.....When the damage is done. by permission from Dogs Today - January 2009 |
Summary of a Presentation by Dr. Ron Schultz By Patricia Monahan Jordan, DVM.CVA.CTCVH & Herbology |
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PET VACCINATION
An Institutionalised Crime
Extracted from Nexus Magazine, www.nexusmagazine.com (Oct 2005). PO Box 30, Mapleton Qld 4560 Australia. [email protected] Telephone: +61 (0)7 5442 9280; Fax: +61 (0)7 5442 9381
by Catherine O'Driscoll ©2005Canine Health Concern
Pet owners should be aware that vaccines compromise the health of their cherished pets, causing serious side-effects including allergies, arthritis, behavioural problems, cancer, paralysis and, at worst, death.
My partner Rob and I attended a Crosby, Stills and Nash concert recently. It was a wonderful, rare treat, and fulfilled a dream I've nurtured for many years. I was particularly moved by Dave Crosby as he sang, "Speak, speak out against the madness". We have to do that, don't we? We have to speak out when our loved ones are being harmed. If we don't, then it seems to me that we are just part of the problem. Later in the same song Crosby sang, "It appears to be a long time before the dawn". And this is true, too: it seems to be taking so long for the truth to prevail and be acted upon by the veterinary community—for the profession is committing a crime by vaccinating animals year after year until they drop.
I've been saying this since 1994, when I formed a group called Canine Health Concern (CHC). The aim of this group is to educate pet owners in an attempt to stop the carnage that is being visited upon the animals by the corporations and professionals who profess to be helping them. My mission is quite personal, since the science points towards the horrifying fact that vaccines have killed three of my young, beautiful canine friends. The first shock came when Oliver suffered from rear-end paralysis and died when he was only four years old. Prudence died a slow and agonising death from leukaemia when she was only six; and Samson had a reaction to his puppy shot and first-year booster, and died of cancer at the tender age of five. All of these conditions are linked scientifically to vaccination. My other dogs were also unable to escape the damage that vaccines can cause. Chappie had thyroid disease, Sophie had arthritis and Guinnevere suffered from allergies. Again, these conditions can be scientifically shown to relate to vaccine damage.
I believe that vets of the future, and our children's doctors, will look back upon the vaccination era with horror and shame. The horror will come from the knowledge that so much pain and misery was caused by healing professionals acting in ignorance, and the shame will come from the wilfulness of that ignorance.
A Contentious Issue
If you will forgive me for making one more personal comment before I move on to substantiate my outrageous claims, I would like to address the issue of "contentiousness", which is a label I've grown used to but which I do not intend preventing me from speaking the truth.
You may have noticed that I've been using some pretty strong language in the opening paragraphs of this article. This is deliberate. It's deliberate because doctors, veterinarians and scientists have been numbed or socially moulded into language and behaviour that follow strict codes of professional etiquette. The pressure is upon them to be polite and refrain from offending one another with ideas, which means that the truth is continually stifled. By speaking directly, it is my intention to shock that numbness out of the system which perpetuates such catastrophic error. Besides which, the truth needs to be heard.
I believe that my dogs died prematurely, and millions of other dogs, cats and horses have died and are continuing to die because of the false ideas or beliefs held by our medical and veterinary professions. This faulty structure of belief is built, supported and held rigidly in place by a system which is killing the life on this planet. This system ensures that professionals are taught in colleges which rely upon big business for funding, which means that their education is faulty. Research organisations also rely upon big business for funding, which means that we can rarely trust the research. The media rely upon big business for funding, so we can scarcely believe what we read. And professionals in practice rely upon big business to stay in business. More worrying, perhaps, is the fact that our governments seem, from my direct experience, to put big business interests before life.
We are, in fact, looking at a juggernaut of death which is hurling itself at top speed towards the grave. We will not stop it by whimpering quietly in its face. We must educate ourselves with the truth and stand firmly in line together and shout, "No!" Failing this, the lives of your children, and your animals, depend at least upon your taking the time to understand the issues.
The Science behind Vaccination
Vaccination was born in England in 1798, when Edward Jenner observed that people who worked close to cows didn't get smallpox. He injected cowpox into humans and deduced that those humans were prevented from getting smallpox. You can imagine that, during the days of poor nutrition and appalling sanitation, the concept of a miracle cure for infectious disease would have been seized upon. And it was.
During the 1800s, Louis Pasteur developed the technology still further by attenuating vaccines, i.e., rendering them less harmful. It naturally took little time for vaccines to become big business, and over 200 years on there are vaccines against a wide array of bacterial and viral diseases in humans and many species of animal. Ignoring the fact that epidemics go in cycles and die out naturally (like the plague, for example), and ignoring the fact that our understanding of hygiene and nutrition might have something to do with the reduction in epidemics, vaccines have been given the largest slice of the credit.
Conventional medicine works on the risk/benefit ratio. All conventional Pharmaceuticals come with the risk of unwanted side-effects—but if they can be shown to help more people than they harm, then their dangers are ignored. It is no wonder, then, that the multibillion-dollar international vaccine industry has sponsored absolutely no long-term studies—in humans or animals— to ascertain what the risks of vaccines might actually be. And when individual scientists take the bull by the horns and conduct their own under-funded research, they are routinely discredited, usually by "experts" who have shares in, or lucrative consultancy income from, the vaccine industry. Even government-funded research gives those with vested interests full voice.
I guess if you can inject substances that make humans and animals sick, then you can also make a lot of money from supplying drugs that promise to alleviate these vaccine-induced illnesses. Politically and economically, it also makes sense to keep industry thriving and people in employment, and it also helps if big businesses enrich political campaign funds.
The Current State of Play for the Animals
This is what I have seen happening, time after time, over the last 12 years. A "responsible" pet owner takes their dog (or cat or horse) to the vet for their annual booster. Shortly after, the animal develops epilepsy, or arthritis, or behavioural problems, or thyroid disease, or diabetes, or skin complaints, or allergies, or heart failure, or liver or kidney damage, or paralysis of the rear end, or colitis, or even cancer, leukaemia or another life-threatening immune-mediated disease shortly after the shot.
