue vaccination every 3 yrs in my younger dogs until their shots at age 7. Rabies as required by law for all my dogs, two will be done at age 15.... I'm not worried in the slightest as all this fear hype over vaccines hasn't prevented my Yorkies from living to be old and healthy.

There have been outbreaks of distemper and more parvo, so I'm going to have Max (age 6) and Teddy (will be 6 in June) vaccinated for them one more time.

Our vet insists on either the vaccination or the titer. I have read other articles that challenge the usefulness of titers, so I was not excited about paying for something that isn't more reliable.

This is basically how I am too -- after age 6 or so, they should have lifetime immunity, according to the studies so after that age - I'll just be getting rabies by law.

Gave up on titers after realizing that I was paying for unnecessary and inconclusive labs. Titering years after vaccinating is not actually what they are designed for anyway.

Here, rabies per the law unless pup gets a serious immune mediated disease - then medical exemption. After being around the beheading of animals for rabies testing because an owner decided against vaccinating...I'll vaccinate.

Distemper/parvo until I feel like stopping (very unscientific, but something I put a lot of thought into). We are a 5 year hospital anyway. The AAHA has established that is more than enough.

Callie got Dap every three years and now that she is 7 I won't be getting it for her anymore. I will still do the 3 year rabies because of the law. I'm not sure what to do with Sammy though he is 8 and because he is a rescue I have no idea of his past so not sure if he should get dap any more or not.

This is interesting! I did not know this..so, in theory, Teddy should have to have no further vaccinations which cover the above after age six (the UK doesn't have rabies)? Can you point me to any specific studies so I can query with the vet, please? As per another post, I mentioned he is a very huge advocate of vaccinations so it would be interesting to get his take on anything you have suggesting their efficacy is null after a certain age...


Thank you!

Interesting.

I had Piccolo take a titer test when I first had to stop having her take vaccinations. My vet really wasn't that much for the titers, but I insisted.

It has been 7 years since Piccolo had her near death situation from vaccines. Keeping my fingers crossed that she will never catch anything due to lack of vaccines. I do keep her out of public dog places and my other dogs are up to date on their vaccines.

Anyway, I think I got a little off track about the subject. Thanks for educating us on titers.

I have been debating on whether or not to just get Jackson one more of the distemper/parvo as well. He is 6 now, last ones were at 1 year old, so it would be on the technical 5 year schedule some hospitals are slowly moving to. I'm not overly concerned in any way - he's in public places all the time, exposed to other dogs, etc, and is/has been fine. But I know as he gets older, I'm *definitely* not going to want to do them again, so maybe getting them one more time could simply keep me somewhat... with a peace of mind? Because I know if I decide to get them one more time, he'll never get them again, for the rest of his life. And I know one round of DP isn't going to harm him, either. But I don't know, I just find them somewhat redundant. I don't really see parvo or distemper being an issue in my adult vaccinated dog and think the odds are pretty slim. But like I said vaccinating one more time in his hopefully 8-10 more years of life isn't going to 'hurt' him either... so it's going to end up being a 'eh, might as well' type thing if I get him one more boost.

Interesting article by Skeptvet. It rather seems like titers are useless, and we should just go with what-ever the vaccination protocol is.


He merely makes a statement that there are no scientific studies showing any negative effect of vaccines. Perhaps this is true, but I find that hard to believe. We have no mandatory double reporting to an independent body about vaccine reactions. And more importantly the long term effects of over-vaccination. Vets if they do report - report to the vaccine company...


I would hope that in the future pet owners can rely upon an improvement of scientific evidence that clearly states if this pet or not is protected against the core vaccines commonly given. Quite simply as a pet owner, why give an un-necessary vaccine - if it is indeed un-necessary.

My vet doesn't recommend titers. I have to get bordatella every year or the groomer will not groom. Also, if boarding is required then bordatella is required. I hate getting the annual shots for Zoey/Jackson but it seems to be a necessity.

Laymen making decisions such as vaccinating their pets and children on hunches, feelings, or self believe this is when we run into issues like the current Measles outbreak in the US. Vaccinate your kids and your animals or we will slip back into a time when diseases that we now consider to be eliminated or under control will continue to creep back. Mark my words, all of the crazies that follow holistic and homeopathy will keep beating back immunity. I prefer science based medicine.

You have a VERY valid point!

So do I actually. We also have a mild outbreak of Measles here in Canada.


