From the desk of Mogens Eliasen, for immediate release

From the desk of Mogens Eliasen, for immediate release
This article may be reprinted without further permission
when brought in its entirety, including the bio the end.
August 17, 2004
Vaccinations – how they work, when they work…
Many people believe that a vaccination gives instant protection against
certain
diseases, as included in the vaccine. This is absolutely not the case -
and it can be
outright dangerous to administer vaccines under that assumption, as even
many
veterinarians unfortunately do on a routine basis….
How vaccines are manufactured
There are, in principle, two types of vaccines:
1. killed vaccines
2. modified live vaccines.
Vaccines are manufactured by growing the virus that causes the disease
on some
tissue that will allow it to nourish and grow. Once the culture has
reached a
sufficient size for production, the manufacturing can start.
For a killed vaccine, the virus is simply killed, often by adding
poisonous chemicals
to the culture. The culture is then "formulated" – which
simply means diluted with
solvents and having reagents added to it so it can stay preserved and
can be divided
into individual probes that can be sold, ready for injection through a
needle.
For a modified live vaccine, the culture is not killed, but crippled
instead. This is
accomplished by changing its living conditions, so it will temporarily
lose its ability to
multiply at its normal rate. This can be done either through a change to
a substance
for it to live from that is not optimal for it (tissue from a different
species it normally
would not attack), or it can be accomplished by adding chemicals that
will cripple it,
but not totally kill it. Sometimes both methods are used, as some
preservation
chemicals always are added later on to preserve the vaccine in the
containers it gets
sold in.
What a vaccine is supposed to do
A vaccine is supposed to challenge the body's immune system –
make it believe that
it got infected with the real disease, but because the disease is either
dead or
crippled, the body's immune system should have an easy job
generating a response
that ends up being "overkill" because the vaccine really
wasn't that dangerous at all.
The entire range of processes and action that constitute such as
response is very
complex, but there are two important components that should be
understood:
- The body produces a serious of antibodies to encapsulate the virus and
its
poisonous discharges.
- The body establishes a filing system that records the main
characteristics of
the disease and will enable it to get an earlier warning next time an
invasion
of this disease should occur.
This is just about the same it would do when fighting aback an attack of
the real
disease.
In case of a vaccine, however, the antibodies will be produced in great
excess –
because the body overestimated the need for them. Those antibodies can
be
measured (often called "titers"), and when they are present, you
have confirmation
that the dog's immune system is prepared for an attack of this
disease. Because of
this preparedness and the early warning the immune system will get
because the
disease next time will be recognized almost momentarily, chances of a
successful
battle against the disease are so vastly increased that a new infection
generally will
be defeated before it ever gets to harm the body.
The same thing happens if the body successfully fought the real disease.
The body
won't be taken "off-guard" one more time by that disease,
so, next time an infection
arrives, it will be defeated fast and completely. The body is thus
immune to the
disease. This is called auto-immunization.
So, what happens in either case is that preparedness gets established
through a
challenge to the immune system – by the immune system successfully
defeating the
challenge.
Some important consequences...
As you can understand from the way vaccines work, they do not give
instant
protection. The protection they cause the body to develop will take time
to establish
– typically about the same time as a successful fight against the
real disease. In
most cases, for our dogs, this means 2-3 weeks. So, in that meantime,
the dog has
no protection! It is actually fighting a fake disease, as if it was sick
– and, seriously,
sometimes the dog truly does get sick from a vaccination! Generally not
quite as
bad as from the real disease, but bad enough to notice on its behavior.
Vaccines do differ from the real disease. For some, the different is so
significant
that the body does not establish an effective protection against the
disease – the
vaccine did not work… This is often the case for killed vaccines.
The body quickly
figures out that somebody "cried wolf" for no good reason, and
all the mobilized
defense gets dismissed, and no preparedness established. The vaccination
is
considered a false alarm – which it actually also truly was! When
the disease
arrives, the body will taken off guard… We got a false protection.
Vaccines also differ from the real disease by the fact of the virus
being contained in
a liquid that gets injected into the body in a location that never would
be a first
entrance for a naturally contracted infection. This surprise for the
immune system
will normally result in exactly that over-reaction that is desired, but
it can also
sometimes go too far: this happens when the body directs the
preparedness towards
another attack from the same location in the body – and will thus
not be timely
alerted when the real disease arrives through the natural
entrances….