Usually neither the pet owner nor the vet suspects a link. If the owner has been particularly close to their animal friend, however, they will start to ask questions. They may ask their vet if he or she suspects a link between the booster and the subsequent illness. The answer will invariably be "No". Very occasionally the owner won't let it rest there. They'll start to seek an answer to the question, "Why did my friend die?" They will then discover that a vaccine can indeed cause any of these illnesses and that—much to their horror—there was actually no need to give their friend an annual booster.
There will, however, be no recourse. They cannot bring their dead animal back to life. If they go through the courts, the system is such that very little impact will be made for their own case or for the health of any other animals. The best that can happen is that individuals, one at a time, slowly change their vaccine practices.
The Barriers to Knowledge
It's not easy to get your message across when you're engaged in the vaccine debate. The real problem lies in the fact that the science is somewhat complex and, bizarrely, the logic of vaccination is somewhat faulty. It just doesn't make sense—so it's very much easier to hand the decision-making process over to an expert in a white coat. Unfortunately, this leaves many people turning away from the effort involved in looking at the issues surrounding vaccination, relying instead upon someone else's judgement while at the same time suffering incredible anguish. I have had letters, emails and phone calls from so many people who worried about revaccinating their animals but who did it anyway because a vet told them to, and who now need grief counselling.
If nothing else, the 12 years I have spent running Canine Health Concern have shown me that this is the next necessary stage in human evolution: to take responsibility for our lives and the lives of those in our care. The system is so complex, and so swayed by the dominating effect of economics, that we have no choice now.
You cannot afford to subject your animals, or your children, to medical interventions that you do not understand. The belief system upon which the conventional medical model is founded is so faulty, so corrupt and so dangerous that you simply cannot afford to follow blindly.
Now I appreciate that many doctors and vets reading these words might be enraged by what I have said. They spent so much time, energy and money in obtaining their qualifications, after all. They actually do know more than most of us, and their whole lives are dedicated to healing the sick. Indeed, there is much in the conventional medical model that is good.
But doctors and vets will also resonate with the truth of what I am saying, however uncomfortable or angry it makes them feel. Recent studies show that three times more people in the UK die each year from drugs their doctors prescribe than they do in road traffic accidents. Doctors and vets do not have time to study all the side-effects of every drug: much of their understanding about drugs comes from pharmaceutical company representatives. They also have to concern themselves with income from their practice. And no one is able to know everything.
Drugs like Vioxx and Co-Proxamol in the human medical field, and Rimadyl and Deramaxx in the canine field, have now been shown to have death as a potential side-effect—but only after they passed all the safety and licensing requirements and after tens of thousands died. In America, where the FDA took action, Rimadyl comes with data sheets to warn dog owners of potential death if their pet is given the drug, and the makers of Deramaxx have had their knuckles rapped. And yet newly qualified student vets, who come on our Foundation in Canine Healthcare course, have been told in college about only the benefits of these drugs.
Patients and clients, on the other hand, do have time and often the motivation to research their own illnesses or the illnesses of their children and animals and the medications that are prescribed. All of us are far better educated than we used to be, even if we don't possess the same qualifications as the healthcare professionals. We have minds, and we know how to use them. And because the buck stops with us, we have a duty of care to ourselves and our loved ones. All too frequently, however, animal guardians are moved to research after their friends have died.
My aim, and the aim of Canine Health Concern, is to provide information before tragedy occurs. Sadly, I cannot make you read this information: only your love can do this. I can say, though, that the animals have been concerned with human evolution since the beginning of time, and they will continue to sacrifice themselves upon the altar of science until we humans get it. Truly, if only we knew the full extent of the love being poured out by the animals towards humanity, we would bow down in gratitude to them, and no effort would be too much for their sakes.
The Science of Vaccine Damage
A team at Purdue University School of Veterinary Medicine conducted several studies to determine if vaccines can cause changes in the immune system of dogs that might lead to life-threatening immune-mediated diseases. They conducted this research because concern already existed.
It was sponsored by the Haywood Foundation which itself was looking for evidence that such changes in the human immune system might also be vaccine induced. It found the evidence.
The vaccinated, but not the non-vaccinated, dogs in the Purdue studies developed autoantibodies to many of their own biochemicals, including fibronectin, laminin, DNA, albumin, cytochrome C, cardiolipin and collagen.
This means that the vaccinated dogs —but not the non-vaccinated dogs—were attacking their own fibronectin, which is involved in tissue repair, cell multiplication and growth, and differentiation between tissues and organs in a living organism.
The vaccinated Purdue dogs also developed autoantibodies to laminin, which is involved in many cellular activities including the adhesion, spreading, differentiation, proliferation and movement of cells. Vaccines thus appear to be capable of removing the natural intelligence of cells.
Autoantibodies to cardiolipin are frequently found in patients with the serious disease systemic lupus erythematosus and also in individuals with other autoimmune diseases. The presence of elevated anti-cardiolipin antibodies is significantly associated with clots within the heart or blood vessels, in poor blood clotting, haemorrhage, bleeding into the skin, foetal loss and neurological conditions.
The Purdue study also found that vaccinated dogs were developing autoantibodies to their own collagen. About one quarter of all the protein in the body is collagen. Collagen provides structure to our bodies, protecting and supporting the softer tissues and connecting them with the skeleton. It is no wonder that Canine Health Concern's 1997 study of 4,000 dogs showed a high number of dogs developing mobility problems shortly after they were vaccinated.
Perhaps most worryingly, the Purdue studies found that the vaccinated dogs had developed autoantibodies to their own DNA. The vaccinated dogs were attacking their own genetic blueprint.
At around the same time, the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) Vaccine-Associated Feline Sarcoma Task Force initiated several studies to find out why 160,000 cats each year in the USA develop terminal cancer at their vaccine injection sites. The fact that cats can get vaccine-induced cancer has been acknowledged by veterinary bodies around the world, and even the British Government acknowledged it through its Working Group charged with the task of looking into canine and feline vaccines. What do you imagine was the advice of the AVMA Task Force, veterinary bodies and governments? "Carry on vaccinating until we find out why vaccines are killing cats, and which cats are most likely to die."
In America, in an attempt to mitigate the problem, they're vaccinating cats in the tail or leg so they can amputate when cancer appears.
