Pet Vaccination: An Institutionalised Crime

Pet Vaccination – An Institutionalised Crime

By Catherine O’Driscoll, author of Shock to the System
(published in Nexus magazine)

http://www.canine-health-concern.org.uk

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, Dave Crosby sings, ‘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. 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’s 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.

Contentious

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 to prevent 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 which 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 relies upon big business for funding, so we can scarce 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 you 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 to infectious disease would have been seized upon. And it was.
Louis Pasteur, during the 1800’s, developed the technology still further by attenuating (rendering less harmful) vaccines. It naturally took little time for vaccines to become big business, and over two hundred years on, there are vaccines against a wide array of bacterial and viral disease, 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 multi-billion 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.
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 twelve 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? . . . 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 happens 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 whilst 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 want me to provide grief counselling.
Don’t get me wrong – I am not unsympathetic. I understand how difficult it is to put in the work to understand what you are doing to those in your care in the name of love, and to step into your power. If nothing else, the twelve 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. You spent so much time, energy and money in obtaining your qualifications, after all. You actually do know more than most of us, and your whole lives are dedicated to healing the sick. Indeed, there is much in the conventional medical model that is good.
But you will also resonate with the truth of what I am saying, however uncomfortable or angry it makes you feel. Recent studies show that three times more people die from drugs their doctors prescribe in the UK each year than they do in road traffic accidents. Doctors and vets do not have time to study all drug side-effects; much of your understanding about drugs comes from pharmaceutical company reps. You also have to concern yourself with practice income. 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 have passed all the safety and licensing requirements, and after tens of thousands have died. In America, where the FDA took action, Rimadyl comes with data sheets to warn dog owners of potential death. The makers of Deramaxx have had their knuckles rapped. And yet student vets, freshly qualified, who come on our Foundation in Canine Healthcare course, have been told only of the benefits of these drugs in college.
Your 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 do not 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 are dead.
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 alter 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 systems of dogs that might lead to life-threatening immune-mediated diseases. They obviously conducted this research because concern already existed. It was sponsored by the Haywood Foundation which itself was looking for evidence that such changes in human immune systems might also be vaccine-induced. It found the evidence.
The vaccinated, but not the non-vaccinated, dogs in the Purdue study 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 study found that the vaccinated dogs had developed autoantibodies to their own DNA. Did the alarm bells sound? Did the scientific community call a halt to the vaccination programme? No. Instead, they stuck their fingers in the air, saying more research is needed to ascertain whether vaccines can cause genetic damage. Meanwhile, the study dogs were found good homes and no long-term follow up has been conducted.
At around the same time, the American Veterinary Medical Association Vaccine-Associated Feline Sarcoma Task Force initiated several studies to find out why 160,000 cats each year in the USA appear to 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 following pressure from Canine Health Concern.
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. Great advice if it’s not your cat amongst the hundreds of thousands on the ‘oops’ list.
But other species are OK – right? Wrong. In August 2003, the Journal of Veterinary Medicine carried an Italian study which showed that dogs, as well as cats, 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 multi-national vaccine manufacturer, states in its Manual that autoimmune haemolytic anaemia may be caused by modified live virus vaccines, as does Tizards 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. 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.

More . . .

A wide range of vaccine-induced disease

We also found some worrying correlations between vaccine events and the onset of arthritis in our 1997 survey. Our 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, research confirmed CHC’s findings, 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, despite the paucity of funding from the vaccine industry, 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: ‘examples are the encephalitides following measles, chickenpox, rubella, smallpox vaccination, vaccinia, and many other less well defined viral infections’.
Of the dog owners in the CHC survey who reported that their dogs developed short attention spans, 73.1% did so within three months of a vaccine event. The same percentage of dogs with epilepsy were also diagnosed within three months of a shot (but usually within days). We also found that 72.5% of dogs who were considered by their owners to be nervous and of a worrying disposition, first exhibited these traits within the three-month post-vaccination period.
I would like to add for the sake of Oliver, my friend who suffered from paralysed rear legs and death shortly after a vaccine shot, that ‘paresis’ is listed in Merck 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 spectrum disease which can be mild and invisible, ranging right through the spectrum to 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 biochemical changes in dogs post-vaccination wrote, ‘Our ongoing studies of dogs shows 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’.
I must mention here that Dr Glickman believes that vaccines are a necessary evil, but that safer vaccines need to be developed. Meanwhile, please join the queue to place your dog, cat, horse and child on the Russian roulette wheel because a scientist says you should.

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 part of the vaccine process, it is acknowledged and accepted that 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 a hundred 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 spectrum disorder, ranging from mild all the way through to death. 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 over-reacts 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. 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.
A new theory, stumbled upon by Open University student Gary Smith explains what holistic practitioners have been saying for a very long time. Before we get to Gary’s theory, though, let’s listen to what a few of the holistic 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.’

Gary Smith’s Theory

Gary Smith explains what observant healthcare practitioners have been saying for a very long time, but perhaps didn’t understand 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 help to cure 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 hypothesis 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 recognising a foreign substance and therefore serves as a hiding place for invaders. The inflammation occurs when at-risk cells produce receptors called At1 (known as angiontensin II type I receptors). While At1 has a balancing receptor, At2, which is supposed to switch the inflammation off, he says that 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.’
If Gary is right, then the inflammatory process so commonly stimulated by vaccines is not, as hitherto assumed, a necessarily acceptable sign. It could, instead, 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. Vets in practice are reluctant to listen to these changed protocols however, and in the UK and other countries, official veterinary bodies are ignoring the following facts:
Dogs’ and cats’ immune systems mature fully at six months. If a modified live virus vaccine is given 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 neutralize the antigens of the second vaccine and there is little or no effect. The titer is not "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 American Veterinary Medical 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 1980s. I’ve been saying it for the past twelve years. But change is so long in coming and, in the meantime, hundreds of thousands of animals are dying every year – unnecessarily.
The good news is that thousands of animal lovers (but not enough) have heard what we’ve been saying. Canine Health Concern members around the world use real food as Nature’s supreme disease preventative, eschewing processed pet food, and minimize the vaccine risk. Some of us, myself included, have chosen not to vaccinate at all. Our reward is healthy and long-lived dogs. It has taken but one paragraph to tell you the good, and simple, news. The gratitude I feel each day, when I embrace my healthy dogs, stretches from the centre of the earth to the universe and beyond.
ends

Catherine O’Driscoll runs Canine Health Concern which campaigns and also delivers an educational programme – the Foundation in Canine Healthcare. She is author of the best-selling book, ‘What Vets Don’t Tell You About Vaccines’, and her more recent book, ‘Shock to the System’. She lives in Scotland with her partner Rob Ellis and three Golden Retrievers, Edward, Daniel and Gwinnie, and lectures on canine health around the world.

Canine Health Concern, PO Box 7533, Perth PH2 1AD, Scotland.
www.canine-health-concern.org.uk

Shock to the System is available from Canine Health Concern in the UK, and from Dogwise (www.dogwise.com) on a worldwide basis.