If there’s one thing about antivaxers, it’s that they’re single-minded beyond belief. No matter what the chronic health problem, it’s always about the vaccines. To them, vaccines are always the cause. Autism? Vaccines must be the cause. Asthma? vaccines. Diabetes? Obviously vaccines. Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS)? What else could it be but the vaccines? (Never mind that there’s plenty of evidence suggesting that vaccinated children have a lower risk of SIDS.) That’s how antivaxers think. Monomania doesn’t even begin to describe it.
I was reminded of this yesterday when I came across yet another article on yet another antivaccine website blaming vaccines for yet another health issue. What made the article stand out to me was that the health problem wasn’t in humans. Rather, it was in man’s best friend. After all, if antivaxers can confuse correlation with causation to blame an increased number of vaccinations in the recommended vaccine schedule for the “autism epidemic” in humans, they can damned well do it for dogs too:
Just as the incidence of Autism-Spectrum Disorders (ASDs) has risen alarmingly in children over the last half century, there is evidence that similar behavioral disorders have been observed in pets, most widely reported among pet dogs. It is too early for mainstream veterinary authorities to confidently confirm that dogs can develop autism, but there are numerous reports of behavior patterns in pets that mirror autism behavior in children. Studies are underway to evaluate the possibility that animals can become autistic.1
One thing I couldn’t help but notice about this article, which is credited to Kate Raines, is that there were basically no peer-reviewed studies cited. That first reference goes to a PetMD article entitled Can Dogs Have Autism? I read the article. The evidence presented wasn’t particularly convincing for reasons that I’ll explain later. In the meantime, let the hilarity continue. Take it away, Kate:
Though the appearance of autism-like behaviors has been observed in dogs since the mid 1960s, the first researcher to specifically relate some of those behaviors to autism was Nicholas Dodman, DVM, who initially set out in 2011 to look for a genetic cause of obsessive tail chasing in bull terriers. This behavioral characteristic has been observed in as many as 85 per cent of a bull terrier litter and often results in self-maiming.
Presenting the evidence from his study at the 2015 American College of Veterinary Behaviorists, Dr. Dodman reported an autism-like condition, noting that “the vast majority of affected dogs were males, and many had other strange behaviors or physical conditions that accompanied the tail chasing, such as explosive aggression, partial seizures, phobias, skin conditions, gastrointestinal issues, object fixation and a tendency to shy away from people and other dogs.”2 He and his associates were further able to establish that two biomarkers common to children with autism were also present in the affected dogs.3
What are “autism-like” behaviors in dogs? How does one recognize or even quantify such behaviors in canines? How does that analogy even work? Does tail chasing really correspond to stimming, which is what I think Raines is getting at? It’s a behavior that could be due to so many other different things. Ditto phobias and aggression, and we’re not even taking into account issues with training. Before we get to the question of whether canine autism even exists or not, I can’t help but point something out. Be it man or beast, if there’s anything that anyone can describe as looking autistic, no matter how tenuously, to antivaxers there can be only one cause. (Kind of like the other way there can be only one.)
What could that cause be….? Hmmm… I wonder…
Oh, hell, you know it just as well as I do: Vaccines. Raines talks about how vaccines for dogs are required at least every three years, depending on the vaccine, particularly the rabies vaccine, referring to dog vaccines as the “immune systems of pets” being “artificially manipulated with the rabies vaccine time and again throughout their lives.” She then goes on a tear, claiming that strange dog behaviors after the rabies vaccine, specifically the “rabies miasm,” behavioral changes claimed to mimic the symptoms of early rabies.
Having never heard of this phenomenon before, I did a bit of Googling. Not surprisingly the main sources I could find for rabies miasm were not exactly what I would call reliable ones. The number one source came from Dogs Naturally Magazine, which goes so far as to postulate a condition called “inherited rabies miasm” to describe a condition when an unvaccinated puppy “is overly timid, overly aggressive, or hyperactive.” Yep, vaccines are so evil to our pets that the evil can be passed on from mother to puppy. It didn’t take long for this particular article to invoke “the teachings of Samuel Hahnemann, the Father of Homeopathy.” Yes, when I see someone invoke The One Quackery To Rule Them All, it always sets my skeptical antennae a’twitchin’.
Let’s just put it this way. The Skeptvet took on another Dogs Naturally article on the same topic, referring to it as pseudoscientific fear mongering. He points out the paucity—the extreme paucity—of evidence supporting claims of serious changes in dog behavior after vaccination and points out that these claims are without basis in fact or evidence. None of this stops an antivaxer from leading with an appeal to big pharma greed:
Globally, the animal vaccine industry has been valued at $6.27 billion in 2015 and, at a calculated annual growth rate (CAGR) of 6.9 per cent, it is expected to rise to $11.40 billion by 2024.17 North America and, particularly, the United States remains the lead market for animal vaccines, accounting for 37 percent of the total. Much of that market is fueled by the human companion (pet) animal segment. There are more pets in the U.S. than anywhere else in the world and, coupled with strict regulations on vaccination of companion animals in this country, the pet vaccine market is not expected to decrease.
Given the current laws requiring annual or three-year repeat rabies vaccinations, and the routine veterinary practice of vaccinating pets annually, it may come as no surprise that we are seeing an increase of autoimmune disorders and autism-like behaviors in pets.
I can’t resist borrowing a legal term: Objection! Facts not in evidence. And they’re not, either. No support is given for either the claim that there is an increase in autoimmune disorders and autism-like behaviors in pets, and there really isn’t any evidence provided to demonstrate that vaccine have anything to do with such an increase, even if there is one. That’s even leaving aside the question of whether dogs can have autism.
The claim that dogs can get autism is largely based, for purposes of this article, on the work of Tufts University veterinarian and behaviorist Dr. Nicholas Dodman. It didn’t take me long to figure out that Dr. Dodman has published research articles and popular books about animal behavior. More problematically, he is known for making direct comparisons between clinical behavioral disorders in humans and similar patterns of behavior in animals. Yes, some behaviors in animals can strikingly resemble similar behaviors in humans, and it is quite possible that there are similar neurologic mechanisms in humans and animals underlying such behavior. On the other hand, there is a great danger in anthropomorphizing animal behaviors and applying human labels to them, especially when there are profound gross anatomic abnormalities associated with this behavior, including hydrocephalus (“water on the brain”).
As the Skeptvet points out, there are significant differences between humans and dogs. Specifically, the diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder involves observing abnormalities in language development. Language is an integral part of human behavior and development. It’s much less of an issue for dogs. Then there’s the issue of making direct analogies between animal behaviors and human behaviors. For example, Dr. Dodman identifies tail chasing in bull terriers as autism-like behavior, which strikes me as exaggerating the similarities between a dog behavior like this and human behavior. What, specifically, makes tail chasing an “autistic behavior”? It’s repetitiveness? Dogs exhibit other repetitive behaviors, such as licking or pacing or circling. Are these “autistic”? Right now, such behavior has been dubbed “canine dysfunctional behavior,” which is a mighty vague description that could encompass a broad range of behaviors.
None of this is to say that dogs can’t develop a neurodevelopmental disorder that resembles autism. After all, human and dog brains share a lot of anatomy and physiology, and dogs are very social animals. Disorders that affect their social behavior can be quite noticeable. It wouldn’t be at all surprising to learn that dogs might “get autism” (or a canine version of autism), but, as is the case with all animal models of human disease, how relevant comparisons with human disease is can be a big issue. As Skeptvet puts it:
There are behavioral disorders in dogs that share symptomatic and possibly causal features of behavioral disorders in humans. While the use of human diagnostic terminology in dogs is problematic, it is not unreasonable to suggest dogs may have behavioral syndromes similar in symptom pattern and causal factors to autism and other human disorders. Animal models of human disease are an established and useful element of medical research, and this can be reasonably applied to behavioral disorders if done judiciously. Dogs clearly do not get autism as it is defined and exhibited in humans, but they may well have related disorders that can provide insight into the causes and treatment of autism in humans.
Regardless of whether or not we choose to call similar or related disorders in dogs and humans by the same name, we can at least be confident of one key fact:
VACCINES DON’T CAUSE AUTISM!!!