In August 2003, the Journal of Veterinary Medicine carried an Italian study which showed that dogs also develop vaccine-induced cancers at their injection sites. We already know that vaccine-site cancer is a possible sequel to human vaccines, too, since the Salk polio vaccine was said to carry a monkey retrovirus (from cultivating the vaccine on monkey organs) that produces inheritable cancer. The monkey retrovirus SV40 keeps turning up in human cancer sites.
It is also widely acknowledged that vaccines can cause a fast-acting, usually fatal, disease called autoimmune haemolytic anaemia (AIHA). Without treatment, and frequently with treatment, individuals can die in agony within a matter of days. Merck, itself a multinational vaccine manufacturer, states in The Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy that autoimmune haemolytic anaemia may be caused by modified live-virus vaccines, as does Tizard's Veterinary Immunology (4th edition) and the Journal of Veterinary Internal Medicine. The British Government's Working Group, despite being staffed by vaccine-industry consultants who say they are independent, also acknowledged this fact. However, no one warns the pet owners before their animals are subjected to an unnecessary booster, and very few owners are told why after their pets die of AIHA.
A Wide Range of Vaccine-induced Diseases
Canine Health Concern also found some worrying correlations between vaccine events and the onset of arthritis in its 1997 survey. Concerns were compounded by research in the human field.
The New England Journal of Medicine, for example, reported that it is possible to isolate the rubella virus from affected joints in children vaccinated against rubella. It also told of the isolation of viruses from the peripheral blood of women with prolonged arthritis following vaccination.
Then, in 2000, CHC's findings were confirmed by research which showed that polyarthritis and other diseases like amyloidosis, which affects organs in dogs, were linked to the combined vaccine given to dogs.
There is a huge body of research to confirm that vaccines can cause a wide range of brain and central nervous system damage. Merck itself states in its Manual that vaccines (i.e., its own products) can cause encephalitis: brain inflammation/damage. In some cases, encephalitis involves lesions in the brain and throughout the central nervous system. Merck states that "examples are the encephalitides following measles, chickenpox, rubella, smallpox vaccination, vaccinia, and many other less well defined viral infections".
When the dog owners who took part in the CHC survey reported that their dogs developed short attention spans, 73.1% of the dogs did so within three months of a vaccine event. The same percentage of dogs was diagnosed with epilepsy within three months of a shot (but usually within days). CHC also found that 72.5% of dogs that were considered by their owners to be nervous and of a worrying disposition, first exhibited these traits within the three-month post-vaccination period.
Paralysed rear legs is described as "paresis" which is listed in Merck's Manual as a symptom of encephalitis. This is defined as muscular weakness of a neural (brain) origin which involves partial or incomplete paralysis, resulting from lesions at any level of the descending pathway from the brain. Hind limb paralysis is one of the potential consequences. Encephalitis, incidentally, is a disease that can manifest across the scale from mild to severe and can also cause sudden death.
Organ failure must also be suspected when it occurs shortly after a vaccine event. Dr Larry Glickman, who spearheaded the Purdue research into post-vaccination biochemical changes in dogs, wrote in a letter to Cavalier Spaniel breeder Bet Hargreaves:
"Our ongoing studies of dogs show that following routine vaccination, there is a significant rise in the level of antibodies dogs produce against their own tissues. Some of these antibodies have been shown to target the thyroid gland, connective tissue such as that found in the valves of the heart, red blood cells, DNA, etc. I do believe that the heart conditions in Cavalier King Charles Spaniels could be the end result of repeated immunisations by vaccines containing tissue culture contaminants that cause a progressive immune response directed at connective tissue in the heart valves. The clinical manifestations would be more pronounced in dogs that have a genetic predisposition [although] the findings should be generally applicable to all dogs regardless of their breed."
Vaccines Stimulate an Inflammatory Response
The word "allergy" is synonymous with "sensitivity" and "inflammation". It should, by rights, also be synonymous with the word "vaccination". This is what vaccines do: they sensitise (render allergic) an individual in the process of forcing them to develop antibodies to fight a disease threat. In other words, as is acknowledged and accepted, as part of the vaccine process the body will respond with inflammation. This may be apparently temporary or it may be longstanding.
Holistic doctors and veterinarians have known this for at least 100 years. They talk about a wide range of inflammatory or "-itis" diseases which arise shortly after a vaccine event. Vaccines, in fact, plunge many individuals into an allergic state. Again, this is a disorder that ranges from mild all the way through to the suddenly fatal. Anaphylactic shock is the culmination: it's where an individual has a massive allergic reaction to a vaccine and will die within minutes if adrenaline or its equivalent is not administered.
There are some individuals who are genetically not well placed to withstand the vaccine challenge. These are the people (and animals are "people", too) who have inherited faulty B and T cell function. B and T cells are components within the immune system which identify foreign invaders and destroy them, and hold the invader in memory so that they cannot cause future harm. However, where inflammatory responses are concerned, the immune system overreacts and causes unwanted effects such as allergies and other inflammatory conditions.
Merck warns in its Manual that patients with, or from families with, B and/or T cell immunodeficiencies should not receive live-virus vaccines due to the risk of severe or fatal infection. Elsewhere, it lists features of B and T cell immunodeficiencies as food allergies, inhalant allergies, eczema, dermatitis, neurological deterioration and heart disease. To translate, people with these conditions can die if they receive live-virus vaccines. Their immune systems are simply not competent enough to guarantee a healthy reaction to the viral assault from modified live-virus vaccines.
Modified live-virus (MLV) vaccines replicate in the patient until an immune response is provoked. If a defence isn't stimulated, then the vaccine continues to replicate until it gives the patient the very disease it was intending to prevent.
Alternatively, a deranged immune response will lead to inflammatory conditions such as arthritis, pancreatitis, colitis, encephalitis and any number of autoimmune diseases such as cancer and leukaemia, where the body attacks its own cells.
Here is what some vets have said in relation to their patients:
Dr Jean Dodds: "Many veterinarians trace the present problems with allergic and immunologic diseases to the introduction of MLV vaccines..."
Christina Chambreau, DVM: "Routine vaccinations are probably the worst thing that we do for our animals. They cause all types of illnesses, but not directly to where we would relate them definitely to be caused by the vaccine."
