The "Truth" about vaccinations?
Norfolk, VIrginia's MyCityTalk.com has an article entitled "The Truth About Pet Vaccinations". It's basically the same as hundreds or thousands of other articles available on the internet purporting to try to set the unwary pet-owning public straight about pet vaccines. Here are some of the highlights.
The evidence against vaccinating, however, is overwhelming.
- What evidence? Someone's commentary? Sure, there are hundreds of those. Real scientific proof? Nope. No one is going to dispute that vaccine reactions and other problems can occur. That's clear. At the same time, vaccines clearly save lives and reduce illness. There is certainly a cost-benefit to consider, but non-evidence-based statements like this don't help. The risks and benefits do need to be considered when designing a vaccination program. Real evidence should be used, however.
It is more and more common to see cancer in dogs and cats under 5 years of age. Autoimmune diseases are on the rise as well.
- Maybe, although you have to be careful interpreting that. We have much better diagnostic tests now and can detect diseases we couldn't diagnose before. Also, animals that are alive because they didn't die of an infectious disease are able to develop these conditions. You cannot simply attribute such a trend to modern vaccine practices without looking at the other factors that may be involved.
Vaccinations do help prevent serious illnesses, but they should be used with restraint. Before vaccinating, consider the risk.
- Absolutely. Best piece of advice in the article.
If your cat is indoor only and will never be exposed to unvaccinated animals, the risk of infection is low.
- While the risk of exposure is LOWER for indoor cats, it's not zero. It's amazing how many "indoor" cats come into vet clinics after being hit by a car or getting into a fight with a wild animal. Indoor cats can escape. Also, other animals can get inside, particularly bats - a source of rabies exposure.
Request individual vaccines and vaccinate at least three weeks apart if possible.
- There's little to no evidence that using combination vaccines is a bad thing for your average pet. Also, individual vaccines aren't available for all diseases. Further, if you only vaccinate for one disease at a time and space them three weeks apart, it's going to take a longer time to have an animal with protective immunity. It makes it a lot more expensive too.
If your cats go outside and you have rabies in your area, give a rabies vaccine at six months of age.
- This sentence should start at "give." Every animal in an area where rabies may be present must be vaccinated, regardless of whether it goes outside.
Vaccinations do not need “boosting”
- Says who? This is a generalization that can cause problems. For some vaccines in some animals, a single dose may be adequate, but it's certainly not true for all. Some vaccines work better than others. Some diseases are more amenable to good vaccination prevention. Some vaccines are probably good for a long time, if not life-long. But not all of them.
Simple blood tests can determine if your companion’s antibody levels for parvovirus and distemper remain high enough to resist infection.
- Nope. You can determine antibody levels but no one really knows how to interpret them (i.e. what level means the animal will be protected). Antibodies are only one component of vaccine protection.
The currently licensed leptospira bacterins do not contain the serovars causing the majority of clinical leptospirosis today, so it is generally not a useful vaccine.
- That's true for certain areas. In some regions, the vaccines strains are protective for the strains causing disease.
Homeopathic Nosodes are an alternative some guardians are using when choosing not to vaccinate.
- There is no evidence whatsoever that nosodes do anything but make money for people who sell them.
They (nosodes) do not produce titers against these diseases like a vaccination.
- That's because they don't do anything.
Never vaccinate a sick or weakened animal.
- Good advice.
Educate yourself. Your veterinarian cannot make this decision for you, nor should they. You are your companion’s guardian. It is your responsibility to give them the best care you can by researching and carefully weighing your decisions about their healthcare.
- That's true. However, you need to make sure you get good advice from all sources. You should consult with your vet and feel free to ask any questions. You should also scrutinize information available on the internet. Vaccination recommendations have changed in recent years, with longer intervals between boosters, and they certainly may change further as we learn more. I'm perfectly happy stretching out vaccine intervals based on good data. My pets don't get vaccinated every year. The key is to base decisions and changes on evidence so that we maintain the effectiveness of this critical disease-prevention tool.