Exactly. Longtime readers (or just people who have been paying attention to the vaccine-autism manufactroversy for a long time, whether they’ve ever encountered this blog or not) might remember Mady Hornig’s mouse model of autism that several bloggers mockingly dubbed “rain mouse.” Basically, she injected newborn mice of different strains with thimerosal in a way that supposedly simulated the human immunization schedule of the time. Hornig likened certain mouse behaviors observed in some of the mice injected with thimerosal to autism, including one mouse grooming another to death and another mouse biting its tail, both of which, according to her, were evidence that the mice had “become autistic.” You can see the problem with making analogies between mouse behavior and human behavior here. Admittedly, making analogies between dog behavior and human is not quite as much of a stretch, but it’s still something that should be done with extreme caution.
Whatever the neurodevelopmental or behavior disorder in dogs described by Dodman, they weren’t autism. They might in some ways resemble autism, but there are also significant difference. It’s possible that studying such dogs could shed some insight into human autism, but it’s an unjustifiable extrapolation to call what these dogs have “autism,” and it’s even more ridiculous to claim that the “vaccines done it.”
Ridiculous, of course, is pretty much every antivaxer’s middle name.
161 replies on “Quoth an antivaxer: Vaccines are making dogs autistic!”
I wonder how thoroughly the dogs-get-autism claimants have investigated genetic causes of behavioral ailments.
Cavalier King Charles spaniels are susceptible to fly-catcher syndrome, in which the dog snaps at imaginary flies near its face (I had a Cavalier with a mild case of this). It’s thought to be linked to a specific gene mutation. Interestingly, there can be associated G.I. manifestations:
“In a November 2012 study, a team of Canadian researchers studied seven fly-biting dogs — including two cavalier King Charles spaniels — and found that they were suffering from gastrointestinal disorders, including eosinophilic and lymphoplasmacytic infiltration of the stomach and small bowel, delayed gastric emptying, and gastroeosophageal reflux. In this study, the researchers treated the gastrointestinal (GI) diseases and observed complete resolution of the fly-biting in five of six of the seven dogs, including a cavalier.”
Hmm, Wakefield should get on this right away and recruit study participants (he could offer cash for blood draws at canine birthday parties).
http://cavalierhealth.org/flycatchers.htm
Our most recent dog (a Lab) would occasionally get excitement overload and run in mad circles making woofing sounds. I never connected it to immunizations, but who knows, maybe it was the rabies shots and not that she was a nut.
I really hope they’re not selling chelation or mms to pet owners now. Or detoxing. There’s another untapped market for sellers of fake cures for autism.
@Dangerous Bacon
Wakefraud has already scammed into this whole vaccine-injury for dogs deal:
https://thepoxesblog.wordpress.com/2016/05/06/andrew-jeremy-wakefield-wants-rabies-back/
There is no lower bound to the lows to which Wakefraud will stoop.
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph – they’re telling people not to get their dogs vaccinated against rabies now? Old Yeller, anyone?
The idea that anything that might look like autism must be autism is seriously annoying. I have OCD and have had some people try to tell me I might be on the spectrum, because some of my compulsive behaviors are similar to stimming behaviors.There is a strong overlap between the symptoms of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and autism. I have seen children with very obvious facial features of FAS who were diagnosed with autism. Given the estimate that as many as 5 in 100 children have a Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder, I have no doubt it’s a contributor to the increase of autism diagnosis numbers. And now they’re extending it to dogs?
The dog world is BIG into woo. Turmeric, raw food, heavy anti-vaxx, chinese herbs, cold laser for anything that ails you, essential oil therapy, acupuncture, magnets, nutrition response testing (“Nutrition Response Testing analyzes different areas on the surface of the body that relate to the state of health and to the flow of energy in each and every organ and function of the body.”) … you name it.
And if you’ve got something wrong with your dog and you don’t use one of these things there’s something wrong with you.
I was thinking of the scene from To Kill a Mockingbird in which Atticus shoots a rabid dog, but the same logic applies. You have to put down (or shoot) a rabid dog because it’s a clear and present danger to people.
IMHO, the sort of person who would choose not to vaccinate a dog against rabies is the sort of person who should not be allowed to have pets, and I fear for any children who might be living in such a household. There have been too many sociopaths who started with cruelty to animals, and graduated to cruelty to humans.
Not to mention colonic cleansing or coffee enemas… Urghhh …
Now I’m not really a dog aficionado for quite a few reasons, but that I wouldn’t wish on any pooch…
Yep, vaccines are so evil to our pets that the evil can be passed on from mother to puppy.
I believe Kim Stagliano has said something similar about her own kid’s autism.It’s a common trope,as you well know.It’s why i stopped trying to argue with antivaxers about genetic and inherited causes of autism.
In dogs,it’s been dubbed “inherited vaccinosis”,and has been talked about for decades in “natural” dog breeding and vetinary circles.Of course this theory began with a homeopathic veterinarian.
Dogs Naturally Magazine has been the Age of Autism of antivaccine woo for dogs and cats for years.The contributors have been spreading their nonsense all over the web for years.The Animal Talk Naturally Dr. Kim & Dr. Jeannie podcasts on YouTtube are filled with the usual scary talk about mercury and aluminum.
Dr. Patricia Gordon,another frequent contributor to Dogs Naturally has said things like:
“Mercury and aluminum are PROTEIN MUTATORS in their own right and DNA is PROTEIN!
Related genomes will respond in RELATED FASHION so breeds that have related genomes respond to the assault in the same fashion making it LOOK like a breed or tribe thing but it is in reality a RELATED GENE DAMAGE THING…chronic diarrhea, parasitism, leaky gut, food allergies, IBD, pancreatitis, pancreatic cancer, and anal gland saculitis are all autoimmune issues and this means induced by the vaccines.”
And of course the AKC is a bunch of paid Pharma Shills for recommending dogs be vaccinated
I’m guessing that the thousands of years of specialised breeding carried out by humanity has no impact on dog behaviour and health then. Not to mention the mental effect on dogs of some of the lifestyles they are forced to adopt.
They have exceptionally good math acuity?
Or if your dog is overly obsessed with watching Wapner.
I mean, if you are going to start going on the dog-autism thing, you might as well go overboard in the stereotype, too.
When your dog says, “I’m a very good driver,” it might be autistic….
Q. How are Dr. Dodman and Dr. Doolittle similar.
A. They’re both caring and entertaining.
Orac is wrong of course.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/313918596_Medical_muddles_that_maim_our_children_with_allergies_asthma_and_autism
Antivaccine views are indeed very common among breeders. Especially in some breeds with very limited founding numbers or popular breeds that are getting increasingly inbred, autoimmune diseases may indeed be increasing. It doesn’t have anything to do with vaccines, just a severe reduction in MHC diversity. In some cases these dogs may develop autoimmune diseases after almost any stimulus (natural infection being worse than vaccines). Breeders may be in danger of breeding dogs which are so inbred that they cannot respond to vaccines appropriately (still not the vaccines fault) but are trying to divert blame to the vaccine. There are several breeds which have their own autoimmune diseases named after them, a sign of severe inbreeding and loss of genetic diversity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nova_Scotia_Duck_Tolling_Retriever
I used to have a lab that I bred several times (last liter was 16). When choosing the stud dog, I carefully went over the linage of both dogs checking for how close their kinship was.
Many if not most pet store and other sources use line breeding methods that lead to all types of genetic issues. Because of line breeding many St. Bernard’s now have a mean disposition.
I would put much of the blame for behavioral issues that some dogs exhibit on how people are breeding them.
Bob: The dog world is BIG into woo.
Yup. My aunt, who breeds collies, got my mother to try a pet psychic, and she credits that psychic with finding an escaped dog of hers. Both are usually intelligent women, so it’s really disappointing, and my aunt spaces vaccines for her pups, because she believed the distemper vaccine ‘ruined’ a litter.
ResearchGate is not a publisher of peer-reviewed articles. In fact, I’m not sure what their business model is, beyond perpetrating massive copyright violations, and if actual publishers haven’t sued them into oblivion, it’s because they think (so far) that ResearchGate is not worth the trouble.