Martin Goldstein, DVM: "I think that vaccines...are leading killers of dogs and cats in America today."
Dr Charles E. Loops, DVM: "Homoeopathic veterinarians and other holistic practitioners have maintained for some time that vaccinations do more harm than they provide benefits."
Mike Kohn, DVM: "In response to this [vaccine] violation, there have been increased autoimmune diseases (allergies being one component), epilepsy, neoplasia [tumours], as well as behavioural problems in small animals."
A Theory on Inflammation
Gary Smith explains what observant healthcare practitioners have been saying for a very long time, but perhaps they've not understood why their observations led them to say it. His theory, incidentally, is causing a huge stir within the inner scientific sanctum. Some believe that his theory could lead to a cure for many diseases including cancer. For me, it explains why the vaccine process is inherently questionable.
Gary was learning about inflammation as part of his studies when he struck upon a theory so extraordinary that it could have implications for the treatment of almost every inflammatory disease—including Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, rheumatoid arthritis and even HIV and AIDS.
Gary's theory questions the received wisdom that when a person gets ill, the inflammation that occurs around the infected area helps it to heal. He claims that, in reality, inflammation prevents the body from recognising a foreign substance and therefore serves as a hiding place for invaders. The inflammation occurs when at-risk cells produce receptors called All (known as angiotensin II type I receptors). He says that while At1 has a balancing receptor, At2, which is supposed to switch off the inflammation, in most diseases this does not happen.
"Cancer has been described as the wound that never heals," he says. "All successful cancers are surrounded by inflammation. Commonly this is thought to be the body's reaction to try to fight the cancer, but this is not the case.
"The inflammation is not the body trying to fight the infection. It is actually the virus or bacteria deliberately causing inflammation in order to hide from the immune system [author's emphasis]."14
If Gary is right, then the inflammatory process so commonly stimulated by vaccines is not, as hitherto assumed, a necessarily acceptable sign. Instead, it could be a sign that the viral or bacterial component, or the adjuvant (which, containing foreign protein, is seen as an invader by the immune system), in the vaccine is winning by stealth.
If Gary is correct in believing that the inflammatory response is not protective but a sign that invasion is taking place under cover of darkness, vaccines are certainly not the friends we thought they were. They are undercover assassins working on behalf of the enemy, and vets and medical doctors are unwittingly acting as collaborators. Worse, we animal guardians and parents are actually paying doctors and vets to unwittingly betray our loved ones.
Potentially, vaccines are the stealth bomb of the medical world. They are used to catapult invaders inside the castle walls where they can wreak havoc, with none of us any the wiser. So rather than experiencing frank viral diseases such as the 'flu, measles, mumps and rubella (and, in the case of dogs, parvovirus and distemper), we are allowing the viruses to win anyway—but with cancer, leukaemia and other inflammatory or autoimmune (self-attacking) diseases taking their place.
The Final Insult
All 27 veterinary schools in North America have changed their protocols for vaccinating dogs and cats along the following lines; however, vets in practice are reluctant to listen to these changed protocols and official veterinary bodies in the UK and other countries are ignoring the following facts.
Dogs' and cats' immune systems mature fully at six months. If a modified live-virus vaccine is giver after six months of age, it produces immunity, which is good for the life of the pet. If another MLV vaccine is given a year later, the antibodies from the first vaccine neutralise the antigens of the second vaccine and there is little or no effect. The titre is no "boosted", nor are more memory cells induced.
Not only are annual boosters unnecessary, but they subject the pet to potential risks such as allergic reactions and immune-mediated haemolytic anaemia.
In plain language, veterinary schools in America, plus the World Small Animal Veterinary Association, have looked at studies to show how long vaccines last and they have concluded and announced that annual vaccination is unnecessary.
Further, they have acknowledged that vaccines are not without harm. Dr Ron Schultz, head of pathobiology at Wisconsin University and a leading light in this field, has been saying this politely to his veterinary colleagues since the 1970s.
The good news is that thousands of animal lovers around the world use real food as Nature's supreme disease preventative, eschewing processed pet food, and minimise the vaccine risk.
Endnotes
1. "Effects of Vaccination on the Endocrine and Immune Systems of Dogs, Phase II", Purdue University, November 1,1999, at http://www.homestead.com/vonhapsburg/haywardstudyonvaccines.html.
2. See www.vet.purdue.edu/epi/gdhstudy.htm.
3. See http://www.avma.org/vafstf/default.asp.
4. Veterinary Products Committee (VPC) Working Group on Feline and Canine Vaccination, DEFRA, May 2001.
5. JVM Series A 50(6):286-291, August 2003.
6. Duval, D. and Giger,U. (1996). "Vaccine-Associated Immune-Mediated Hemolytic Anemia in the Dog", Journal of Veterinary Internal Medicine 10:290-295.
7. New England Journal of Medicine, vol.313,1985. See also Clin Exp Rheumatol 20(6):767-71, Nov-Dec 2002.
8. Am Coll Vet Intern Med 14:381,2000.
9. Dodds, Jean W.,DVM, "Immune System and Disease Resistance", at http://www.critterchat.net/immune.htm.
10. Wolf Clan magazine, April/May 1995.
11. Goldstein, Martin, The Nature of Animal Healing, Borzoi/Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1999.
12. Wolf Clan magazine, op. cit.
13. ibid.
14. Journal of Inflammation 1:3,2004, at http://www.journal-inflammation.com content/1/1/3.
15. Klingborg, D.J., Hustead, D.R. and Curry-Galvin, E. et al., "AVMA Council on Biologic and Therapeutic Agents' report on cat and dog vaccines", Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association 221(10):1401-1407, November 15,2002, http://www.avma.org/policies/vaccination.htm.
16. ibid.
17. Schultz, R.D., "Current and future canine and feline vaccination programs", Vet Med 93:233-254,1998.
18. Schultz, R.D., Ford, R.B., Olsen, J. and Scott, P., "Titer testing and vaccination: a new look at traditional practices", Vet Med 97:1-13, 2002 (insert).
19. Twark, L. and Dodds, W.J., "Clinical application of serum parvovirus and distemper virus antibody liters for determining revaccination strategies in healthy dogs", J Am Vet Med Assoc 217:1021-1024,2000.
