Every procedure we do to ourselves or those in our care should be a useful one or there is no reason to do it. This may seem obvious, but bears mentioning, especially in the world of modern medicine. While vaccinations may confer immunity in animals, how effective or useful is it to
repeat this procedure every year, as is the standard recommendation in this country today?

The Experts Speak
Immunology has recognized for a great many years that viruses confer a long-lived immunity. This is why your physician is not sending you postcards every year to repeat your small pox or polio vaccinations annually. They understand your immune system was adequately stimulated in childhood, and a cellular memory exists in you that will “wake up” if any future challenges from these viruses occur. Is there some profound difference in animals that makes us think they need to repeat their vaccinations yearly?

Let me quote from the experts. The following was printed in Current Veterinary Therapy, volume XI, published in 1992 (this is a very well respected, peer-reviewed book that is updated every four years). The authors are veterinary immunologists Ronald Schultz (University of Wisconsin) and Tom Phillips (Scrips Research Institute).

"A practice that was started many years ago and that lacks scientific validity or verification is annual revaccination. Almost without exception there is no immunologic requirement for annual revaccination. Immunity to viruses persists for years or for the life of the animal...... Furthermore, revaccination with most viral vaccines fails to stimulate an anamnestic (secondary) response.... The practice of annual vaccination in our opinion should be considered of questionable efficacy...”

In plain English, that means you are wasting a lot of money (and, as we’ll see later, risking your animals’ health) without much likelihood that your animal is actually becoming “boosted” each year. In other words, the immunity that was established in early life persists, and it is that immunity that actually interferes with subsequent vaccinations. It’s much like the case of vaccinating very young puppies. If you vaccinate a puppy (or kitten) at a too young age, the maternal antibodies from the mother’s immune system are still present, and the vaccine will be thwarted in its attempt to provoke an immune response.

Types of Rabies Vaccines
I had the pleasure of meeting Dr. Schultz at a veterinary conference several years ago. He has done research for many of the companies that market vaccines. It was very interesting to hear his perspective of 25 years in this field. He clearly had not come to this understanding lightly. One most interesting fact was how rabies vaccine comes to be labeled. We currently have a “One-year rabies” and a “Three-year rabies” vaccine. On the labels, the one-year must be repeated yearly and the three-year must be repeated every three years. The two labels relate to the length of time the experimental animals were studied. At the end of one year after their vaccination, the animals were challenged with live rabies virus, the survivors tallied, and the vaccine marketed as “One-year rabies vaccine”.

The same vaccine was studied for three years , the data gathered, and this vaccine lot was marketed as “Three-year rabies vaccine.” Rabies vaccine is so effective in immunizing that there is likely life-long protection. Why then do some vaccinate annually? Unfortunately, we have laws in place that fail to recognize immunological facts. A handful of states still require annual rabies vaccination. In Texas and most US states all dogs and cats are required to be vaccinated triennially against rabies.

A Human Health Law for my Pet?
Now, let’s look at this law. Who puts it forth? In each state, the rabies law is made by the Department of Health, a human health governmental body. Why? It exists to protect the human populace against rabies. We learned many years ago that, if we had a large percentage of the pets vaccinated against rabies, the incidence of human rabies decreased substantially. This happens because pets are often the vector that deliver the rabies virus from the wildlife species where it has a reservoir (commonly in skunk, raccoon, fox, coyote, occasionally bats) to the people. If a skunk with rabies bites your dog and your dog gets rabies and then bites you, you can get rabies. Not a good scenario, as there is quite a high likelihood of fatality with this virus. But, if Spot is vaccinated against rabies and gets bitten by the same rabid skunk, Spot’s immunity rises to the challenge and wards off the infection. So, the vaccination of pets is clearly preventing people from getting rabies. But why require the vaccination yearly? Is there any evidence that the immunity wanes at day 364 (or at 3 years) and needs to be boosted? Clearly not. Duration of immunity studies are few, but the evidence is, as the immunologists stated above, that immunity likely lasts a lifetime.

So, useful questions to ponder when considering how you will interact
with a law that can potentially harm your animal (see part 2) are:

1. Is my animal vaccinated against rabies already?
2. If so, have I fulfilled the intent of the law to protect humans from my pet giving them rabies?
3. If immunology shows a long lasting immunity to this viral vaccine, is it in my best interest or my pet’s best interest to continue following this law?
4. Does anyone go door to door to check on my animals’ rabies vaccine status?
5. If I choose not to vaccinate repeatedly any longer for rabies, am I putting my animal at risk if he bites someone?

The last question is what may ultimately scare people into following a law that can make their animal chronically ill. But, my goal is to arm you with information so you can act reasonably rather than in fear. If your animal bites someone, can he be put to sleep so his head can be examined for evidence of rabies? That’s the idea that sends most people to get the revaccination. What a scary thought! So, what are the facts? A stray animal who has bitten a person, who has no owner and no proof of vaccination against rabies can, by law, by euthanized and have its head sent for examination to determine if rabies is present. Why? There is unfortunately no easier way to determine if an animal was incubating rabies at the time it bit someone. And, if the bitten person could die of rabies, time is of the essence, and the department of health wants to know if they need to begin the series of expensive injections that can prevent rabies in the bitten person.

But what about MY animal biting someone?
If you have evidence that your pet has had a rabies vaccine sometime in his life, your animal is decidedly different than that stray dog. Yours is a vaccinated animal, and vaccinated animals are regarded differently. The worst case scenario for a known vaccinated animal is a quarantine of ten days, in which your animal may be taken to a kennel and caged for observation. Sometimes this quarantine even happens in your own home. If an animal has just bitten someone because of rabies, the incubation period of the virus is almost finished and other behavioral changes indicating rabies will show during this period of quarantine. In the absence of bizarre behavior typical of the rabid animal, your pet will be released after the period of observation, and you will be admonished to get the shots once again, be given a board bill for the time of quarantine, and potentially a fine, though I’ve not heard of that happening.