More science is needed to actually justify the current vaccination protocol. Why 3 yrs or 5 yrs or 1 yr for any vaccine? What science based studies base these recommendations on? Surely they will be some to show that immunity lapses after what-ever number of years. And if so, what do these studies base the immunity lapse on - what are they looking at to adjudge immunity has lapsed?


I believe in give what is necessary and only necessary based on the best evidence that is current.

:thumbup: I agree 100%

Here's the thing.....it's really not that easy. Example:

When I went back to school in for a career in the medical field and then had my first job entering hospitals the first that that I needed to prove was my vaccination record. Obviously, being in my 30's who knows where those record ended up and the pediatrician long ago closed up shop. So off I went to have my titers drawn KNOWING that I had all my childhood vaccines and thinking this is a no brainer. Turns out that I was not as immune as I thought and needed booster vaccines for Measles and also another HepB booster. The doctor then retested me several months later to see if my immunity has risen to a level that would be consider immune. This is VERY common and some people are never able to build high enough immunity. So that leaves us to wonder about vaccines for animals.


It's also the reason that pregnant women are tested for Rubella titers. After I had my son I needed a booster for that as well. So just because vaccines are given and "should" provide lifetime immunity I am proof that is not always the case. In the human population, these above examples are the reason the CDC talks about herd immunity. Although I did have some immunity it was not considered high enough to fully protect me.

[QUOTE=gemy;4531809]So do I actually. We also have a mild outbreak of Measles here in Canada.


More science is needed to actually justify the current vaccination protocol. Why 3 yrs or 5 yrs or 1 yr for any vaccine? What science based studies base these recommendations on? Surely they will be some to show that immunity lapses after what-ever number of years. And if so, what do these studies base the immunity lapse on - what are they looking at to adjudge immunity has lapsed?


I believe in give what is necessary and only necessary based on the best evidence that is current.[/QUOTE]

Yes, why give more than what is necessary? I'm not dragging my dogs off every year to vaccinate. As a matter of fact Dude only gets Rabies every 3 years because he had a reaction to his puppy vaccines. The other 2 gets their vaccines every 3 and not on the same year.

Interesting discussion! I checked for scholarly articles on the subject of vaccinations and vaccination schedules, and found out that an entire issue of Veterinary Microbiology was dedicated to the subject of cat and dog vaccinations in 2006. Here is the link to the table of contents. The articles are all behind paywalls, but you can read the abstracts for all of them:

Veterinary Microbiology | Vol 117, Iss 1, Pgs 1-102, (5 October 2006) | ScienceDirect.com

I'm checking for more recent research, but haven't found much, except for an interesting article about vaccinating feral dogs for rabies using an oral rabies vaccine.

I vaccinate my dogs. Never had a problem. Have always had dogs. i know some can react to shots. But last year there were dogs dying from Pavo. I just take the precaution simple because I never had or seen ill effects in my entire life. Thats alot of years. JMO

I prefer science based medicine too, but I do think holisitic medicine can still work for some things beautifully. Acupuncture especially can do just amazing things where western medicine may fail...I've seen proof of that in myself and a terrible knee problem I had years ago. Orthopedic docs tried for 8 months to fix it, shot my knee up with steroids etcetera, had me taking loads of anti-inflammatories. Nothing got better. Then I had ONE session of acupuncture on my knee and *bam* I was back running in a few days with a fixed knee. :) :thumbup:

While it was indeed "crazy" (in a good way), I wouldn't call myself a "crazy" for using acupuncture. (side note: we actually shouldn't be calling people names like "crazies" for their choices, just like they aren't calling us/you names for your/our choices in western medicine)

Alternative or complementary medicine has its uses. Chronic Diseases are not very well served by the western medicine often times.

that's the thing about disease though... The people aren't healthy and that's why they aren't served well. Not everything is curable or treatable.

I think it's great that it worked for you. I have had experiences with acupuncture and found the $70-80 sessions to be totally useless.

Thanks...yes, it worked beautifully...I was so freakin' happy :)! And it didn't even cost me hardly anything bc I actually went to an acupuncture school...so the student did the work while supervised by the trained clinician. I only wish I'd gone sooner, but who knew?

That's too bad it didn't work for you. I suppose it's like everything else in life...what works for some does not for others. I know cancer survivors who got nothing out of chemo, but healed via holistic measures...as well as those who got nothing out of the holistic route, but chemo saved their lives. Ya just never know...