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An Institutionalised Crime
Extracted from Nexus Magazine, www.nexusmagazine.com (Oct 2005). PO Box 30, Mapleton Qld 4560 Australia. [email protected] Telephone: +61 (0)7 5442 9280; Fax: +61 (0)7 5442 9381
by Catherine O'Driscoll ©2005Canine Health Concern
- A Contentious Issue
- The Science behind Vaccination
- The Current State of Play for the Animals
- The Barriers to Knowledge
- The Science of Vaccine Damage
- A Wide Range of Vaccine-induced Diseases
- Vaccines Stimulate an Inflammatory Response
- A Theory on Inflammation
- The Final Insult
Pet owners should be aware that vaccines compromise the health of their cherished pets, causing serious side-effects including allergies, arthritis, behavioural problems, cancer, paralysis and, at worst, death.
My partner Rob and I attended a Crosby, Stills and Nash concert recently. It was a wonderful, rare treat, and fulfilled a dream I've nurtured for many years. I was particularly moved by Dave Crosby as he sang, "Speak, speak out against the madness". We have to do that, don't we? We have to speak out when our loved ones are being harmed. If we don't, then it seems to me that we are just part of the problem. Later in the same song Crosby sang, "It appears to be a long time before the dawn". And this is true, too: it seems to be taking so long for the truth to prevail and be acted upon by the veterinary community—for the profession is committing a crime by vaccinating animals year after year until they drop.
I've been saying this since 1994, when I formed a group called Canine Health Concern (CHC). The aim of this group is to educate pet owners in an attempt to stop the carnage that is being visited upon the animals by the corporations and professionals who profess to be helping them. My mission is quite personal, since the science points towards the horrifying fact that vaccines have killed three of my young, beautiful canine friends. The first shock came when Oliver suffered from rear-end paralysis and died when he was only four years old. Prudence died a slow and agonising death from leukaemia when she was only six; and Samson had a reaction to his puppy shot and first-year booster, and died of cancer at the tender age of five. All of these conditions are linked scientifically to vaccination. My other dogs were also unable to escape the damage that vaccines can cause. Chappie had thyroid disease, Sophie had arthritis and Guinnevere suffered from allergies. Again, these conditions can be scientifically shown to relate to vaccine damage.
I believe that vets of the future, and our children's doctors, will look back upon the vaccination era with horror and shame. The horror will come from the knowledge that so much pain and misery was caused by healing professionals acting in ignorance, and the shame will come from the wilfulness of that ignorance.
A Contentious Issue
If you will forgive me for making one more personal comment before I move on to substantiate my outrageous claims, I would like to address the issue of "contentiousness", which is a label I've grown used to but which I do not intend preventing me from speaking the truth.
You may have noticed that I've been using some pretty strong language in the opening paragraphs of this article. This is deliberate. It's deliberate because doctors, veterinarians and scientists have been numbed or socially moulded into language and behaviour that follow strict codes of professional etiquette. The pressure is upon them to be polite and refrain from offending one another with ideas, which means that the truth is continually stifled. By speaking directly, it is my intention to shock that numbness out of the system which perpetuates such catastrophic error. Besides which, the truth needs to be heard.
I believe that my dogs died prematurely, and millions of other dogs, cats and horses have died and are continuing to die because of the false ideas or beliefs held by our medical and veterinary professions. This faulty structure of belief is built, supported and held rigidly in place by a system which is killing the life on this planet. This system ensures that professionals are taught in colleges which rely upon big business for funding, which means that their education is faulty. Research organisations also rely upon big business for funding, which means that we can rarely trust the research. The media rely upon big business for funding, so we can scarcely believe what we read. And professionals in practice rely upon big business to stay in business. More worrying, perhaps, is the fact that our governments seem, from my direct experience, to put big business interests before life.
We are, in fact, looking at a juggernaut of death which is hurling itself at top speed towards the grave. We will not stop it by whimpering quietly in its face. We must educate ourselves with the truth and stand firmly in line together and shout, "No!" Failing this, the lives of your children, and your animals, depend at least upon your taking the time to understand the issues.
The Science behind Vaccination
Vaccination was born in England in 1798, when Edward Jenner observed that people who worked close to cows didn't get smallpox. He injected cowpox into humans and deduced that those humans were prevented from getting smallpox. You can imagine that, during the days of poor nutrition and appalling sanitation, the concept of a miracle cure for infectious disease would have been seized upon. And it was.
During the 1800s, Louis Pasteur developed the technology still further by attenuating vaccines, i.e., rendering them less harmful. It naturally took little time for vaccines to become big business, and over 200 years on there are vaccines against a wide array of bacterial and viral diseases in humans and many species of animal. Ignoring the fact that epidemics go in cycles and die out naturally (like the plague, for example), and ignoring the fact that our understanding of hygiene and nutrition might have something to do with the reduction in epidemics, vaccines have been given the largest slice of the credit.
Conventional medicine works on the risk/benefit ratio. All conventional Pharmaceuticals come with the risk of unwanted side-effects—but if they can be shown to help more people than they harm, then their dangers are ignored. It is no wonder, then, that the multibillion-dollar international vaccine industry has sponsored absolutely no long-term studies—in humans or animals— to ascertain what the risks of vaccines might actually be. And when individual scientists take the bull by the horns and conduct their own under-funded research, they are routinely discredited, usually by "experts" who have shares in, or lucrative consultancy income from, the vaccine industry. Even government-funded research gives those with vested interests full voice.
I guess if you can inject substances that make humans and animals sick, then you can also make a lot of money from supplying drugs that promise to alleviate these vaccine-induced illnesses. Politically and economically, it also makes sense to keep industry thriving and people in employment, and it also helps if big businesses enrich political campaign funds.
The Current State of Play for the Animals
This is what I have seen happening, time after time, over the last 12 years. A "responsible" pet owner takes their dog (or cat or horse) to the vet for their annual booster. Shortly after, the animal develops epilepsy, or arthritis, or behavioural problems, or thyroid disease, or diabetes, or skin complaints, or allergies, or heart failure, or liver or kidney damage, or paralysis of the rear end, or colitis, or even cancer, leukaemia or another life-threatening immune-mediated disease shortly after the shot.