The original source of the article was actually the Healthy Pet Journal, an online "journal" (site) published by a holistic/naturopathic veterinarian (who of course runs a clinic specializing in such services). Always consider the source of what you're reading and the potential biases that come along with it.
Tea tree oil in dogs
Skin and soft tissue infections increasingly caused by highly drug-resistant bacteria, along with various concerns about antibiotic use, have led to a desire to find non-antibiotic approaches to treatment of these infections. Tea tree oil has some potent antibacterial properties when tested in the lab, and there are some studies indicating it might be effective for the treatment of certain infections. Some work that we've done in my lab shows promising activity of a few different essential oils against MRSP. Some of these oil may be similarly useful treatments for certain infections.
However, as I've stated before, we need to make sure that we adequately investigate safety of any new drug or therapy. All natural does not mean safer. If something kills bacteria, we need to make sure that it doesn't also harm an animal's cells and tissues.
Tea tree oil can cause damage to skin and soft tissue cells, but it's unclear whether this is really a problem during short courses of treatment. Nonetheless, in humans it has been recommended that tea tree oil not be used for treatment of burns because of concerns about tissue damage.(Faoagali et al, Burns 1997)
Another concern is toxicity from ingestion. This isn't usually a concern in adults, but there are a couple reports of children that became seriously ill (neurological abnormalities, progressive unresponsiveness... fortunately temporary) after ingestion of small volumes of tea tree oil. This leads me to have concerns about ingestion of the oil by dogs and cats if they lick areas where it has been applied, or eat bandages soaked in oil. They probably wouldn't ingest that much, but it's possible.
At this point, the jury is still out on the usefulness of tea tree oil. There are some potentially beneficial aspects and some safety issues that need to be clarified. In the interim, if you want to use tea tree oil:
- Recognize it's not a proven therapy. Don't use it in place of conventional treatment recommended by your vet.
- Keep it out of the reach of children and pets.
- Be judicious about the amount you use, and make sure pets don't lick it off.
- If the infected site seems to get worse after tea tree oil is used, stop applying it and see your veterinarian.
Internet ying/yang: Artemisinin use and safety
Yesterday, I received a bulk email ad advertising a book about Chinese herbal medicine in pets.One of the introductory statements said that Chinese medicine is "becoming more popular as people realize the powerful yet gentle ways of TCM healing." On the same day, I received a Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports article entitled "Hepatitis temporally associated with an herbal supplement containing artemisinin."
Also known as qinghaosu, artemisinins are a class of compounds (drugs) that are used for the treatment of malaria. They are the active constituents of the herb Artemisia annua (sweet wormwood). Herbal supplements containing these compounds are marketed for "general health maintenance" (whatever that means), treatment of parasites and treatment of cancer.
In the MMWR case report, the CDC was notified about a person who developed hepatitis while taking an herbal supplement containing artemisinin. The person was prescribed the supplement by a naturopathic practitioner who attributed the patient's chronic abdominal pain to a parasitic infection. Six weeks of treatment was prescribed but 1 week into treatment, signs of hepatitis developed. No other causes of hepatitis were identified, and it resolved after the person stopped taking the supplement. That doesn't prove the supplement was the cause, but it is suspicious.
The supplement was tested and it had the amount of artemisinin that the label claimed. Artemisinin is generally considered a safe treatment for malaria, however the prescribed dose was much higher than the dose that is conventionally used for malaria treatment. It's unclear whether the liver damage occurred because of the dose, interactions with other compounds in the supplement, or an unusual reaction in this patient.
It's important to remember that herbal therapies are drugs. The fact that they are still in their natural state does not necessarily mean they are safer. In fact, there can be increased risks because of inconsistency in potency, dose and the presence of other compounds. With conventional drugs, extensive testing is done before they are released, to reduce the risk of them making people sick. With alternative therapies, the opposite occurs. There is no mandated pre-release testing so harmful products are only identified after they make a lot of people or animals sick.
