Vaccination and Immunity

Holistic Immunity and Wellness Program

Vaccines have been the cornerstone of immunity programs in veterinary medicine to date . However, the negative effects of vaccines – inducing a variety of disorders of the immune system e.g. allergies, arthritis, auto immune diseases – have increasingly been recognized. Holistic veterinarians have long since recognized that fact and have proposed different models of immunization programs. More recently, the Canadian Veterinary Medical Association has reviewed the protocols for vaccinations and recommended that the vaccine program should be tailored to the individual conditions, risks and benefits, and has recommend that vaccines be one part of a complete wellness plan.


PUPPIES AND KITTENS
Immunity and healing:
More importantly than whether or when and how to use vaccines, we are more concerned with assisting your growing pet in the development of a robust immune system and a strong healing ability.

As your pet is growing, it enters into contact with all sorts of things that can harm him. Unless your pet has a genetic fault, s/he will be able to respond to the pathogen in a very strong way, as in the case of an acute disease. Here you may see in a puppy symptoms like a rush, a sudden attack of vomiting or diarrhea, perhaps fever. The symptoms may be of very short duration or your pet may appear just as “not being himself” for a day or two. Your pet will recover from this acute disease, having become stronger, the immune system having the memory of the pathogen that caused the disease and having developed healing mechanisms that have trained and learned to respond to the ill effects of the pathogen.

It very important not to interfere with this process and, if intervention is required, this has to be done by helping to “push in the same direction”. When your puppy first gets a flea bite, it itches and scratches and gets a rush which is the manifestation of inflammatory substances released by a special type of blood cell; the blood circulation in the area increases which quickly removes foreign flea substances as well as the dog’s own inflammatory substances. Thus, healing occurs rapidly and your dog's system has learned a little bit about how to cope with fleas or with any other substance that may cause a similar skin reaction. But if a steroid-containing cream is applied, this simply suppresses the releasing of the inflammatory substances and your dog does not learn how to heal from a flea bite, or from other allergens. By similar processes your dog may learn to resist and heal from a more deadly disease like parvovirosis, when by accident s/he develops diarrhea and/or vomiting after eating food loaded with bacteria (e.g. garbage). I am not advocating here to offer your dog garbage so it can become immune to parvo or to let him get infested with fleas so he will not be allergic! Rather I suggest that if any of those things happen, as they normally do, not to suppress the symptoms by using a steroid cream to suppress the rush, or peptobismol to stop the diarrhea, but use a homeopathic medication or acupuncture that will work with the healing process, making it faster and more effective. Of course, sometimes a more aggressive approach is required; the veterinarian will be able to make the distinction and apply the appropriate treatment.

Vaccinations:
Vaccination of puppies and kittens should be delayed until the 9th week of age or older, when their immune system is operating on its own. In addition, vaccines increase the demand on the maturing immune system, which is already overwhelmed in responding to the natural environment. It is a matter of trade-off between the risk of infection and the risk or inducing immune system disorders. One alternative that can offer some protection before the vaccination is the use of Nosodes. Theses are potentized preparation of microbes that homeopaths have used to prevent and sometimes to treat infections. Limited anecdotal and experimental information tell us that nosodes can be preventive if given shortly before infection, but that they have a very short-term effect. It must be understood that nosodes do not seem to offer the same kind of protection that vaccines do. Nosodes do not replace vaccines because their effect is much less strong – which is also an advantage because they have less power to interfere with the development of the immune and healing systems.


When vaccination time comes, I prefer to use one-way vaccines to minimize the load to the immune system. I vaccinate primarily against parvo and distemper, where the vaccines are given separately with one booster two weeks later. Rabies is then given two to four weeks after the last booster. If an animal has a reaction to the vaccine, no revaccination is recommended unless the risk of infection of very high.

ADULT ANIMALS
It appears that the immunity induced by vaccines lasts longer than one year. Titer testing is the only objective measure of remaining immunity and/or the need for re-vaccination. Alternatively every year a booster for one of the main diseases (parvo, distemper and rabies) may be given.

If one chooses not to ever vaccinate, nosodes may be used strategically when the animal will be exposed to a potential infection e.g. dog shows, dog training schools, or wilderness.

In summary, to promote your pet's ability to resist infectious diseases while avoiding the negative chronic side effects of vaccines, you need to delay the first vaccination, use one-way vaccines, check titres to decide if re-vaccination is required, use nosodes strategically when there is risk of infection, use acupuncture to stimulate lymphocytes and more importantly, to help your growing pet to develop a robust immune system and healing systems by using non-suppressive therapeutic alternatives.

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