If Vinu would like to give us a citation to an actual journal article (not an editorial, as is implied by the title of whatever he linked to), we can evaluate the quality of the source. If ResearchGate is indeed the original source, then we can assume that the article has not been peer reviewed. At least for papers on the arXiv, knowledgeable scientists can read and evaluate it.
Yes, this ignores the fact that there are multiple, known behavioral problems (also linked to physical problems), due to inbreeding and lack of genetic diversity in many “pure breeds.”
Interestingly enough, one hears little about these same issues with “mutts” yet both are vaccinated just the same.
I don’t know but ( if anyone is watching ‘The Leftovers’) a delusional character thinks that dogs are turning into people and running the government… towards nuclear war.
( I swear I didn’t make that up)
@ Lawrence:
Altho’ it’s SOMEWHAT OT, I think your interaction with Jake ( @ Autism Investigated) is super.
Someone has to say it.
The intense inbreeding of purebred dogs might indeed have inadvertently created animal models of some human diseases–potentially to include some neurodevelopmental disorders. Dogs are already used to study the genetics of cancer, for example, and DB noted some behavioral issues in a spaniel breed. The key to this is that dog breeds are so intensely inbred that once rare mutations–whether for coat color, skull shape, behavior, or neurodevelopment–are no longer rare. That’s why they constitute a breed.
Genetic bottlenecks are an inherent and intentionaly feature in dog breeding–but it’s not clear at all how the genes and traits that have been expressly or inadvertently selected correspond to humans. My border collie shares the extreme powers of concentration for which her breed is famous because she, like all border collies, is essentially descended from only about seven different individuals (famous sheepdog trial champions) who, without a flock to tend, likely would have exhibited a trait that some might interpret as having features of obsessive compulsive disorder. (Unless we keep her occupied, my dog will hold a favorite toy as she stands and stares, trembling, for hours in front of our microwave oven, just in case it might beep.) Causal mutations were identified in Dachshounds and Dobermans have been identified in a canine model of narcolepsy–but linking other canine conditions, like my pet’s “OCD,” may be a stretch.
Autism is perhaps the best example of the dangers of classification based on superficial similarities. Although it’s possible to interpret some conditions in dogs or other animsal as somehow similar to autism, it should be noted that the expression patterns of many sequences that have been linked to brain development in ASD are exclusive to primates. Here’s a recent discussion:
http://biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/early/2016/09/25/077057.full.pdf
In other news…
Mike Adams again ( Natural News,yesterday) writes about breast cancer whilst maligning our (peerless and fearless) leader.
Same as it ever was.
Yawn. It’s like he’s not even trying any more.
This dog is glitching pretty bad: http://i.imgur.com/DTwCjwC.gifv
“Sorry, boss. I should have said DiMaggio.” Or has Orac been watching Family Guy?
Every dog I’ve known chases tail… and occasionally some canines do, too, even after neutering.
I have a better explanation than vaccines for this supposed dogtism. The list of these behaviors sounds suspiciously like the behavior of a familiar, so I’ll go with the doggies being under spells, revealing an epidemic of witches. Either that, or outright demon possession.
I mean, it can’t be anything like genetics or something, not their oh-so-special pooches, bred soo selectively. Who ever heard of a pup with papers having odd behavior problems?
But, let’s face it, even if it’s more likely that it’s the Devil himself infecting the doggies, it’s better safe than sorry, and there’s no reason to be sticking the poor creatures with needles, unless of course at the hands of a qualified veterinary acupuncturist. Have you ever met a dog with rabies? Me neither. Why, it’s basically been eradicated! And if you really feel the need to immunize Princess, you can do it naturally. You just have to find the right racoon, muzzle it so all it can do is scratch Princess, not bite, and let them hang out together in the dog carrier for about an hour. Just don’t little Raccy bite you when you’re attaching/removing the muzzle. You don’t want to have to get shots. Heaven only knows what’s in there!
Hmm, alternate theory: Kate Raines has already tried this, and did get bitten by a rabid trash panda…
But, nevertheless… Yes, folks, yet again more of the Horrible Truth about vaccines has been revealed, and with this kind of information now getting out and about, anti-vaccination will be a mass movement in no time! The politicians HAVE to listen to this, right?
[/sarcasm]
DVMKurmes,you are so right about natural infections being worse than vaccines for triggering both autism,and lifelong autoimmune diseases,as I know all too well,but antivaxers will always say just just the opposite.
@ Lawrence,I completely agree there too.I have had a number of purebred puppies and kittens that have had demonstrated neurological and behavioral problems at a very young age,It is largely due to inbreeding.
Any doctor or vet who is against vaccinating for rabies cannot possibly be considered “caring” about animals or people. S/he is just an irresponsible lump of sludge.
I really hope they’re not selling chelation or mms to pet owners now.
Anyone who tries to give a bleach enema to a cat deserves whatever happens to them.
And worse…
Hey, D—l C—s thinks it’s The Future.
Anyway, I find it entirely fiitting that they’re now handing out the technological marvels that are DOIs. It’s working great (formerly this).
It still astounds me how shallow a person has to be in order to refuse the rabies vaccine. Okay, I’ll grant that occasionally someone is so ignorant they don’t really understand what will happen to their dog if the dog is accused of biting someone, but jeez. Even if you don’t know that rabies is a death sentence, and even if you treat rabies vaccination laws like a tax protestor treats the IRS, you may be sentencing your dog to death if the dog is ever accused (even falsely) of biting someone. There’s no due process when it comes to accusations of a dangerous dog. Dogs don’t have civil rights; at best, you’ll get a receipt when your property is seized, and if you’re REALLY lucky, the victim will agree to let your dog undergo quarantine instead of a rabies test.
Maybe vets should be required to fully inform refusers what they are really risking. If your dog bites someone, and you have no evidence of vaccination, it may be necessary to test the dog for rabies. This is not a blood test. Your dog will be decapitated. If people are too willfully ignorant to understand how serious the risk of rabies is, maybe they’ll at least understand that.
Also, last summer a raccoon was captured by animal control within 500 yards of my home. It had been acting suspiciously. It was euthanized and tested for rabies. The test was *positive*.
You can be damn sure the first thing I did upon hearing that was check how long ago my dog had her last shots. She was still good; didn’t need the booster yet.
ResearchGate informs me that the first of your links has been removed by the author. I’m not sure if that was the case when you first posted it, but it defeats the purpose of a DOI. As would posting an already-published paper, since it would already have a DOI.
The one thing that ResearchGate has done–not by itself, mind you–is to demonstrate the need for a system like ORCID. It routinely asks me if certain people are co-authors on my papers. They almost always aren’t.
Yeah, the whole woo thing is very discouraging. You really see the woo in the rescue community. These people are fanatical about saving dogs from shelters (with good reason, there is nothing humane about how shelters in the South put down dogs and cats), and that fanaticism leads to self-reinforcing conformity of behavior and attitudes. If you’re not all in you are all out with some of these folks.
I mentioned not too long ago how the coordinator of the rescue I’m involved with bought into a woo vet’s claim she could treat heartworm with herbs and vitamins instead of the fast kill method that is the gold standard but admittedly very hard on the dog (and the dog in question has a very serious case of heart worm infestation). It took a graphic description of congestive heart failure to convince her to use the right treatment (this is a very young dog, otherwise healthy who can take it and in fact is now doing very well and about ready for a new home).
I’ve heard the same thing about vaccinations for awhile now. There are vets who even advertise that they “minimize” vaccinations, only giving those legally required.
OTOH, I have a very good friend who is a vet, science based, and she tells me there really aren’t a lot of good studies on long term immunity from vaccination in animals. Basically no one wanted to spend the money to see if immunity is life long or wanes over time. It’s cheaper and easier just to give a booster every few years.
With regard to Rabies:
It seems a horrific stretch to me that these people are analogizing a disease that is very nearly 100% lethal to autism. Prophylactic vaccination is almost the only way to survive that disease. If you don’t vaccinate a dog (or a person too) that has been exposed to Rabies, it will die, –period–. One of the only cases where a the vaccine can literally be a cure to the disease when administered after exposure.
