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New Vets, New Vaccines, New
Profits
Part
1
Most vets are good people who care deeply about
animals. Like doctors, they have to earn a living in a litigious society which
means succumbing to pharmaceutical giants and evolving business models that rely
on a plethora of vaccines and prescriptions.
 Barbara (BJ) Andrews ©
TheDogPlace
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Big Pharmas subsidize medical and
veterinary universities, supply the text and tools which influence college
students and even after graduation, may supply computers and software programs
to promising medical doctors and veterinary practices. What used to be a
symbiotic relationship that enabled development and research has largely turned
into a profit-driven scheme to control medical practitioners at every level.
A whole new profession has emerged wherein the drug companies
employ special companies to link them with doctors who have a large patient base
that can be persuaded to participate in prescription trials? Have you seen
the ads on TV encouraging you to be one of the lucky ones and ask your doctor
about XYZ? OK, then what do you think your best brood bitch or that
answer-to-your-dreams special looks like to a hungry drug company?
None of us relate to big business
duplicity until someone we know is killed because management knowingly sent a
death trap onto the highway. Tobacco companies suppressed evidence that
smoking can kill us and today, pharmaceutical companies get by with murder,
literally. Most
of us have been around long enough to seek out the best vets for our dogs but
how many times have you been handed off to the new partner and found yourself
wondering where that person got an education?
Maybe it is just a sign of the times.
Two of my vet-friends operate veterinary practices which are little more than store fronts. They have visiting ophthalmologists, cardiologists,
orthopedic specialists and
surgeons. One friend proudly says
she doesn’t even do spay and neuters. She
just schedules them for the rotating surgeon and hands the bother of after-hours
off to the emergency clinic. She
says she now “has a life” and I guess I understand....
 Our horse vet was afraid of dogs, wouldn't get out of his
truck until my Dobermans were locked in the house, but together we learned things.
Clifton Hart taught me how to sew up a horse and I taught him how to read
a dog. One New Year’s day while
waiting for my injury-prone stallion to go down, we recalled visits on
Christmas day, July 4th and Thanksgiving morning.
The horse finally gave in and as we rolled him, Cliff reminded me about the Easter
Sunday when he’d missed the egg hunt with his grandkids because my too-hot
game horse ripped a shoulder on the barrels. Dr. Hart was a dinosaur.
Totally unlike today’s bright young veterinarians who succumb to profit over
procedure, who prefer supply rooms to satchels and expect livestock to come to
them!. Eventually he retired his large animal practice, opened a one-man
veterinary clinic and treated dogs but Cliff never stopped learning and loving
animals.
There is a not-so-pretty side of
medical and veterinary knowledge and the business end of operating a successful
practice. Doctors once considered
leeches a sure ‘nuff cure-all. Bleeding
patients to within a quart of their lives was common. Pretty gruesome but no less so than
today's practice of radical
mastectomy and automatic prostate removal.
There are millions of ulcer
surgery victims walking around today with only part
of a stomach because doctors were taught
to maintain patients on expensive prescriptions for as long as possible – and
then use the knife. Not
one prescription ever cured an ulcer. Patients could have been spared
if medical universities and drug companies had listened to one small voice who,
thank God! would not be silenced. After
being scorned and professionally derided, finally, the
Australian researcher’s persistence paid off.
When the truth leaked to mainstream media, the “newly discovered” cause of ulcers was immediately followed by a cure for pylori bacteria.
Such is progress.
If you understand how profit affects human medicine, you
can then look at the vaccination hype with 20/20 vision.
How many remember the Parvo outbreak?
Dates you doesn’t it? Well,
then you remember that it supposedly erupted spontaneously at the Collie Specialty.
Sure. And it spread almost simultaneously
around the globe. Impossible!
Unlike the rapid spread of human virus, hundreds of host-dogs didn't jet all over the world
that week. There was a flurry of veterinary articles
that espoused the laboratory-created theory but they were soon drowned out by drug
company rhetoric espousing the spontaneous outbreak theory.
A grateful public rushed to grab
the vaccine to protect their pets from the new and dreaded
virus. Those early parvo vaccines caused
serious reproductive problems but the only people who knew it were breeders and breeder
vets. The good vet who vaccinated sterilized pets had no reason to care about reproductive
problems, he was just glad to have a new vaccine and new clients coming through
the door to get it!