A drug is a drug, whether it comes in a pill, liquid or leaf form.
All natural organic antibiotic?
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A recent press release from All Pet Naturals proclaims "First All Natural Organic Antibiotic for Pets Now Available."
I know that "organic" and "all natural" are big catch-words for some people, and may be mistakenly perceived as indicators of safety or quality. There are very good reasons why we used manufactured and tested pharmaceuticals. If I wanted an organic, all natural approach to antibiotic therapy, I could eat some moldy bread and hope that an antibiotic-producing yeast was present, hope that it was producing adequate levels of antibiotic to fight my infection, hope that the antibiotic would survive the acid environment of my stomach and be absorbed into my bloodstream, and hope that it would kill the bacterium that's making me sick. Doesn't sound like a good idea to me. Personally, if I need any antibiotic, I'd rather use one that has been shown to be effective, is produced using good manufacturing practices, can be taken at a known concentration and has good dosing recommendations, among other things. Playing around with unknowns in the face of a bacterial infection is not a good idea.
Back to the supposed "all natural organic antibiotic" product in question. It is a grape seed and grapefruit seed extract product. Those compounds have some biocidal activities, meaning they can have effects on some bacteria and viruses in laboratory tests. Evidence for its use for treatment of disease is less convincing, but some topical biocides may be useful adjunctive treatments for skin infections. The manufacturers claim that this product can be used to:
- Treat skin problems caused by bacteria, even basic cuts and wounds.
- Fight tooth decay and gum disease, prevent free-radical damage to the lens and retina of the eye, and even treat glaucoma by protecting collagen structures in the eye.
- Help relieve asthma and emphysema.
- Help to support brain function with daily use.
I have a general line when it comes to products like these: the more a product claims to cure, the less likely it's going to do anything. There's simply little to no evidence for these claims. (Making health claims like this for a nutraceutical is also illegal.) I hate seeing animals that have suffered because people used products like these instead of recommended antibiotic therapy.
Products like this are typically harmless (unless they are used instead of proper treatment and medications) but, if you need an antibiotic, use a real antibiotic. If there's no clear evidence of need, don't use anything. Any compound with activity against bacteria, whether it's a traditional pharmaceutical antibiotic, an organic alternative or a disinfectant, can exert pressure for development of further resistance. So, we only want to risk that if it's really necessary. It's another example of the need to think, read, critically assess and ask questions about potential treatments before jumping on "all natural organic" bandwagon.
Alternative heartworm treatments
Here's a recent question:
"We have a 'new' boxer age 2. The breeder believes in the raw food diet, and not many vaccinations or preventitive treatments. Recently the boxer has been shown to be heartworm positive, and she (the breeder) wants us to take a "holistic" approach to management. Are there any randomized trials to show any benefit to holistic treatment of heartworm?"
The quick answer is NO. There are no “holistic” treatments that have been shown to be effective in randomized trials, nor have any holistic treatments been shown to have any potential effect in in vitro studies. The only proven treatments are “conventional.” I consider it highly unethical to attempt other approaches because: 1) heartworm is a serious disease but one that can often be treated quite successfully and 2) untreated (or inadequately treated) dogs put other dogs at risk because they are sources of infection. Mosquitoes can transmit heartworm from infected dogs to other dogs in the area, and continue the cycle of infection. A serious and transmissible disease is not one for which unproven and likely ineffective treatments should be tried.
Heartworm is a potentially fatal disease that predominantly affects dogs, but can occasionally affect cats as well. It is most commonly caused by the parasite Dirofilaria immitis. It is spread by mosquitoes, which transmit the immature form of the parasite (microfilaria) which are found in the blood of infected animals. Upon being transmitted to a new host by a bite from an infected mosquito, the immature parasites eventually develop into adult worms. These worms lodge in the heart and the nearby blood vessels going to the lungs, and can cause a range of problems (e.g. lethargy, intolerance to exercise). Infection can be fatal - early (and effective) treatment is the key.