Denice, regarding your “other news” update:
A concerned citizen has posted an online review (for a book about vaccination) which says “Offit is one of many evil people and organizations in the world along with Gates, Gorski, Pan, Thorsen, Gerberding, Rockefeller and Sloan foundations, American Cancer Society, to name a few.”
I couldn’t help responding that it was high time someone ripped the lid off all those organizations and persons engaged in a horrible conspiracy to make us healthier. Her response was “Exactly!” (followed by saying that they should face a firing squad).
To return to the subject of today’s post (sort of), I’m wondering whether there is a means of genetic testing to identify humans who would benefit from adding rabies vaccine to their pediatric schedule.
#27 Ellie
Any doctor or vet who is against vaccinating for rabies cannot possibly be considered “caring” about animals or people.
You are far too kind.
I’d call it criminally irresponsible behaviour in a vet that endangers his or her patients, the patients’ owners and their families, his or her staff, and the general public, both animal and human, and should be struck off or whatever one does to a vet. It also puts the vet in the running for a Darwin Award. Rabies is almost invariably fatal in unvaccinated humans and animals.
I come from a part of Eastern Ontario that was part of a swatch of land across Southern Ontario that modestly termed itself The Rabies Capital of the World
I have never known anyone to die of rabies but I know several who had to undergo the extremely painful old version of human rabies vaccinations when their domestic or farm animals had possible or confirmed rabies.
The Canadian and Ontario governments spend millions of dollars every year to keep rabies at bay: they seem to have had great success with fox vaccinations and currently are fight a determined campaign against the rabies-carrying racoons from the USA who seem to love hitching-hiking over the border from New York State on transport trucks or perhaps the occasional freight train.
We have not had a human fatality in Ontario for many decades but this is almost certainly due to a) a high degree of justifiable paranoia in the human rural population, b) free rabies vaccination clinics in many municipalities and c) the highly successful provincial and federal vaccination campaigns.
I don’t know much about dogs but in cats some vaccines, particularly the feline leukemia (FeLV) vaccine, have been associated with the development of sarcoma. That is why, if your cat does not go out of the house and has no possibility of contact with other, possibly infected cats, even science-based vets advise against that vaccine. But then again, there are cat diseases like panleukopenia, which are real killers and can be brought home literally on the soles of your shoes and no responsible vet would ever recommend against them.
Not so, the trade-off is to give the jab in a hind leg. Even with strictly indoor cats, there is possibility of contact by bringing cats into the house and in boarding situations. Not all are responsible to quarantine a new animal.
FeLV isn’t easily transmitted, and I’m not aware of any boarding situations that don’t involve individual cages. The vets in my neck of the woods don’t recommend the vaccine for indoor cats (and I quarantine rescues until tested).
Sarcomas were also an issue before the unadjuvanted, canarypox-vectored rabies vaccine, as I recall.
Anyone who tries to give a bleach enema to a cat deserves whatever happens to them
I volunteer my services to sharpens cat nails 😀
Alain
I know of some places that let cats roam but admittedly a rare practice. You know better which is why you quarantine, the average cat owner does not. Most vets here recommend it even for indoor cats but obviously no hard and fast rule. I’m a proponent simply because my kittehs could get outside and would be at a disadvantage for defending themselves having a cushy life.
@ Panacea
My very atheist-sciency partner has been involved in cat rescue, so it’s not wooist. On the other hand, I went to a private shelter in CT where the operator refused to let me see most of the cats because they were getting Reiki, and she didn’t want to disturb them, lest it mess with their qi, I guess. It probably varies by region and local culture. Oh yeah, that cat lady in CT also concluded I wasn’t fit to adopt one of her cats due to some remark I made in passing the subject I which I’ve duly forgotten. So, yup, not all in = all out with her. Then again, the most fierce animal rights person I knew in CT was another atheist-rationalist, so it’s pretty hard to stereotype. Pretty much every community shelters I’ve encountered won’t let cats go w/o both all their shots and being ‘fixed’. But I’ve never lived in the South….
A number of years ago now, I had a mother and her 8 year old son come in to report that son had been bitten by an unknown dog (fairly deep wounds).
I got it set up for the boy to receive the rabies vaccine. The mother refused because her son was afraid of needles. I explained that if the boy contracted rabies he would die. She still refused. I told her I would go to the hospital with them and hold the boy down (I’ve done this many times, I am so much bigger than the child all I have to do is place my hand on their chest and they don’t move). The mother still refused. Luckily, the boy was ok.
Because of the mother’s stupidity, her son could easily have died a horrible death from rabies.
Good grief, where do these people get off? Maybe someone should take them to the parts of the world that have horrendous rabies problems, where people die of rabies regularly and the only “prevention” method is to kill the dogs.
How much do you think these non-vaccinating dog owners will scream and cry when their poorly trained, poorly socialized, possibly neurotic dog bites someone and Animal Control puts the poor dog down?
Heck, who wants to bet that a lot of these “dog autistic” behaviors are the result of bad training and bad socialization on the part of the owner?
My in-law’s dog is pretty darn neurotic (poor guy) and super protective of my MIL (to the point of scary aggressive). When she’s not around he’s way more chill (“I don’t care about you so I’m not going to freak out every time something comes close to you.”)
Could they have trained him out of it with some intensive work? Probably, but that’s a lot of work and he’s pretty old, so they just keep him up to date on his rabies shots.
(I did get them to quit the raw food after the dog and my FIL got some kind of gastro illness at the same time that could have been from the raw food.)
It is true that both the older FeLV vaccines and some of the multi-species rabies vaccines which use adjuvants (any killed virus adjuvated vaccine really) can sometimes cause firbrosarcomas in cats. Over the last 20 years as the evidence for this (a fairly unique response cats have to long-term inflamation) grew, genetically engineered vaccines using canary pox virus which expresses proteins from rabies or FeLV were developed which nearly eliminate the risk of vaccine-related fibrosarcoma, which was fairly rare anyway, but a severe enough complication to justify developing a safer vaccine for cats.
Quite a list of works of fiction on rapid dogs, my first thought was Cujo. 🙂
Our cat hasn’t received any vaccines, but is an indoor cat. Largely because we didn’t have the spare money. :/
@sadmar: I lived deep in the Bible Belt for 10 years. North Carolina.
When someone sneezes and someone else says, “God bless you” they mean it quite literally. “Bless your heart” is a deadly insult.
It’s a fun and interesting place full of contradictions.
@Rich Bly: good lord. I used to get a lot of dog bites when I worked in the ER. It wasn’t uncommon that the dog owners would show up to plead with the bite victims not to call Animal Control. Didn’t do any good, I was required to call them. Half the time the dogs didn’t have proof of their shots, so I would have to give the vaccine to the person who got bit.
What really sucks is when I had to vaccinate someone who’s been bitten by a wild animal. Then I have to infiltrate the wound with the immune globulin. That’s what really sucks about it.
That mother was a moron. Her kid would have probably only gotten the one regular shot since the risk was actually pretty low, but there was still a risk and he should have gotten that shot. Lots of people are afraid of needles, kids and adults alike. That’s no excuse to play Russian roulette with your kid’s life.
Your cat may not be supposed to go out of the house, but if (s)he really wants to, (s)he can find creative ways to get outside. Better to not take that risk.
How would the cats know they were getting reiki? It’s one thing if they can see the hands, or feel the air currents due to hands moving near them. But in the latter case, why would they sit or lie still–that’s a potential threat I’d expect them to check out. Otherwise, they wouldn’t know about it. My guess is that the cats were actually napping during this exercise.
Our most recent dog (a Lab) would occasionally get excitement overload and run in mad circles making woofing sounds. I never connected it to immunizations, but who knows, maybe it was the rabies shots and not that she was a nut.
Meanwhile here in South Pacific Paradise, there is no rabies and no routine rabies vaccination for dogs. Yet Labradors are still obsessive-compulsive numpties, bull terriers still chase their tails, and Weimeraners are still as thick as two short planks.
# 43 Wzrd1
Quite a list of works of fiction on rapid dogs, my first thought was Cujo
Our cat hasn’t received any vaccines, but is an indoor cat. Largely because we didn’t have the spare money.