Usually neither the pet owner nor the vet suspects a link. If the owner has been particularly close to their animal friend, however, they will start to ask questions. They may ask their vet if he or she suspects a link between the booster and the subsequent illness. The answer will invariably be "No". Very occasionally the owner won't let it rest there. They'll start to seek an answer to the question, "Why did my friend die?" They will then discover that a vaccine can indeed cause any of these illnesses and that—much to their horror—there was actually no need to give their friend an annual booster.
There will, however, be no recourse. They cannot bring their dead animal back to life. If they go through the courts, the system is such that very little impact will be made for their own case or for the health of any other animals. The best that can happen is that individuals, one at a time, slowly change their vaccine practices.
The Barriers to Knowledge
It's not easy to get your message across when you're engaged in the vaccine debate. The real problem lies in the fact that the science is somewhat complex and, bizarrely, the logic of vaccination is somewhat faulty. It just doesn't make sense—so it's very much easier to hand the decision-making process over to an expert in a white coat. Unfortunately, this leaves many people turning away from the effort involved in looking at the issues surrounding vaccination, relying instead upon someone else's judgement while at the same time suffering incredible anguish. I have had letters, emails and phone calls from so many people who worried about revaccinating their animals but who did it anyway because a vet told them to, and who now need grief counselling.
If nothing else, the 12 years I have spent running Canine Health Concern have shown me that this is the next necessary stage in human evolution: to take responsibility for our lives and the lives of those in our care. The system is so complex, and so swayed by the dominating effect of economics, that we have no choice now.
You cannot afford to subject your animals, or your children, to medical interventions that you do not understand. The belief system upon which the conventional medical model is founded is so faulty, so corrupt and so dangerous that you simply cannot afford to follow blindly.
Now I appreciate that many doctors and vets reading these words might be enraged by what I have said. They spent so much time, energy and money in obtaining their qualifications, after all. They actually do know more than most of us, and their whole lives are dedicated to healing the sick. Indeed, there is much in the conventional medical model that is good.
But doctors and vets will also resonate with the truth of what I am saying, however uncomfortable or angry it makes them feel. Recent studies show that three times more people in the UK die each year from drugs their doctors prescribe than they do in road traffic accidents. Doctors and vets do not have time to study all the side-effects of every drug: much of their understanding about drugs comes from pharmaceutical company representatives. They also have to concern themselves with income from their practice. And no one is able to know everything.
Drugs like Vioxx and Co-Proxamol in the human medical field, and Rimadyl and Deramaxx in the canine field, have now been shown to have death as a potential side-effect—but only after they passed all the safety and licensing requirements and after tens of thousands died. In America, where the FDA took action, Rimadyl comes with data sheets to warn dog owners of potential death if their pet is given the drug, and the makers of Deramaxx have had their knuckles rapped. And yet newly qualified student vets, who come on our Foundation in Canine Healthcare course, have been told in college about only the benefits of these drugs.
Patients and clients, on the other hand, do have time and often the motivation to research their own illnesses or the illnesses of their children and animals and the medications that are prescribed. All of us are far better educated than we used to be, even if we don't possess the same qualifications as the healthcare professionals. We have minds, and we know how to use them. And because the buck stops with us, we have a duty of care to ourselves and our loved ones. All too frequently, however, animal guardians are moved to research after their friends have died.
My aim, and the aim of Canine Health Concern, is to provide information before tragedy occurs. Sadly, I cannot make you read this information: only your love can do this. I can say, though, that the animals have been concerned with human evolution since the beginning of time, and they will continue to sacrifice themselves upon the altar of science until we humans get it. Truly, if only we knew the full extent of the love being poured out by the animals towards humanity, we would bow down in gratitude to them, and no effort would be too much for their sakes.
The Science of Vaccine Damage
A team at Purdue University School of Veterinary Medicine conducted several studies to determine if vaccines can cause changes in the immune system of dogs that might lead to life-threatening immune-mediated diseases. They conducted this research because concern already existed.
It was sponsored by the Haywood Foundation which itself was looking for evidence that such changes in the human immune system might also be vaccine induced. It found the evidence.
The vaccinated, but not the non-vaccinated, dogs in the Purdue studies developed autoantibodies to many of their own biochemicals, including fibronectin, laminin, DNA, albumin, cytochrome C, cardiolipin and collagen.
This means that the vaccinated dogs —but not the non-vaccinated dogs—were attacking their own fibronectin, which is involved in tissue repair, cell multiplication and growth, and differentiation between tissues and organs in a living organism.
The vaccinated Purdue dogs also developed autoantibodies to laminin, which is involved in many cellular activities including the adhesion, spreading, differentiation, proliferation and movement of cells. Vaccines thus appear to be capable of removing the natural intelligence of cells.
Autoantibodies to cardiolipin are frequently found in patients with the serious disease systemic lupus erythematosus and also in individuals with other autoimmune diseases. The presence of elevated anti-cardiolipin antibodies is significantly associated with clots within the heart or blood vessels, in poor blood clotting, haemorrhage, bleeding into the skin, foetal loss and neurological conditions.
The Purdue study also found that vaccinated dogs were developing autoantibodies to their own collagen. About one quarter of all the protein in the body is collagen. Collagen provides structure to our bodies, protecting and supporting the softer tissues and connecting them with the skeleton. It is no wonder that Canine Health Concern's 1997 study of 4,000 dogs showed a high number of dogs developing mobility problems shortly after they were vaccinated.
Perhaps most worryingly, the Purdue studies found that the vaccinated dogs had developed autoantibodies to their own DNA. The vaccinated dogs were attacking their own genetic blueprint.
At around the same time, the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) Vaccine-Associated Feline Sarcoma Task Force initiated several studies to find out why 160,000 cats each year in the USA develop terminal cancer at their vaccine injection sites. The fact that cats can get vaccine-induced cancer has been acknowledged by veterinary bodies around the world, and even the British Government acknowledged it through its Working Group charged with the task of looking into canine and feline vaccines. What do you imagine was the advice of the AVMA Task Force, veterinary bodies and governments? "Carry on vaccinating until we find out why vaccines are killing cats, and which cats are most likely to die."
In America, in an attempt to mitigate the problem, they're vaccinating cats in the tail or leg so they can amputate when cancer appears.