 I wrote for The Dog
back then, the weekly predecessor of Ric’s old Canine Chronicle.
Dr. Erbeck was the veterinary columnist.
We both wrote about Parvo but he provided all the technical data to support his
theory that parvo virus was in fact, a laboratory mutation.
Our reader survey generated a flood of reports that conclusively linked
compromised immune systems, fertility problems, even C-sections, to the hastily released feline distemper vaccine (for parvo) and the subsequently approved canine derivative parvo vaccine. If in fact
the creation of parvo virus it was a marketing strategy, it was inconceivably
cruel but totally successful. If it
was only a laboratory mistake, it was still enormously profitable and set the
stage for a host of subsequent frightful new diseases which are immediately
followed by the panacea.
For example, there were medically
sound questions about the efficacy and need for Lyme Disease vaccine.
First the big scare, carefully placed news releases in the doggy press.
Then, conveniently, a vaccine. One
little glitch. One pharmaceutical company charged its competitor with
marketing a vaccine for which no disease had ever been diagnosed in the canine! Fur flew.
Sort of a ho-hum repetition of the scandals surrounding feline leukemia
vaccine. By the way, refreshing my memory, I just spoke with a vet friend.
She told me that some of the newer vaccines are labeled as “aids in the
prevention of” which sounds a lot like the disclaimers on most wormers.
Like selling birth control that might
work.
The latest pitch is a vaccine for giardia!
In nearly forty years of multiple-dog ownership and litters, we have had
one, repeat – one case of giardia! I
have been told by a doctor-friend that it is more common in the municipal water
supplies.
OK, so why not a vaccine for people first???
I’ll leave you to speculate the dark and devious answer to that.
Is it because our dogs have become just another “clinical trial” for yet another
vaccine? We'll watch this one.
Dr. Pitcairn, a widely respected
holistic veterinarian said “We do see a number of health problems that we
associate with vaccines, (often) having to do with immune problems or
allergies.” He also points
out “It also seems that animals become more susceptible to other infections,
so that a cat that gets the feline leukemia vaccine might come down a month
later with FIP. There is some
evidence reported in the veterinary literature that after a vaccine, the immune
system weakens or the animal is more susceptible to diseases of other sorts.”
One of the world's greatest
authorities on vaccines, Dr. Jonas Salk (polio vaccine) cautioned about over-use.
He cited examples of rabies vaccine damage and espoused the “herd
immunization” theory which is simple. Vaccinate
one cow and she sheds the virus that then immunizes ten cows.
Problem with that theory is obvious.
If applied, it would cut drug company profit by 90%.....
There are hundreds of medical reports relating to humans that point out the rise in diseases such
as Hepatitis A, B, and the epidemic rise of Hepatitis C. Unbelievably, the highest number of deaths ever recorded from
tuberculosis was in 1998! Where has
science taken us? Malaria still
claims over three million victims yearly. Well
the list goes on but the point is that virus mutate, particularly when
artificially challenged.
The simple truth is – the more
we vaccinate, the more the virus mutates. The
more we treat with antibiotics, the more resistant become the bacteria.
I’m not saying we shouldn’t take
advantage of the marvels of modern medicine.
After all, we have come a long way from using leeches and castor oil for
disease! But we must use common
sense and logic. Take time to find
out if there might be an alternative treatment without risky side effects.
And keep in mind that the medical establishment has a clear history of
putting a damper on non-surgical treatments or those that would not be protected
by patent rights.
So clear your plate. Over-vaccination
& Over-medications
serves a second course in vaccine, heartworm meds side
effects, damage to the canine immune system, a look inside veterinary & drug
company profitability, etc.
1009
http://www.thedogplace.org/Vaccines/Vaccine-Debate-9908-1_Andrews.asp
 August
1999 edition, reprinted with permission. Copyright © 1999 Barbara J. Andrews - All rights reserved. Except for
brief quotations with source provided, no portions thereof may be stored or
reprinted in any form, electronic or otherwise, without prior express written
consent of Barbara J. Andrews
BJ@ToyFoxTerriersOBJ.com or
Editor@TheDogPlace.org
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