The need depends on where you live.
If you live in many parts of North America where rabies is endemic Cujo is probably just a dramatization of a true story. (I have never seen read the novel or seen the movie.)
A friend of mine tells the story of his Russian great-grand-father who was stalked and attacked by a rabid wolf and who died in agony, tied to his bedposts, a few days later.
Indoor cat or not, if there is the slightest change of rabies, anywhere in the state or province, get a rabies vaccination, it may save your cat’s life, your life and the lives of many of your friends and family.
Yes, I am paranoid. I grew up in a rabies epidemic and we still get outbreaks. Rabies, for all intents and purposes, is 100% fatal if untreated. Ebola, bubonic plague, smallpox, while more infectious, are pikers in killing off the infected.
Dr Schulz has protocol that rabies serology last 7 years. It is the hardest shot on the immune system and several of my friend’s dogs have died. How do they test 1 year and 3 year shot – give dog shot expose to disease, cut off head after 1 and 3 years!! One liter of rescued chis had one die and seize after this required shot (same dose as a150 lb Bernie) I got the shot and boosted his immune system with Raindrop oils and NingiaXRed. For TDI (Therapy Dogs International) and camp I was able to titer core vaccines of Hepatitis, Parvo and Distemper and the blood passed (positive). I do not board so no kennel cough. If I had gone to my regular vet, I would have had to get a 9 in one shot. which I did not want. I am not an antivaxer and just want the truth about all the additional vaccines they are adding for children and Pets. Is it about the money and why would a journalist who interviewed people at the CDC say they do not following the human vaccine schedule. We need to sit down together and discuss pros and cons. Have we been swayed by the fear and discussion of not vaccinating. Note: I recently lost a 14+ male dog whose rabies shot expired 4 years ago. He slept went out in they yard a few feet and came in. He had Heska testing about being allergic to anything. My holistic vet told me on a 13 year old female I had after rabies to compete in agility in anther state that I could give her Thuga essential oil. Note: on a personal basis at 70 I take no medicines, get no shots and use essential oils for everything even to get over bronchitis in 1.5 days.5 times in 2 years. Why would I want to inject toxins that go to my brain needlessly. Episode 7 of Natural immunization Homeoprophylaxis and fundamental freedom of choice (about people) A book How to Immunize Your Dog without vaccinations – available on Amazon is a good read – I read you side you read mine
We have “read” your side…which is nothing but a bunch of unsupported garbage.
“Essential Oils” don’t actually do anything.
OT, but more nails for the coffin of holocaust denial is a good thing:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/world-history/holocaust-allied-forces-knew-before-concentration-camp-discovery-us-uk-soviets-secret-documents-a7688036.html
Jane, why would I waste time reading the garbage you suggest, when decades of scientific research have shown vaccination is safe and effective?
Given your poor mastery of written English it’s clear you would have a difficult time reading that research, which explains why you haven’t done so yourself.
I need more than anecdotes that I can’t even say really happened because I don’t know you. I need data.
Vaccination, for humans or pets, is not an issue of personal opinion. It’s about data.
Raindrop therapy and NingiaXRed, that’s the calling card for D. Gary Young, chief charlatan at young living oils, or is his wife in charge now? How this guy is not in jail is beyond me.
Who knows? They might improve your writing skills.
Jane, do you realize that “essential oils” are called that NOT becsuse they are essential to human or animal health in any way, but because they are essences?
It’s an unfortunately misleading name. Also, it’s not unusual for a 14 year old dog to die. I’d be expecting it, instead of being indignant.
In the 21st century it’s not surprising that at 70 you enjoy good health. So do many of the people in their 90’s at my Mom’s rstirement home – good genes and excellent standard of living.
I’d lay bets that few if any are dosing themselves with your oils.
“My holistic vet told me on a 13 year old female I had after rabies to compete in agility in anther state that I could give her Thuga essential oil.”
Yes, the rabid ones are often amazingly agile.
@Jane Ostentatious: to second your remark – my dad is 87, my mom turning 80 this year. Both are fully UTD with their vaccines, get annual flu shots, and never use essential oils (though my mom has become fond of the scented wax room things). Gee…almost like modern medicine has helped them, as well as good genes.
Thanks mi dawn!
Our dogs have all been vaccinated and lived to ripe old ages. Hell! I’ve met someone who believed that expressing her dog’s anal glands killed it! Correlation does not equal causation. Why hasn’t our dog died from that yet? Before i die of the smell.
The things we put up with for our pets/fur babies/animal compa ions- whatever.
Hence Shulgin’s “10 essential amphetamines.”
@Jane:
“Correlation does not equal causation.” No it does not.
However, I suspect you don’t understand what that phrase even means, much less why.
I’m scheduled for some raindrop therapy this afternoon- and I don’t even have to pay for it.
^ Then again, I suppose α-thujone would be closer to giving your dog absinthe.
^^ Here we go:
This is what your “holistic” vet advised you to administer, Ms. Neely.
Jane Neely, to put it bluntly you are an idiot. Worldwide more than 59,000 people (men, women and children) die every year from rabies. 99% of the bites from a rabid animal are from dogs. In the US, 1 to 2 people die yearly from rabies most often from animal bites other than dogs. The vaccine for rabies works to prevent an animal from acquiring rabies and if bitten by a rabid animal prevents rabies. The vaccine even works (within a certain time frame) after you have been bitten to prevent rabies.
So take your essential oils as a high colonic and take a 40 mile hike with a full combat load pack.
Eric:
The shelter proprietor was adamant about not interrupting the cat Reiki session. I took it that she had never observed the process, lest the presence of anyone other than ‘practitioner’ and ‘patients’ would disrupt the energy flow. Who knows what the ‘master’ was actually doing with the kitties. These being rescue animals, many of whom would have been traumatized and skittish, I assume the Reiki was intended to reduce their stressed out behavior, and make them more adoptable, and increase chances of the adoptions’ success. I got the sense she’d been having the Reiki performed for some time. Who knows? Whatever the purported hand-waver was doing in the kennel may have actually contributed to the desired goals. Even the wooey proprietor might have balked if the master did something the cats found threatening, as their post-session behavior would likely have contradicted her expectations. The sessions could have done absolutely nothing, except offer an opportunity for the boss to exercise confirmation bias by interpreting nothing-as-a-something, but I’d guess they had some totally non-magical socialization effect.
Maybe we should go into business as feline-CAM therapists, straightening kittie-qi with the ancient mystical technique of Therapeutic Touch – otherwise known as ‘petting the cat’.
Jason Chaffetz has announced he will leave Congress “to return to the private sector” at the end of his current term.
I assume that by tomorrow we’ll be hearing that Chaffetz is bailing in fear of his life, after being targeted by the Big Pharma assasination squad after his meeting with Del Bigtree. (Never mind that Chaffetz gets as much or more $$ from the pharmas as he does from the supplement slingers…)
@jrkideau:
A friend of mine once had to get a full set of rabies treatments/vaccinations at one point. He was doing surveying work out near Kirkland Lake (Eastern Ontario, but not exactly Southern) and found a fox chewing on his boot… while his foot was still inside it. When a fox is doing something THAT out of character, you don’t wait for the lab tests on the animal to come back before starting treatment.
This is what your “holistic” vet advised you to administer, Ms. Neely.
Narad does not want to share his wormwood schnapps.
Correction my holistic vet advised me to give my 13 year old female dog Thuja after administering her a rabies shot. She was a 1997 rescue female I adopted in 1999. A vet administered rabies shots every 3 years until she passed in July 2011 at 14.. She never had rabies. She did compete in agility, obedience and visited nursing homes as a therapy dog. When my male dog turned 13 and was due his three year rabies shot, I opted not to give it to him based on research in my area of rabies. He was withdrawn from TDI work, competitions and all travel. He had a compromised immune system relating to allergies verified by Heska testing through a vet.. He lived to be 14 years and 2 months and never contracted rabies although 14 months had passed when the law (not necessarily science per Dr Schulz) said his rabies shot had expired. I do not plan to answer any comments that are not respectful. We can have different opinions but good respectful dialog is key. I have always heard you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. GOD BLESS..