In August 2003, the Journal of Veterinary Medicine carried an Italian study which showed that dogs also develop vaccine-induced cancers at their injection sites. We already know that vaccine-site cancer is a possible sequel to human vaccines, too, since the Salk polio vaccine was said to carry a monkey retrovirus (from cultivating the vaccine on monkey organs) that produces inheritable cancer. The monkey retrovirus SV40 keeps turning up in human cancer sites.
It is also widely acknowledged that vaccines can cause a fast-acting, usually fatal, disease called autoimmune haemolytic anaemia (AIHA). Without treatment, and frequently with treatment, individuals can die in agony within a matter of days. Merck, itself a multinational vaccine manufacturer, states in The Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy that autoimmune haemolytic anaemia may be caused by modified live-virus vaccines, as does Tizard's Veterinary Immunology (4th edition) and the Journal of Veterinary Internal Medicine. The British Government's Working Group, despite being staffed by vaccine-industry consultants who say they are independent, also acknowledged this fact. However, no one warns the pet owners before their animals are subjected to an unnecessary booster, and very few owners are told why after their pets die of AIHA.
A Wide Range of Vaccine-induced Diseases
Canine Health Concern also found some worrying correlations between vaccine events and the onset of arthritis in its 1997 survey. Concerns were compounded by research in the human field.
The New England Journal of Medicine, for example, reported that it is possible to isolate the rubella virus from affected joints in children vaccinated against rubella. It also told of the isolation of viruses from the peripheral blood of women with prolonged arthritis following vaccination.
Then, in 2000, CHC's findings were confirmed by research which showed that polyarthritis and other diseases like amyloidosis, which affects organs in dogs, were linked to the combined vaccine given to dogs.
There is a huge body of research to confirm that vaccines can cause a wide range of brain and central nervous system damage. Merck itself states in its Manual that vaccines (i.e., its own products) can cause encephalitis: brain inflammation/damage. In some cases, encephalitis involves lesions in the brain and throughout the central nervous system. Merck states that "examples are the encephalitides following measles, chickenpox, rubella, smallpox vaccination, vaccinia, and many other less well defined viral infections".
When the dog owners who took part in the CHC survey reported that their dogs developed short attention spans, 73.1% of the dogs did so within three months of a vaccine event. The same percentage of dogs was diagnosed with epilepsy within three months of a shot (but usually within days). CHC also found that 72.5% of dogs that were considered by their owners to be nervous and of a worrying disposition, first exhibited these traits within the three-month post-vaccination period.
Paralysed rear legs is described as "paresis" which is listed in Merck's Manual as a symptom of encephalitis. This is defined as muscular weakness of a neural (brain) origin which involves partial or incomplete paralysis, resulting from lesions at any level of the descending pathway from the brain. Hind limb paralysis is one of the potential consequences. Encephalitis, incidentally, is a disease that can manifest across the scale from mild to severe and can also cause sudden death.
Organ failure must also be suspected when it occurs shortly after a vaccine event. Dr Larry Glickman, who spearheaded the Purdue research into post-vaccination biochemical changes in dogs, wrote in a letter to Cavalier Spaniel breeder Bet Hargreaves:
"Our ongoing studies of dogs show that following routine vaccination, there is a significant rise in the level of antibodies dogs produce against their own tissues. Some of these antibodies have been shown to target the thyroid gland, connective tissue such as that found in the valves of the heart, red blood cells, DNA, etc. I do believe that the heart conditions in Cavalier King Charles Spaniels could be the end result of repeated immunisations by vaccines containing tissue culture contaminants that cause a progressive immune response directed at connective tissue in the heart valves. The clinical manifestations would be more pronounced in dogs that have a genetic predisposition [although] the findings should be generally applicable to all dogs regardless of their breed."
Vaccines Stimulate an Inflammatory Response
The word "allergy" is synonymous with "sensitivity" and "inflammation". It should, by rights, also be synonymous with the word "vaccination". This is what vaccines do: they sensitise (render allergic) an individual in the process of forcing them to develop antibodies to fight a disease threat. In other words, as is acknowledged and accepted, as part of the vaccine process the body will respond with inflammation. This may be apparently temporary or it may be longstanding.
Holistic doctors and veterinarians have known this for at least 100 years. They talk about a wide range of inflammatory or "-itis" diseases which arise shortly after a vaccine event. Vaccines, in fact, plunge many individuals into an allergic state. Again, this is a disorder that ranges from mild all the way through to the suddenly fatal. Anaphylactic shock is the culmination: it's where an individual has a massive allergic reaction to a vaccine and will die within minutes if adrenaline or its equivalent is not administered.
There are some individuals who are genetically not well placed to withstand the vaccine challenge. These are the people (and animals are "people", too) who have inherited faulty B and T cell function. B and T cells are components within the immune system which identify foreign invaders and destroy them, and hold the invader in memory so that they cannot cause future harm. However, where inflammatory responses are concerned, the immune system overreacts and causes unwanted effects such as allergies and other inflammatory conditions.
Merck warns in its Manual that patients with, or from families with, B and/or T cell immunodeficiencies should not receive live-virus vaccines due to the risk of severe or fatal infection. Elsewhere, it lists features of B and T cell immunodeficiencies as food allergies, inhalant allergies, eczema, dermatitis, neurological deterioration and heart disease. To translate, people with these conditions can die if they receive live-virus vaccines. Their immune systems are simply not competent enough to guarantee a healthy reaction to the viral assault from modified live-virus vaccines.
Modified live-virus (MLV) vaccines replicate in the patient until an immune response is provoked. If a defence isn't stimulated, then the vaccine continues to replicate until it gives the patient the very disease it was intending to prevent.
Alternatively, a deranged immune response will lead to inflammatory conditions such as arthritis, pancreatitis, colitis, encephalitis and any number of autoimmune diseases such as cancer and leukaemia, where the body attacks its own cells.
Here is what some vets have said in relation to their patients:
Dr Jean Dodds: "Many veterinarians trace the present problems with allergic and immunologic diseases to the introduction of MLV vaccines..."
Christina Chambreau, DVM: "Routine vaccinations are probably the worst thing that we do for our animals. They cause all types of illnesses, but not directly to where we would relate them definitely to be caused by the vaccine."
