Vaccines and canine arthritis

I am sorry to disappoint those who have hurried to read about arthritis to learn more about their condition; this article is dedicated to the canine population. It is, however, a similar problem with similar solutions and causes.

Dogs are just like humans; they need a good diet, exercise and a minimum of medication to allow their bodies to support their own immune system- Kathryn Borg

My first dog was an Old English sheepdog. I had been warned that this breed had a predisposition to hip dysplasia and therefore arthritis. Hip dysplasia is caused by a malformed ball-and-socket joint and a likely result of over-breeding. Also it is more common in the larger dog.

I religiously fed her bone meal from an early age and gave her a good, nutritious diet with plenty of exercise (note for humans – not the bone meal).

In fact, she did not die of anything related to joint problems, but she did get arthritis in her later years, for which she was taking medication until she died at the ripe old age of 13.

Research shows that arthritis is rife in dogs; up to a third of all dogs will suffer from some form of joint disease, and among the older dogs this will increase to 90 per cent. Evidence also shows that certain vaccines are a common cause of polyarthropathy, or arthritic problems of all varieties.

Some form of arthritis is one of the most common side-effects of vaccination, accounting for five per cent of all reactions, and reported to arise in a minimum of six out of every 100,000 doses given. Of those affected, nine per cent of dogs will end up permanently lame.

According to the UK’s Veterinary Products Committee Working Group on Feline and Canine Vaccinations, set up to monitor drug reactions in pets, nearly one third of all reactions to drugs among dogs and cats involves vaccination and, in Sweden, that figure is closer to 50 per cent.

A truer figure may derive from a unique survey conducted by the Canine Health Concern run by Catherine O’Driscoll, which analysed the case histories of more than 3,800 dogs after vaccination.

According to O’Driscoll’s survey, one in 100 dogs suffer various types of illness of vaccines. Her survey also showed that some 55.8 per cent of dogs with autoimmune disease developed their illnesses within three months of being vaccinated.

Arthritis, in particular, occurred in clusters some nine months after vaccination.

Although all vaccines are capable of causing side-effects, the greatest suspect is the five-in-one combination vaccine for distemper, hepatitis, leptospirosis, para-influenza and parvovirus.

Increasingly, it has been acknowledged that animal vaccines can damage the immune system, paving the way for autoimmune disease, in which the animal’s immune system begins attacking itself – as in rheumatoid arthritis.

The five-in-one vaccine also appears to be responsible for some cases of the canine version of rheumatoid-like arthritis. The human measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) jab is molecularly so similar to the canine distemper jab that the measles live virus vaccine is often used in puppies older than five weeks if they are at risk from the distemper virus. Some vets vaccinate dogs with the measles vaccine as a means of providing cross protection.

In 2010, the World Small Animal Veterinary Association changed its guidelines, advising vets to limit boosters of core vaccines to every three years after the 12-month booster following the initial puppy jabs, because, it noted, the “duration of immunity is many years and may be up to the lifetime of the pet”.

Vets themselves are having second thoughts about the number of jabs being given.

In 2002, during a roundtable discussion on canine vaccinations, Richard Ford, emeritus professor of medicine at the College of Veterinary Medicine, North Carolina State University, put the blame for vaccine damage on the sheer quantity of vaccines given to dogs.

The other issue is, of course, economics. As one Australian vet-industry survey discovered, 89 per cent of vets polled said the vaccines were the mainstay of their practice.

As all the evidence suggests, arthritis in dogs may be largely a man-made illness, another instance of misplaced good intentions.

What can be done to help your dog (or cat) avoid this situation occurring in old age? Try not to have your pet vaccinated so often. Adopt a different regime and only get repeat vaccines for the ‘core’ illnesses – parvovirus, distemper and hepatitis. Concentrate on the most serious diseases and forego the others. Consider homeopathic nosodes as an alternative to vaccination.

Homeopathic pharmacies and practitioners can make combinations of remedies in tablet form. They can cover illnesses such as kennel cough, parvovirus, hepatitis and others. Consult a qualified practitioner for further advice and information.

Finally, there is a new diagnostic technique which is an antibody test on dogs. This technique verifies whether your dog still has protective immunity. It is called Biogal’s Vaccicheck and appears to be a company in Israel. If you Google Biogal Vaccicheck, you can find out more information.

Ultimately, dogs are just like humans; they need a good diet, exercise and a minimum of medication to allow their bodies to support their own immune system.

kathryn@maltanet.net