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More on Vaccine Debate
(and heartworm)

ShowSight received a letter from a Vet student who launched a vehement attack on my column about the vaccination controversy.  She wanted to kill the messenger but what the heck, about once a week, I could take a squirt gun to some network newscaster so fair’s fair.

Her letter raised some interesting points although I doubt they are what she intended.  Apart from being “appalled and very disturbed”, she felt “the entire article is utter nonsense, with no facts to back up any of BJ’s “old fashioned common sense.”

She objected even less politely to my statement that God would never make a host allergic to its natural parasite.  Since I seem to have really annoyed her, and since I fear that she speaks for a growing number of practicing vets or near-graduates, I decided to elaborate on some things she derides as common sense.  Should she go into private practice, she might notice the time of year that her waiting room fills with itching, miserable, sparsely coated pets.  She might wonder why the big increase in dermatitis coincides with things like spring cleaning, fertilizing and yard spraying, and starting dogs back on heart worm prevention.

Just this week a concerned veterinarian described unethical changes in some practices because pet insurance enables medically unnecessary treatments that owners used to not find affordable.  Anesthesia is hard on the patient.  Why subject a dog to such risk just to clean teeth instead of giving it a good safe knuckle bone?  Why is it suggested (by the drug companies) that the older a dog is, the more it is at risk because its immune system is wearing out and therefore, it should be vaccinated more frequently than younger dogs??!!!?  To the young vet-to-be I say that is the kind of downright deadly policy that “appalls and disturbs” knowledgeable dog owners!

Back to my comment about host and parasite.  What is broadly termed “flea allergy” is in fact a warning that the pet’s immune system is under attack. When people inhale irritants, they sneeze.  Dogs sneeze too but are more likely to itch when chronically exposed to inhaled allergens.  Itching can also signify a wide range of environmental antagonists, anything from food additives to chemicals absorbed through foot-licking due to contact dermatitis.  Incredibly, the most common treatment is to further depress the dog’s immune system by cortisone injections when the solution is often as simple as halting the dipping/flea collar assault on an already chemically besieged animal!  The less profitable but stupendously more humane approach is to identify and prevent further exposure to the toxic agent.  Use topical treatments instead of bombarding the entire dog with a prescription for front office profitability.  There!  I said it again.  Boost the dog’s immune system with those dratted “alternative” methods and supplements.  Y’know, the ones that work but can’t be patented and are therefore of “no value” to drug companies and some vets.

The soon-to-be-released student writes “heartworm is 100% preventable with the use of safe, effective monthly tablets” and goes on to blame owners for trying to “de-worm their dogs at home using large animal products.”  Such parroted statements are a frightening example of why robotic medication dispensers can be so harmful to dogs.  In the hands of unscrupulous or determinedly ignorant vets, prescribed poison is a lot more dangerous than home or herbal wormers.

Promotion of a treatment which can be worse than the disease is as unforgivable as is ignorance in those who claim to be learned.  The professionals in whose hands we trustingly place our best friends have a moral obligation to expand their education with a big dash of hands-on care and common sense.  Apparently old textbooks omit the reams of published information regarding potential side effects of some medications.  For example, there are respected reports on interference between antibiotics such as tribrissen and heart worm preventatives and there is a risk that HW preventatives will suppress thyroid function (whoops, than can mean dermatitis) and can cause reproductive problems.  Vets need to know all the factors before prescribing a product based on the manufacturer’s sales and promotional materials.

For example.  I wanted to know about mosquitoes since they are the delivery boys for heartworm disease.  So I bit the bullet and did that research-stuff.  Then I weighed the odds of an infected mosquito flying it’s maximum three hundred yard range in order to feast on my double coated dogs when a.) There are no loose dogs in my hunt-country neighborhood, or b.) my dogs are sold to people in upper class neighborhoods where there is no medically deprived dog population.  (Our owner’s dogs don’t itch  - it is their neighbor’s dogs that live at the vet’s that suffer so pitifully.)  The fact that we lovingly maintain a purple martin habitat has nothing to do with our decision to neither use nor recommend HW prevention.  Neither does coat density as we now also have short coated dogs and our risk assessment remains unchanged.

Veterinarians protect the average pet owned by the average person who has no motivation, time, or desire to employ safer but often, more complex ways of caring for it.  Most have been surgically sterilized so there’s no concern about reproductive ability.

Perhaps the best thing about HW preventatives and yearly vaccinations may be that they motivate owners to bring their pets in to the vet regularly.  It provides the conscientious vet an opportunity to catch any developing problems that the owner may have overlooked.  And for what it’s worth, a positive diagnosis is not uncommon in dogs that were maintained on monthly HW meds.  Significantly, most such positives are not the result of the dog being tested specifically for heart worm because people trust their own or their handler’s memory and the effectiveness of the product.  It is a false assurance.  Check your dogs at least every six months.

As for the vet student’s disbelief, I’m sure many readers react to my columns just as she did.  But make no mistake, unlike a fiction writer, a journalist has a responsibility to be factual, verify the source, and of course, to weigh the information against personal knowledge of the subject.  I do all that pretty well but admittedly can fail when trying to present information in an objective manner.  Like most in our sport, I write passionately about what interests me and for twenty years have been indulged by publishers who allow me free rein.

So, having a foot in my mouth is an awkward position but it doesn’t stop me from reaching the keyboard.  ShowSight even forgives me for being politically incorrect.  They know I know that some of the best advertisers are also physicians, vets, and dog food companies.  We just happen to believe that those clients are deeply committed to their dogs, willing to weigh info, reject without recrimination that which doesn’t suit their purpose, and use wisely that which does.

I think of this readership as post-graduates in the school of canine management so I don’t footnote or reference every statement.  Furthermore, egotistical though it may be, I am MY OWN REFERENCE.  And the fact is, many of you are my source!  Good dog people agree that several decades of clinical trial and error counts for as much as a neophyte research scientist working in a lab where the only animals he touches are in stainless steel cages.  He/she works for or receives sizable grants from companies whose primary motivation is to develop profitable new products.  I work for the dogs.  I thought everyone knew that!

So, here’s the deal.  I don’t use herbs to stop a bleeding artery.  My dogs go to the vet.  I go to the doctor.  We have many friends in the medical arts and two very close friends who are among the best known multi-species animal trainers in North America.  I serve as a clearing house for the experiences of other animal owners.  I make no apologies for the significant fact that my sources differ from the angry vet student.  Some of my research sources have college degrees, some have lifetime degrees but all are credible sources.

So clear your plate.  Next month we’ll serve the first course in vaccine and health care information.  Might even throw in a footnote or two to make sure everyone knows I am a professional writer that has been known to have an unoriginal thought!

>> Vaccine Debate Part Two

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