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An open letter to representatives of the veterinary profession andgovernment regulators
http://users.on.net/~peter.hart/Open...x_May_2010.pdf
Veterinarians in countries such as Australia, Britain and the United States continue to mislead pet owners with ill-founded vaccination advice, insisting they have their pets revaccinated ‘annually’ or ‘triennially’ with modified live virus (MLV) core vaccines for parvovirus, distemper virus and adenovirus when there is no evidence to support this ongoing practice. In Australia, articles in the media over the past few months indicate that pet owners are still being bombarded with inconsistent, confusing, and misleading messages regarding vaccination of companion animals. In January 2010, I contacted Warren Foreman, President of the South Australian Division of the AVA, regarding an article titled “Canine deaths mystery” published in an Adelaide newspaper in December 2009, which included the recommendation that “…owners should immunise their dogs, at a cost of $60-$90, even if the animal was vaccinated last year”.16 I asked what was the scientific rationale for this revaccination recommendation and, in a rather tortuous response, he indicated that pet owners in “Struggletown” (i.e. a low socioeconomic area) are unlikely to be able to remember when their pet was last vaccinated, so the message needs to be kept simple, i.e. “a yearly ‘vaccination’ visit”.17 This paternalistic and non-evidence based attitude regarding vaccination is unacceptable. Dr Lawrie, you were recently interviewed for an article in the Gold Coast News titled “Gold Coast dogs in danger of parvo”. The article concludes: “All puppies should receive a parvovirus vaccination as part of their vaccine regime, and then get yearly boosters.”18 (My emphasis.) Dr Lawrie, how does this advice sit with the AVA’s policy on dog and cat vaccination ratified by the AVA Board in June 2009, and information in the scientific literature and international dog and cat vaccination guidelines re long duration of immunity, (probably life-long), with MLV vaccines? The article in the Gold Coast News also refers to a national disease-tracking database, Disease WatchDog. This database was also referred to in an AVA media release dated 3 March 2010. The AVA media release noted that the database was launched by Virbac Animal Health in February 2010.19 This industry-funded database is not accessible to the public. What action is the AVA taking to ensure that transparent and reliable epidemiological data on disease is freely available to the public? At the moment dubious media advertorials about anecdotal parvovirus reports, which promote indiscriminate revaccination of dogs, appear to be the only publicly accessible information on parvovirus in the community. An article by veterinarian Aine Seavers, published in the April 2010 edition of The Veterinarian, a magazine targeted at the veterinary industry, also gives cause for alarm for pet owners. Complaining about the AVA’s new vaccination policy, Seavers refers to the “unseemly haste with which we are being pushed to move from a proven safe good science to a new science as yet unproven…”20 She appears to be unaware that vaccination has been a controversial topic since at least the mid-1990s. I also take issue with her comment that vaccination is a “proven safe good science”. I have already addressed the problem of nonevidence based, and possibly harmful, vaccination extensively in my research documents, copies of which have previously been forwarded to you Dr Lawrie. (Refer to links provided at the end of this letter.) In particular, I refer to “the risk of adverse reaction to vaccination” in my report “Is over-vaccination harming our pets? Are vets making our pets sick?” (refer to pages 13-21)21, and my submission on the National Regulatory System in relation to “Unnecessary, and possibly harmful, use of companion animal vaccines” (refer to pages 13-19)22. Seavers’ concerns about ‘unseemly haste’, are ironic given that The Veterinarian raised this topic ten years ago with an article titled “The needle and the damage done?” by Jonica Newby, published in 2000. At that time, Newby reported that the Australian Veterinary Association and Australian Small Animal Veterinary Association had adopted a policy of ‘wait and see’ on vaccination practice.23 After nearly ten years of ‘waiting and seeing’, during which time pet owners in Australia continued to be kept in the dark about the vaccination controversy, and pressured to have non-evidence based annual MLV core revaccinations for their pets, the AVA finally announced its new ‘triennial’ dog and cat vaccination policy in August 2009, after campaigning by ‘concerned pet owners’24, and negative publicity in the Sydney Morning Herald25 26 and on the ABC27. The AVA’s new policy on vaccination of dogs and cats, and other related matters, is currently located on the AVA website’s Home Page.28 Seavers is now demanding that the AVA “should remove the current information on the OPEN page of the AVA website…”29 This is an outrageous request and indicates that some members of the veterinary profession are still unwilling to objectively inform pet owners of crucial information contained in the scientific literature and the latest international dog and cat vaccination guidelines. According to Seavers, she has personal correspondence from the AVA that supports veterinarians who want to “continue annual vaccination” saying “our policy still allows for this”.30 Dr Lawrie, does this mean the AVA agrees with pet owners being denied the opportunity to make an objective and properly informed decision about evidence based vaccination? Seavers ironically calls for a “more even-sided conversation in this debate”31, but fails to recognise that the major stakeholders in companion animal health, i.e. pet owners, have been unjustly excluded from this conversation for many years. |
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