Finally, there is another important thing too take into account when
administering a
vaccine. The virus comes in a liquid that contains some poisonous
preservation
chemicals. On top of that, this "soup" also contains remains of
the foreign tissue the
virus was cultivated on – it is impossible to physically take the
virus off that tissue,
so the manufacturer simply takes the tissue with the virus – and
dilutes it in the
poisonous soup that now is called "vaccine". There are two
important effects of this:
- The poisons will cause another challenge to the immune system. On top
of
fighting the disease, it must also clean up after a serious
"chemical spill".
- Also the foreign tissue will challenge the immune system! It might
actually
cause all kinds of allergic reactions, as foreign protein entered
undigested,
directly into the blood should do!
Those two additional challenges to the immune system will cause the body
to
experience the stress of three challenges at one time! This will,
generally, take just
about all its capacity. Some research shows that we talk about 60-75% of
that
capacity when we use a killed vaccine, and some 75-90% when we used a
modified
live vaccine.
What if the dog is sick at the time of vaccination?
As you can understand from the way a vaccine uses the immune
system's capacity,
there will be a problem if the dog gets vaccinated at a time when it is
already using
the immune system to fight another real disease. It could be something
fairly
harmless that easily can be defeated, but when the vaccine gets added to
the
picture, that picture changes dramatically….
We now have a competitive situation. The immune system has its limited
capacity.
Here is one on-going battle that typically takes about half its capacity
– and now
another challenge is introduced that demands way more attention than
what it has
left of its capabilities! The result is that it must prioritize and
concentrate on fighting
the most dangerous threat first. This will often be the current disease.
But the
effect of that is that no immunity will be established against the
vaccine – because,
at the time the immune system comes around to fighting it, it is very
obvious that
this threat is fake – so it won't be taken seriously. That
means: the vaccine did not
work…
A very dangerous alternative to this is that some modified live vaccines
"wake up"
when they got time to nourish themselves a regain their strength –
and the dog will
not experience a full-fledged attack by the disease you were trying to
protect it
from!
Another possibility is that the immune system will concentrate on the
vaccine – and
leave the other disease to rampage the body and possibly do much more
harm than
otherwise. The dog might actually get so sick from something fairly
simple that it
can die from it.
Finally, those remains of the foreign tissue will, in both cases,
probably be left to
float around in the blood – and do a lot of damage. Once the immune
system finally
gets around to dealing with this problem, the damage can be significant.
This will
result in the body now perceiving a very serious threat from these
protein molecules
from the foreign tissue – so it will over-react in its defense
against them. And that
is exactly what happens when an allergy reaction is created. The net
result is that
the dog developed some serious allergies to certain proteins that are
similar to those
that were in the virus tissue – and those will very often be from
animals that are
used for dog food. Voila – we now have a serious food allergy!
What about multiple vaccinations?
Let's assume we let the vet administer a "combi-shot", i.e.
a mix of several vaccines
in the same injection.
When we consider the capacity of the immune system, we can easily see
that this is
not a smart move…. Each vaccine will need at least 60% of the
body's capacity for
immune defense in order to create an effective protection against this
disease. We
will get the same situation as we had when we discussed vaccinating a
sick dog.
Maximum one of the vaccines will work – and maybe none – and we
won't know
until it is too late… Mixing more than two vaccines just makes it
even worse.
This has been confirmed by practical research. The famous Swiss
Distemper
epidemic in 1984 is a prime example that clearly showed that dogs that
had been
vaccinated with combined Distemper-Parvo vaccines contracted Distemper
as easily
as dogs that had not been vaccinated at all!
In human medicine, this is well known. In Sweden and Japan, for
instance,
vaccinating a person with more than one vaccine at a time is prohibited
by law.
The US Army is probably the worst abuser of this rule, demanding
multiple
vaccinations of its personnel – and trying to explain away the many
casualties its
gets from this ridiculous procedure that might be cost effective in
terms of a military
perspective – but certainly completely unacceptable from a humane
standpoint.
So, why should we do this to our dogs….?
Mogens Eliasen
-------------------------------------------
Mogens Eliasen holds a Ph.D. level degree in Chemistry from Århus
University, Denmark and has 30+
years of experience working with dogs, dog owners, dog trainers, and
holistic veterinarians as a coach,
lecturer, and education system developer. He publishes a free newsletter
"The Peeing Post" containing
lots of tips and advice on dog problems of all kinds, particularly about
training, behavioral problems,
feeding, and health care.
For more information about Mogens Eliasen, including links to other
articles he has published, please send
a short e-mail to contact@k9joy.com.