<PGP>You take that back, Bimler.</PGP>.
Malört is not schnapps.
Yet Labradors are still obsessive-compulsive numpties, bull terriers still chase their tails, and Weimeraners are still as thick as two short planks.
Can’t wait for your assessment of German shepherds.
Malört is not schnapps.
OK, “wormwood akvavit”.
I love it! I have a new excuse for any misbehavior of my dog: “I’m sorry, but she developed autism from Big Pharma’s vaccines.”
“If you don’t speak innovation you’ll need a translator.” Or spelling assistance.
Oh, wait. “If it doesn’t
smellsell it doesn’t launch.”That’s not a new color, it’s red. I’ve had red things for years.
Even the local joint has launched a “center for entrepreneurship and innovation,” which talents I suppose are best acquired in the form of a terminal degree or some sort of certificate program.
Narad: Why are you dragging me into this?
I’ve heard that, too. However, my rural upbringing confirms that nothing works like a heaping pile of fecal matter or a rotting carcass.
Jane, you seem to be under the mistaken belief that science is a matter of debate. It’s not.
It’s about evidence, and you don’t have any. Therefore you have little to contribute to any discussion on scientific matters, such as animal vaccination. What you did with your dogs doesn’t improve your position it weakens it because you simply demonstrate you are an irresponsible pet owner who put her own pets and the community at risk by not following vaccination guidelines.
# 69 Jenora Feuer
# 69 Jenora Feuer
found a fox chewing on his boot… while his foot was still inside it
Oh lord!. One beats fox to death with anything handy and moves at high speed to the nearest source of a rabies vaccine. I shiver even thinking about it.
No Kirkland Lake is not really Southern Ontario. I worked just outside of Kirkland Lake for three summers; lovely country in the summer. I remember a resident jokingly saying that going south to him was Sudbury.
You heard wrng. There’s a reason that D. melanogaster is also known as the vinegar fly.
Now, what’s the (toxic) Thuja supposed to have been doing here?
I have always heard you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar
I foresee a Mythbusters episode. Right after they finish checking whether or not soft words butter parsnips.
@jrkrideau (sorry for misspelling it last time):
Yeah. That same friend used to tell me stories about submerging himself in water to get the surface temperature low enough that the flies didn’t notice him, then running back to the tent before his skin warmed up again to apply DEET. He tended to twitch whenever he heard that folk song about ‘Black flies’.
(( Black flies, the little black flies // Always the black flies no matter where you go. // I’ll die with the black fly picking my bones // In North Ontario-io, in North Ontario… ))
I also have a friend from Red Rock, where ‘going to the city’ meant Thunder Bay.
Me, most of my rural life experience was out in the Kootenay Boundary in B.C., which has a rather different climate, and rather different critters to worry about.
We once had to have a classroom of students and the teacher go through the rabies vaccine because a student brought a bat to class. The bat was on the ground and was sick looking, so the student took the bat to biology class. In class everyone handled the bat.
The bat was sent in for testing and came back positive for rabies.
Jenora, me and buddy were hiking up Ottertail Pass in Kootenay National Park and ended up eating lunch in a new cedar outhouse because the deer and black flies were so bad.
Based on Jane neely’s comment @71 I’m not sure she knows what rabies is, what the prognosis of rabies is, or how it is transmitted.
Jane, rabies is a 100% fatal (without treatment) disease that is spread through the bite of an infected animal.
You know Old Yeller? The dog has to be shot because it has rabies. Or the dig in To Kill A Mockingbird.
If any of your dogs had had rabies you would have know because they would have died. And I have to imagine that someone who spends as much time with their dogs as you describe would have noticed a nasty bite wound and the severe behavior changes that come with rabies. Also, foaming at the mouth.
I think Jane may have confused rabies with something else.
I suspect dog crap would work even better. But who wants a bunch of flies anyway? I’d much rather make them go away.
You are correct I vaccinate all my dogs for rabies because it is the law – My new vet ‘told’ me that rabies shot did not have Mercury in it fall 2016. It would be interesting to see the list of ‘ingredients’. This is an interesting interview on people vaccines – http://video.foxnews.com/v/5405669524001/#sp=show-clips
@Justatech – I believe the number of known individuals who survived a rabies infection can be counted on one hand……
Good Lord, has anybody ever survived a rabies infection?
One or two people have, IIRC correctly. I heard about it on Radiolab a couple years ago.
There was a girl in Wisconsin a few years ago (2004) and by 2011 two other children have survived using the same protocol (but others have died).
I’m pretty sure that in most of the cases it wasn’t a case of rejecting the post-exposure treatment as not knowing that they needed treatment (one was suspected to have gotten it from a cat scratch).
It’s called the Milwaukee Protocol.
I would believe the DEET story with no problem. I knew a couple of native prospectors near Geralton, Ontario who flew into a lake for 3 days of prospecting and ended up hiding in their tent until the plane came back. And these were 40 or 50 year-old men who had grown up in the area.
DEET also has a short lifespan. I can remember hopping around in a small plane from lake to lake in Northern Ontario helping a researcher by holding that rod a surveyor sights on. My DEET expired 2 minutes before he finished the sights. One second everything is fine, next second a mob of black flies chewing on my arm.
A little known fact about rabies incubation period is that in some rare cases, offset of symptoms can take as long as 7 years.
I remember reading about a man in S.F. a number of years ago that survived rabies but spent something like 1 1/2 years in intensive care.
most people who work with mammals regularly have preventative rabies shots, including, i would think, vets and vet techs. i had rabies shots when working as a zookeeper because the health dept demanded it. even though i worked at a completely indoor zoo and our only mammals were 2 skunks who had been vaccinated, 2 flying foxes and a small colony of egyptian fruit bats in closed exhibits. the only possible rabies vector at play were mice (an ever present annoyance in any captive animal facility). rabies shots are expensive but necessary for the zookeeping profession. luckily my husband’s health insurance covered the cost.
actually that reminds me – i’m due for my booster
@ herr doktor (#49): Meanwhile here in South Pacific Paradise, there is no rabies and no routine rabies vaccination for dogs. Yet Labradors are still obsessive-compulsive numpties, bull terriers still chase their tails, and Weimeraners are still as thick as two short planks.
Ah, but it’s all those other ebil vaccines – you know, for leptospirosis & parvovirus & kennel cough etc.
I cannot understand how someone would be willing to endanger their pets by refusing to vaccinate. Puppies & parvo are not a good mix, for example. Why would you even go there?
I more suspect that she doesn’t know the difference between homeopathy and essential oils. The Pitcairn link there is dead (and apparently has been for some time, as a search for it yields one result pointing back here with the same observation), but it seems to be reproduced here.
Basically, it’s the usual homeopathic nonsense about selling “remedies” to “undo” the “damage” from one vaccine or another, with some sort of bonus babbling about “chronic rabies.”
FWIW, Act One of an episode of the excellent podcast of This American Life concerns a zombie rabid raccoon that would not die–in the context of scarey Halloween stories. “The Hills Have Eyes” is a riveting story, and I thought that it was quite terrifying–even though I’ve been vaccinated against rabies.
https://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/319/and-the-call-was-coming-from-the-basement?act=1
(Also FWIW, as I recall the rabies vaccination series is like getting hit in the shoulder by a sledge hammer–twice. Nevertheless, NWO Reporter, the vaccine is better than rabies, despite the “vaccine injury.”)
@JustaTech #90:
A South African named Graeme Anderson got infected with rabies and underwent the Milwaukee Protocol. It involves medically inducing a coma and then pumping the patient full of rabies serum.
It’s a “Hail Mary”, a last desperate attempt. The success rate is only 6%. Sadly, Anderson was not one of the lucky ones.
Rich Bly @43
I’m just so grateful that I live in NZ. My only concern about dog bites here, other than repairing them, is simple bacterial infections.
Ah, but it’s all those other ebil vaccines – you know, for leptospirosis & parvovirus & kennel cough etc.
Alison knows about dogs with weird behavioural routines.
Hey! Just because he’s a keen snuggler; that’s not weird!
