Thursday, June 16, 2011

Vaccine History

Last night I was reading some veterinary journals. They always have case histories of animals that have come down with some weird disease, or a weird presentation of a common disease. The history given is usually limited to the clinical signs, and never include what I want to know: And when were they last vaccinated? And what were they being fed while they were vaccinated?
All vaccines come with an insert, that little piece of paper that tells you how to use the vaccine, what percentage of animals can be expected to be protected by it, etc. I never read these myself until about 3 or 4 years ago, when I suddenly wondered what was on this little piece of paper that comes with the vaccines.
Vaccine inserts mention several times that the product is for use in healthy animals, and that only healthy animals should be vaccinated. At the end there are precautions, including the tidbit that animals who are stressed (do you really think your cat likes to ride in the car?), malnutritioned (every pet on dry precessed kibble food), or incubating any disease shouldn't be vaccinated because....well, they don't say what might happen, because it's unknown. It is completely not known what kind of effects, short or long term, the vaccine might have on your pet.
Another article mentioned that viruses for the cat vaccines are grown in feline kidney cell culture. Guess what happens when you inject them into your cat? That's right, the cat develops antibodies to everything in the injection, including...cat kidney cells. Maybe that's why just about every cat develops kidney disease at some point.
Hmmm, food for thought.

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