Martin Goldstein, DVM: "I think that vaccines...are leading killers of dogs and cats in America today."
Dr Charles E. Loops, DVM: "Homoeopathic veterinarians and other holistic practitioners have maintained for some time that vaccinations do more harm than they provide benefits."
Mike Kohn, DVM: "In response to this [vaccine] violation, there have been increased autoimmune diseases (allergies being one component), epilepsy, neoplasia [tumours], as well as behavioural problems in small animals."
A Theory on Inflammation
Gary Smith explains what observant healthcare practitioners have been saying for a very long time, but perhaps they've not understood why their observations led them to say it. His theory, incidentally, is causing a huge stir within the inner scientific sanctum. Some believe that his theory could lead to a cure for many diseases including cancer. For me, it explains why the vaccine process is inherently questionable.
Gary was learning about inflammation as part of his studies when he struck upon a theory so extraordinary that it could have implications for the treatment of almost every inflammatory disease—including Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, rheumatoid arthritis and even HIV and AIDS.
Gary's theory questions the received wisdom that when a person gets ill, the inflammation that occurs around the infected area helps it to heal. He claims that, in reality, inflammation prevents the body from recognising a foreign substance and therefore serves as a hiding place for invaders. The inflammation occurs when at-risk cells produce receptors called All (known as angiotensin II type I receptors). He says that while At1 has a balancing receptor, At2, which is supposed to switch off the inflammation, in most diseases this does not happen.
"Cancer has been described as the wound that never heals," he says. "All successful cancers are surrounded by inflammation. Commonly this is thought to be the body's reaction to try to fight the cancer, but this is not the case.
"The inflammation is not the body trying to fight the infection. It is actually the virus or bacteria deliberately causing inflammation in order to hide from the immune system [author's emphasis]."14
If Gary is right, then the inflammatory process so commonly stimulated by vaccines is not, as hitherto assumed, a necessarily acceptable sign. Instead, it could be a sign that the viral or bacterial component, or the adjuvant (which, containing foreign protein, is seen as an invader by the immune system), in the vaccine is winning by stealth.
If Gary is correct in believing that the inflammatory response is not protective but a sign that invasion is taking place under cover of darkness, vaccines are certainly not the friends we thought they were. They are undercover assassins working on behalf of the enemy, and vets and medical doctors are unwittingly acting as collaborators. Worse, we animal guardians and parents are actually paying doctors and vets to unwittingly betray our loved ones.
Potentially, vaccines are the stealth bomb of the medical world. They are used to catapult invaders inside the castle walls where they can wreak havoc, with none of us any the wiser. So rather than experiencing frank viral diseases such as the 'flu, measles, mumps and rubella (and, in the case of dogs, parvovirus and distemper), we are allowing the viruses to win anyway—but with cancer, leukaemia and other inflammatory or autoimmune (self-attacking) diseases taking their place.
The Final Insult
All 27 veterinary schools in North America have changed their protocols for vaccinating dogs and cats along the following lines; however, vets in practice are reluctant to listen to these changed protocols and official veterinary bodies in the UK and other countries are ignoring the following facts.
Dogs' and cats' immune systems mature fully at six months. If a modified live-virus vaccine is giver after six months of age, it produces immunity, which is good for the life of the pet. If another MLV vaccine is given a year later, the antibodies from the first vaccine neutralise the antigens of the second vaccine and there is little or no effect. The titre is no "boosted", nor are more memory cells induced.
Not only are annual boosters unnecessary, but they subject the pet to potential risks such as allergic reactions and immune-mediated haemolytic anaemia.
In plain language, veterinary schools in America, plus the World Small Animal Veterinary Association, have looked at studies to show how long vaccines last and they have concluded and announced that annual vaccination is unnecessary.
Further, they have acknowledged that vaccines are not without harm. Dr Ron Schultz, head of pathobiology at Wisconsin University and a leading light in this field, has been saying this politely to his veterinary colleagues since the 1970s.
The good news is that thousands of animal lovers around the world use real food as Nature's supreme disease preventative, eschewing processed pet food, and minimise the vaccine risk.
Endnotes
1. "Effects of Vaccination on the Endocrine and Immune Systems of Dogs, Phase II", Purdue University, November 1,1999, at http://www.homestead.com/vonhapsburg/haywardstudyonvaccines.html.
2. See www.vet.purdue.edu/epi/gdhstudy.htm.
3. See http://www.avma.org/vafstf/default.asp.
4. Veterinary Products Committee (VPC) Working Group on Feline and Canine Vaccination, DEFRA, May 2001.
5. JVM Series A 50(6):286-291, August 2003.
6. Duval, D. and Giger,U. (1996). "Vaccine-Associated Immune-Mediated Hemolytic Anemia in the Dog", Journal of Veterinary Internal Medicine 10:290-295.
7. New England Journal of Medicine, vol.313,1985. See also Clin Exp Rheumatol 20(6):767-71, Nov-Dec 2002.
8. Am Coll Vet Intern Med 14:381,2000.
9. Dodds, Jean W.,DVM, "Immune System and Disease Resistance", at http://www.critterchat.net/immune.htm.
10. Wolf Clan magazine, April/May 1995.
11. Goldstein, Martin, The Nature of Animal Healing, Borzoi/Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1999.
12. Wolf Clan magazine, op. cit.
13. ibid.
14. Journal of Inflammation 1:3,2004, at http://www.journal-inflammation.com content/1/1/3.
15. Klingborg, D.J., Hustead, D.R. and Curry-Galvin, E. et al., "AVMA Council on Biologic and Therapeutic Agents' report on cat and dog vaccines", Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association 221(10):1401-1407, November 15,2002, http://www.avma.org/policies/vaccination.htm.
16. ibid.
17. Schultz, R.D., "Current and future canine and feline vaccination programs", Vet Med 93:233-254,1998.
18. Schultz, R.D., Ford, R.B., Olsen, J. and Scott, P., "Titer testing and vaccination: a new look at traditional practices", Vet Med 97:1-13, 2002 (insert).
19. Twark, L. and Dodds, W.J., "Clinical application of serum parvovirus and distemper virus antibody liters for determining revaccination strategies in healthy dogs", J Am Vet Med Assoc 217:1021-1024,2000.
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