Herr Doktor:
“I foresee a Mythbusters episode. Right after they finish checking whether or not soft words butter parsnips.”
I don”t know about the parsnips, but one of the Seventy Maxims for Maximally Effective Mercenaries states that “A soft answer turneth away wrath. Once wrath is looking the other way, shoot it in the head.”
Justatech, it’s pretty rare but it’s possible to contract rabies without a bite. If saliva or some other kinds of infective material makes contact with an open wound or the mucous membranes, then postexposure prophylaxis should (really should, a in must!) be given. It’s even possible (but really really rare) to be infected from inhaling the aerosolized virus’
In other words, if you’re out walking Towser and he innocently sticks his nose into the carcass of a raccoon or rat, there is a small but non-zero risk of him contracting it and then passing it on to you.
Jane Neely, your vet put himself on very shaky ethical ground by advising you not to have your dog vaccinated against rabies. Veterinary ethics require consideration of the public health and by not vaccinating your pet he is not doing that. Further, rabies vaccination is the law in most jurisdictions, and that means that your dog can be taken away from you, either to be quarantined, or killed for examination, and you can be prosecuted. His actions, or inaction if you like, is therefore advising against your dog’s best interest and your own.
All this, of course, presumes that your vet is a graduated DVM and licensed to practice veterinary medicine. If he is anything other, he is breaking the law in a serious way. Only an actual veterinarian can call him/herself a veterinarian. No matter what other title or degree, that person has no business treating animals. Even an MD can’t practice on animals outside of the lab.
Incidentally, juries are probably tougher on crimes against animals as they are on humans. It also makes a good public impression for the DA to take those cases all the way to the wall.
to set the record straight no vet ever advised me not to get a rabies shot. It is the law. My dogs are all vaccinated. I am new to this forum and think I am replying to Old Rockin Dave. Would like to make a correction to a note I posted without reading it thoroughly. A holistic vet did give me Thuja once after giving a rabies shot to a 13 year old after I voiced a concern
I must not understand what respectful insolence is as I Never said my vet told me not to get a rabies shot. I wrote this comment earlier and was pending approval. One more try.
it’s pretty rare but it’s possible to contract rabies without a bite.
There was a report from Pasteur’s time of transmission through oral sex.
Human-to-human, I hasten to add.
I mentioned Graeme Anderson earlier. He contacted rabies not through a bite, but by being licked by a rabid dog.
For you blackfly fans, an animated short from the National Film Board (1991), Wade Hemsworth singing Blackfly
“There was a report from Pasteur’s time of transmission through oral sex.”
Citation?
I don’t doubt you, just want to read it for myself.
ORD: I have bad news for you. The law is very lenient towards animal abusers. They frequently get a slap on the wrist, if they’re punished at all. It’s almost always a misdemeanor, and DAs hate animal abuse cases because they’re so hard to prove.
The FBI only last year started tracking animal abuse cases as if they were felonies, because of the connection between animal abuse and violence against humans. Sadly, many animal advocates mistakenly think this means animal abuse is now a felony. I’ve spent hours correcting this misconception.
A vet in Texas killed a neighbor’s cat with a bow and arrow, bragged about it on Facebook, and still has her license in spite of efforts of the Texas BOVM to revoke it (it was suspended for one year). A grand jury refused to indict her for animal cruelty.
Veterinary medicine is a haven for quacks, and that’s why we’re seeing the proliferation of them in vet medicine. Just as easy to make a quick buck, less regulatory interference.
Citation?
I don’t doubt you, just want to read it for myself.
“Footnote in a book I read about 35 years ago”.
Panacea, here on Long Island the DAs come down pretty hard on animal abusers, particularly in Suffolk County. People around here have the luxury of being able to worry about such things. Animal abuse crimes are investigated by the ASPCA and police. Suffolk actually has detectives and ADAs specializing in those cases. They not only feel they’re doing the right thing, but arrests and convictions go over well with the public, and failure to act leaves them open to pressure groups with popular support.
In New York State there are felony animal abuse statutes. Right now over in Suffolk they are trying a case of sexual abuse with six human victims, and one canine. That last is not being treated as a joke by the legal system and they hope to get him for every single one of his victims.
We have several no-kill shelters, including the most famous one, the North Shore Animal League. There are numerous abused animal farms, marine mammal rescuers, and wildlife rehabilitators. There are plans around here to keep a registry of animal abusers with the aim of keeping them from buying or adopting animals anywhere in the area. We make laws and create programs that only later are adopted by the state and the country. Removing phosphates in detergents, banning phoning while driving, neutering feral cats, all either originated in or were adopted early in Nassau and Suffolk. And just try to have a hunt to thin out nuisance deer around here! You may yet see the registry go nationwide.
[…] Respectful Insolence: Quoth an antivaxer: Vaccines are making dogs autistic! […]
@ hdb
Weimeraners are as thick as two short planks, you say? Some might disagree:
https://youtu.be/9xYxxcqbPeU?t=16s
ORD: That’s awesome. But I fear your locale is the exception rather than the rule. It’s not that way in the South, where I lived for many years, or in many other parts of the country.
Weimeraners are as thick as two short planks, you say? Some might disagree:
Sweeping
bigotrygeneralisations from an inadequate sample are a venerable RI tradition.You idiots are full of shit. Vaccines are fucking toxic and since the introduction of vaccines people have been getting sicker. Autism didn’t even existed/was extremely rare 100 years ago. There’s no evidence that vaccines help prevent the disease it intended to prevent. Vaccines do nothing but damage the immune system and it’s full of a concoction of toxic ingredients such as mercury, aluminum, perservatives, foreign DNA, MSG, etc. The reason why diseases have decreased is because of plumbing and better sanitation. Fuck your vaccines. I won’t inject poison into my body and my dog’s. The moron who wrote this is obviously unable to think since his brain has been vaccine damaged. Idiots don’t deserve to possess pets
Dear missy,
Regarding your last sentence, speak for yourself.
Regarding the first, not at the moment fortunately. But living in an apartment has given me much greater familiarity with what my dog produces.
And, in the absence of evidence I’ll take that over the rest of your comments.
@ Missy
I agree that idiots don’t deserve to posess pets. Especially idiots who don’t want to vaccinate them or try all kinds of quack treatments on them.
Missy sounds like a Travis clone.
“During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act ” …. George Orwell. Recommend obtain Ty Bolinger’s docu-series – the Truth About Vaccines. It has many doctors, immunologists and testimonies. Most 7th graders could understand the words cell lines and aborted fetal tissue – immunologist may be a stretch as mouse DNA in the cancer of a man. Do your research . The truth is out there. Japan does not vaccine children until 2 years of age.
Note according to Dr Dave Thomas (who vaccinates on an alternate schedule) pediatricians get paid for giving shots – 6 dose was $60 – he began 8 years ago with 1,000 from his practice and now has 13,000. He is losing $$ for the good of his patients not giving certain shots.
Well. it’s hard to argue with her last sentence.
It wouldn’t surprise me.
Missy: so you’ll be contacting a reputable rescue organization to surrender yours?
Edward Jenner invented the first vaccine, for smallpox, in 1757. Autism was first identified and the term coined in 1908. Are you really suggesting we went 150 years vaccinating people and didn’t notice there was a problem? Autism has existed for thousands of years. We called it other things, like idiotcy or mental defective. Look at early US Census records; these folks are listed. No one knew how to tell one type of mental disorder from another because we were still learning to classify them. So to say autism didn’t exist before vaccines is a stretch.
Given that death rates from vaccine preventable diseases dropped like a stone exposes your rant for the falsehood it is.
Not that the truth matters. You just popped in to curse out a bunch of strangers so you could look at your nutjob buddies and say, “There! I sure showed them”
And you did. You showed us what a loon you are.
“During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act ” …. George Orwell.
Oh look, another fabricated ‘quotation’.
It is very thoughtful of conspiracy theorists, the way they feel obliged to preface their comments with these literary lies, as if to signal their antipathy to truth and the bumper-sticker-based nature of their education.
Missy: “There’s no evidence that vaccines help prevent the disease it intended to prevent.”