How Risky is Biting?
A common question I’m asked is, “Aren’t I liable if my animal bites someone and he’s not up to date with his rabies vaccination?” There are two very different areas of concern here, so the questions should be, “Am I liable if my animal bites someone?” and “Am I liable if my animal is not current on his rabies vaccines?”

So, the first question’s answer is yes, you are liable if your animal bites someone. Your animal has caused injury and you own this animal and are responsible for its behavior. Whether you get sued for the damages is up to the injured party. But that has nothing whatsoever to do with your
animal’s last rabies vaccine. Are you less liable if your animal is up to date on his rabies vaccine? I can’t imagine you would be. If someone needs medical care for wounds caused by your dog biting him, it’s purely academic whether of not he’s current on his rabies vaccine.

Are you liable if your animal has not stayed current with the law?

A qualified yes, here. Qualified because there’s a statute somewhere that can be enforced against you, technically. But, practically speaking, who’s going to know? Does anyone canvas the neighborhood asking to see current rabies vaccination certificates? Not in any municipality I’ve dealt with. But, let's say you're confronted by the animal control officials after your animal has bitten someone. Again, the worst case scenario, as long as you have proof of rabies vaccination at some time in the past, is a quarantine for observation. One has to weigh this risk against the risk of repeatedly vaccinating their pet (see Part 2 to evaluate this risk). I can't make that decision for you. I can say that a great many of my clients, perhaps 90%, choose not to continue repeatedly vaccinating for rabies.

Then comes another question: "If I stop rabies vaccinations, how can I license my dog or cat?" Here again, you have to decide how important this is to you. Most of my clients don't license if this means they have to vaccinate time and again. And the most important tag to have on a collar is not a license tag: it is a tag that has your name and phone number on it.

How About Other Vaccines?
What about the other vaccinations? In dogs, cats, and horses the majority of what we vaccinate with are also viral vaccines, so there should be “no immunological requirement” for repeating them yearly. The one exception is the tetanus toxoid given to horses. This is not viral, but actually a bacterial toxin made into a vaccine. It may need to be repeated, but certainly not yearly. The immunity may lapse from this toxoid after 7-10 years and repetition will boost this kind of immunity. Also know that none of the others are required by law to be repeated. Some are even useless to give at any age, others at any age over one year.

A lot of what conventional medicine recommends is based on fear. If there’s a “bad germ” out there that might “get us” (or our pets), we want to use something to protect against that germ. We’ve all heard horror stories about dogs dying of Parvovirus infection, so we are admonished to get yearly (or even twice yearly!) vaccinations against this deadly disease.

Yet how many adult dogs die of Parvo each year?
Ask your veterinarian this question. Parvo is almost always a disease of puppies under one
year of age, and very occasionally old dogs who have weakened immune systems from unhealthy living (commercial diets and frequent vaccinations!). Why, then should we vaccinate against it yearly throughout life? Coronavirus also causes puppy diarrhea and vomiting, but differs from Parvo in that it is not fatal. Bordetella vaccines are given to prevent kennel cough. How efficacious they are is open to question, but more importantly, how serious is the disease? It’s the canine version of a coughing cold in humans. Bothersome, but never fatal. Is it worthwhile injecting viruses into our animals for a disease from which they will surely survive? Dr. Schultz and others feel it is not. Yet this and other non-fatal viruses are in common use in every “annual (non-) booster” given.

But, We’ve Always Done it This Way (haven’t we?)
You might ask why this annual vaccination habit exists. It’s a very good question, and one that conventional medicine is examining more and more frequently as time goes on. Perhaps the weakest argument I’ve heard is the liability issue. Vaccines are labeled for yearly repetition, and a label must be followed, legally, by the user of the vaccine or drug. The argument states, if the vaccine interval is longer than a year, and the animal gets ill from a disease that was supposed to be prevented by the vaccine, the poor veterinarian could be sued. It’s about as likely as the animal getting a vaccine-preventable disease after being vaccinated. It can happen, because no vaccine confers 100% immunity in those vaccinated. Far from it, in fact. So, law suit-happy people can sue for anything, but the odds are that an animal vaccinated properly with a virus vaccine will be as immune several years after the vaccination as it was when the one year anniversary came up.

And, if label following were the reason veterinarians feel compelled to vaccinate annually,
how about another very important part of the label, the part that states "Only for use in healthy animals?" See Part 3 for this part of the argument.

A recent watershed occurred when a renowned University of California-Davis veterinary researcher and professor, Neils Pedersen, commented on the practice in a very well respected conventional magazine called AAHA Trends (AAHA is the American Animal Hospital Association).

"Current vaccine practices are medically unsound. It is time to question the wisdom of annual booster, multivalent products (combination vaccines, the most common being DHLPP for dogs and FVRCP for cats), and unnecessary vaccines. Doing so will return companion animals’ immunization to its status as a medical and not an economical procedure.”

Reality Check!
What will get us a lot closer to what we really want (healthy animals who are resistant to all disease) is to focus on raising our individual animals in the way that allows them to do what nature intended: to live freely, happily, and fully alive, with an immune system that responds directly to any challenge that confronts them. In our haste to protect our pets, let’s not forget that it’s the animal’s immune system that protects, not some solution of viruses in a syringe.

In the second part of this article, I’ll address another aspect of the vaccine question: safety. And in the third, the notion of titer testing in lieu of vaccinating.

For now, suffice it to say that if your dog or cat is an adult who has had vaccinations, there is no immunologic need to continue vaccinating annually: the immunity is present from the early vaccines and will not get any better through yearly repetition.