General Comments about Vaccination Progams in Cats
I don't have much to say as an introduction other than to state the obvious;
THANK GOD FOR THE VACCINES WE HAVE AVAILABLE TODAY !
Alarmists are making a big deal these days about the dangers and potential problems caused by vaccines ... and indeed, we, as a profession are making changes and improvements to both the vaccines themselves and to the protocols we recommend for pet vaccination.
But remember to keep some perspective; for every pet that experiences the discomfort of minor vaccine side effects, and yes, for the rare pet that experiences a major vaccine complication such as a cancerous reaction at the vaccine site or even allergic death: hundreds or thousands of pet lives are spared an agonizing death due to distemper, parvo, leukemia, feline AIDs, pneumonia, kidney failure, and rabies.
Several Comments about Vaccine Quality and Why It's Best to have a Vet Examine your pet each year and decide which vaccines are appropriate for your individual pet.
First, let me remind you that even high quality vaccines won't give your pet good protection if your pet is immune suppressed from parasites, certain medications, illness, certain metabolic problems such as diabetes, thyroid problems, Cushings Disease, excessive stress, or poor nutrtion.
That's the most important reason to have a veterinarian give your pet it's vaccinations; making sure your pet is healthy.
But there are a number of reasons this is a job for a good veterinarian as opposed to doing them in some parking lot, feed store, or doing them yourselves:
1. As just mentioned; the most important part is a good history, wellness examination, and whatever blood, fecal, or heart tests are appropriate to make sure we're vaccinating a healthy pet. Only a vet working from a well equipped office can do this well.
2. Vaccine protocols used to be simple; we more or less recommended that all pets should be examined and vaccinated once a year. This system worked extremely well, all things considered, but now it's recommended that we fine tune this simplistic system and customize a vaccine protocol for each individual pet based on the pet's life stage, risk of exposure, health status, and so forth. Using wise judgement on which vaccines to give when requires a veterinarian.
3. Not all vaccines are equal in protecting your pet. And not all vaccines are equal in safety. Some older and less expensive brands are not only not as effective as the newer, improved vaccines, but are much more likely to cause local inflammation, irritation, and vaccine reactions. Some vaccines have been shown to be nearly useless. Vets are constantly updated on vaccine improvements and vaccine problems and use the best and safest vaccines. This is not always the case if you're getting your vaccines from a mail order catalog, from feed stores, or parking lot clinics.
4. Vaccines have to be kept refridgerated, something that mail order houses, and feed stores may not be as careful about as veterinarians who tend to be very meticulous about vaccine and medication storage and handling.
5. While serious side effects and fatal allergic reactions are rare, it's fairly common to have minor inflammatory reactions, post vaccine fevers, and so forth. Veterinarians know how to deal with such problems.
6. And finally, reputable vaccine manufactuers bend over backwards by paying vet bills and so forth on those occasions when their products cause trouble. They take even the smallest reported reaction seriously. But they only do so if the vaccines were administered under the supervision of a veterinarian.
About the Argument that We may be Vaccinating Pets More Frequetly Than We Need
Basically, this argument is valid. Vaccines save hundreds of thousands of lives in America each year. Leukemia cases have been cut in half over the last few decades because of vaccines. And the only reason leukemia is still a common cause of death in cats is because so many cats are not vaccinated. Rabies is now a fairly rare disease in developed countries because of vaccination.
But vaccines, like all potent medications, have potential side effects. In the case of rabies and leukemia vaccines, the worse possiblities are sudden death due to an allergic reaction (very, very rare...and usually reversible if the reaction occurs in a hospital) and a small possibility of the vaccine causing tissue inflammation that might become cancerous. The chance of this happening is about 0.01% None the less, several thousand serious cancer cases are reported each year that might have been started with tissue inflammation caused by a vaccine or other injected medicine. We as a profession are taking these potential side effects very seriously. Here's what we've come up with so far:
Effective adjuvent free vaccines are now available. Adjuvents are chemicals mixed with the killed virus in the vaccine to make in work better, but increase tissue inflammation at the vaccination site. Present thinking is that it is the inflammation that triggers a potentially cancerous reaction is some genetically coded individuals.
New, needle free vaccine injectors that cause much less tissue inflammation are being used in more and more clinics to further reduce the already tiny chance of future cancer at the injection site.
And the biggest thing we're doing to prevent vaccination problems is by choosing not to give certain higher risk vaccines as frequently as we used to recommend.
Make no mistake; not vaccinating is much more risky than over vaccinating. What we're trying to do is get it just right: Prevent common and terrible diseases using the latest in vaccine technology while at the same time preventing possible vaccine complications by
Making vaccines both longer lasting and less reactive
Reducing the frequency of vaccination
Improving vaccination technique (such as needless delivery)
At present, not all vets are in agreement as to which new vaccine protocols to endorse and recommend to their patients. As with so many important topics, for every study suggesting one conclusion, there are other studies suggesting a different result. Bear with us for a while as veterinary scientists hash this topic out and understand that you will find differing opinions for a while as to how often to vaccinate your pet.