Smallpox – eradicated. Rinderpest – eradicated. Polio – now seen only where heavily armed religious fanatics prevent vaccination – what a coincidence! Rabies – virtually unknown in the developed world. Ditto measles, rubella, pertussis, mumps, and tetanus. Ignorance – sadly, there is no vaccine for your disease.
“Autism didn’t even existed [sic] /was extremely rare 100 years ago.” You don’t give a source with statistics for your claim, but I’ll guess you’re sitting on it as you read this.
“”The reason why diseases have decreased is because of plumbing and better sanitation.” And that’s why there’s no polio in Somalia, and Papua-New Guinea, and Mali, and Burkina Faso, and North Korea, and Mongolia. And of course rinderpest is no longer seen on Earth because East African and Indian cattle have benefited from plumbing and better sanitation, which of course occurred just at the same time they were being massively poisoned with the rinderpest vaccine. All those autistic cattle being herded across the deserts of Eritrea and Sudan. Sad!
Next time you want to spread your mental toxins, go to the nearest subway and shout them out at the top of your lungs. Hold out a tin can and people might even take pity on you and give you their spare change.
Recommend explain what the Thuja was for, and whether it was in fact not an “essential oil” – your story is rather incoherent as presented.
OT I know, but I had to write this.
One of Terry Pratchett’s books (Mort perhaps?) had a raven named “Quoth”.
Quoth crops up in a cameo more than once, but has a bit to say in Hogfather .
immunologist may be a stretch as mouse DNA in the cancer of a man. Do your research . The truth is out there. Japan does not vaccine children until 2 years of age.
Jane seems to have gone from “Do your own research” to “Do your own English”.
It is easier to point and laugh at stupid comments when they are sufficiently grammatical to make some discernable sense. Please be more considerate.
This reference seems to be obscure to the point of indecipherability.
Jane Neely: ” The truth is out there. Japan does not vaccine children until 2 years of age.”
I hate that particular antivax lie. It is detailed in this Impact of anti-vaccine movements on pertussis control: the untold story.
It is also summarized in this abstract: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15889991
Which says: “An antivaccine movement developed in Japan as a consequence of increasing numbers of adverse reactions to whole-cell pertussis vaccines in the mid-1970s. After two infants died within 24 h of the vaccination from 1974 to 1975, the Japanese government temporarily suspended vaccinations. Subsequently, the public and the government witnessed the re-emergence of whooping cough, with 41 deaths in 1979. This series of unfortunate events revealed to the public that the vaccine had, in fact, been beneficial.”
If you had actually done any research Ms. Neely, you would have learned you cannot blame a vaccine for a child’s death when they did not get the vaccine. And the child died from the actual disease.
Jane Neely: ” The truth is out there. Japan does not vaccine children until 2 years of age.”
I hate that particular antivax lie.
If only there were some way of easily accessing the Japanese immunisation schedule!
http://www.niid.go.jp/niid/images/vaccine/schedule/2016/EN20161001.pdf
@ Herr Dokter Bimler
“Jane seems to have gone from “Do your own research” to “Do your own English”.”
“If only there were some way of easily accessing the Japanese immunisation schedule!”
You do make me chuckle, occasionally even chortle 🙂
ORD @102: A quality book! Do you have the defaced version?
Can anyone tell me if there is discernible origin for the nonsense that vaccines “weaken the immune system”?
I’ve long assumed it is just another shovelful of sh!t that keeps being recycled, but lately I’ve wondered about its origin. Does it just come from a complete lack of understanding of how the immune system functions or did some specific person make the original dump?
doug asks (~#136),
Can anyone tell me if there is discernible origin for the nonsense that vaccines “weaken the immune system”?
MJD say,
Secondary infections in vaccinations (1952)?
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14899090
Such a wonderful cite, MJD. It has such a succinct response to doug’s question. It’s so apropos</i that I'll quote it in its entirety (exclusive of boilerplate):
Hey, cut MJD some slack. That cite has more useful information than the link he barfed up here –
https://www.respectfulinsolence.com/2017/04/24/congress-is-back-in-session-and-sneaking-the-cruel-sham-that-is-right-to-try-in-a-must-pass-bill-is-on-the-agenda/#comment-463113
He’s getting better. Still very bad, but it’s an improvement.
It’s an essence of purity thing. Science is hard.
A citation from 1952??? Are you (*&#(W me?
Since the actual article is not available (not surprising considering its age), didn’t the anti vax crowd pause to think we might have learned a few things about the immune system since 1952? Assuming of course, they didn’t take the whole thing out of context and it wasn’t eviscerated in peer review.
On the one hand, if and I do mean if that single citation in all its entirety is sufficient for antivaxxers and their “experts” to declare vaccines as weakening out immune systems, then…..Oh sh!T, I think I lost my mind trying to compute.
Al
JustaTech, I assume you’re referring to the online comic strip “Schlock Mercenary”. There is a series of books from the strip but I don’t have any of them. When I first saw it, I read through several years worth of strips in a few weeks to get up to speed, but later I didn’t have the time to keep up, and fell away from it.
I also misquoted the title of the Maxims – it should read “of” and not “for”.
Johnny (#140) writes,
He’s getting better.
MJD says,
In an effort to bring clarity here’s my definition of “weakened immune system”.
Weakened Immune System – The decreased capacity or ability to direct or influence atypical immunity including atopy and autoimmunity.
@ Science Mom (# 141),
Science doesn’t have to be hard if there are clear definitions.
Old Rockin’ Dave @ 103
There’s always eating squirrel brains.
For Missy
Autism at Great Ormond Street Hospital (1877).
More history. See the 1904 description of feeble mindedness.
Jeebus, what an idiot! You don’t make something simple by fabricating a nonsensical “definition”.
Antivaxers need to come out with a book like this one to document vaccine reactions:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/24/science/ufo-sightings-book.html?smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur
“We’re doing scientific research,” Cheryl Costa said. “What’s crazy is not being willing to look at research.”
ORD @144: Yes that’s the comic I was refering too. They are in the midst of a Kickstarter for an RPG in the Schlock universe and one part of it is the in-world book of the 70 maxims. It comes “clean”, as though it was straight from the publisher, and “defaced” with notes by several characters.
JustaTech, I don’t get the need for a Kickstarter – it’s a comic strip. If they need rocket-propelled grenades, why can’t they just draw some?
IIRC, the burgoo story didn’t hold up under scrutiny, but I’m distracted and nothing jumped right out with a cursory Pubmed search.
ORD @151: LOL. RPG in this case meaning role-playing game, which are surprisingly costly to test and produce. I didn’t bother to buy it because I’ll never convince my friends to play it.
IIRC, the burgoo story didn’t hold up under scrutiny,
It didn’t help that Berger & Weisman told the NYT that they knew of 11 cases (six fatal), but in their contemporaneous paper in the Lancet they only only knew about five.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9288058
Then no further observations in the following two decades.
They are in the midst of a Kickstarter for an RPG in the Schlock universe and one part of it is the in-world book of the 70 maxims.
I wasted most of yesterday in a haze of nostalgia re-reading old Schlock sagas. I HOPE YOU’RE BOTH HAPPY.
Well sure you do if you have a crappy book you need to sell to the rubes.
JustaTech, you don”t know who you’re dealing with – I am known to some as The Master of Creative Misunderstanding.
Mein Sehr Gut Herr Doktor, yes, in fact I’m ecstatic.
Science Mom (#156) writes,
Well sure you do if you have a crappy book you need to sell to the rubes.
MJD says,
Science Mom said she’d never read the book.
Did you lie to us and read it?
@ doug (# 148),
I apologize for placing the word “or” twice in one sentence, I feel like an idiot. 🙂
No MJD I did not nor will read your crappy book; I’ve left that exercise to others like Prometheus who fairly skewered it for the masturbatory nonsense it is.
HDB: I’m pleased as punch! (And so glad to find fellow readers!)
On the original topic … post that came by in FB today demonstrating the sort of responses one often sees and how one ends up being defensive about even asking the question:
Need opinions on which flea and tick control people use, and please no slamming by people who only believe in using natural/homeopathic.