Killing dogs by over vaccination?

Hi Everyone, 
I received this by email today and felt it was worth again discussing Animal Doctors views on triennial (3 year) parvo vaccinations.
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Hi Steve - 

Would you be so kind as to comment, by return, on the following article which appeared on page 14 in the Daily Telegraph on Thursday, August 19, 2010:

Kill with kindness

ANIMAL lovers are putting their pets' lives in danger by over-vaccinating them.

Pets are being unnecessarily vaccinated by vets once a year, rather than recent recommended guidelines of not more than every three years, according to consumer protection group Choice.

It said that Australia's pet owners are not being informed about new vaccination regimes with the Australian Veterinary Association stating too many vaccinations can do harm.

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Currently Animal Doctors stocks and uses both annual and triennial vaccinations made by Intervet, called Nobivac. We believe these are the most effective and safe brand and type of vaccines. Please be assured, incredibly safe.



Facts
1. A minority of dogs within the dog population are vaccinated regularly
2. Critical times for vaccination against parvo, distemper and hepatitis is when the animal is young
3. Vaccination with parvo, distemper and hepatitis is incredibly safe with Intervet vaccines
4. Triennial vaccination is as safe as annual vaccination with regard to side effects
5. With known published data and real world experience, annual vaccination has protected millions of dogs (NOTE THIS IS ONLY ABOUT DOGS) SAFELY for >10 years.
6 Triennial (3 year) vaccinations are only used in small numbers in comparisons, so we do not have the same level of knowledge of its "real" world protection, PUBLISHED and reviewed trials have however clearly demonstrated incredibly good protection (ie it is a great vaccine)
7. Regular health checks have always been the most important part of an annual vaccination, and (opinion), vets in general have been poor communicators as to the importance of that check over, and instead just referred to it as the "vaccination".  - The Vet industry and especially the AVA have a lot to learn about communication and leading the debate about animal health issues in the community.


Comments - 
We have been offering both vaccines, and the 3 year C3 for about 9 months (I am writing this from home and don't have our invoices to check our first order), with approximately 85% of clients choosing to have the annual rather than the 3 year vaccine.

We DO offer a choice for all dogs healthy enough to be vaccinated (no live vaccine is given without a health check as it is a prescription item).


So what are we saying?
1. Most importantly don't get lost in this issue of when and why, the critical thing is to have your dog health checked yearly or more often, and to be assessed for risk, and realistically majority would then be recommended to have EITHER a 3 year C3 and yearly kennel cough OR yearly C3 and yearly canine cough. We pick up MANY more problems that are curable early at health checks that would of otherwise been missed and lead to the death of the animal.
2. TALK TO US ABOUT IT, DON' T BE EMBARRASSED TO ASK, our goal is to have happy healthy patients and satisfied WELL INFORMED AND IN CONTROL CLIENTS!


What the future holds....
Given the wrong message about vaccination is filtered through the media, I suspect we will see more cases of parvo, simply as vaccination rates drop, not because the 3 year parvo doesn't work, but because people will wrongly assume that their pet will be covered indefinitely which it isn't), because vets are ripping them off... etc etc.
It will be even more important to choose whether parvo is a risk factor or not, and to keep protected, more than ever.

It is likely that within 5-10 years most dogs will be vaccinated with the triennial vaccine, once its protection has been demonstrated "in the field". I do believe it is a safe and effective vaccine, otherwise Animal Doctors would not offer or stock it. The industry otherwise I think will be slow to move and adopt it, as it has been already.


So the next time your dog is due for its health check, talk to us about it, we look forward to seeing you ,and answering your questions, for us it is as easy as discussing the issue, and if appropriate drawing up one vaccine versus the other within the same fridge. 

PLEASE don't get the impression or message from the news that vaccines are unsafe or not necessary, as this would be the biggest issue of all.

We have been sending a 2 page info sheet with our Petcheck reminders for the past 6 months, but there will be some clients that haven't received this yet.

Hope this helps, lets continue with the discussion, YOUR dog's health and protection not just with parvo (ticks kill more dogs in Port each year than parvo) is what we are trying to achieve.


Regards
Steve


I could go on and on, both opinion and technically, but I have TRIED to keep this brief and to the point, so I am sure not everything is here you want to know, so leave a comment and I will try to reply as often as I can check in.