I should have said independently re-investigated Isabel!  

Tricky that :)  The licensing board are of course independent of the drug companies but they will by the nature of peer review be veterinary but it's not really something you can put the plumbers in charge of.

Isabel
I don't think you would ever understand having not experienced watching your dog suffer and die an agonising death cause by over vaccinating!  You are one of the lucky ones.

When I say independently investigated Isabel, I didn't mean tested by plumbers - now that would be silly even you know that!

The licensing board are connected to the drug companies - it all boils down to profit making and politics Isabel and not the animals best interests.

Maria, both Isabel and I have had dogs (mine many years ago) that died a horrible death due to one of the diseases that are now vaccinated against. I wouldn't say that was particularly lucky. :( So we can see the other side of the coin from you.

That's really sad, and I'm sorry that it has happened to you both.  But they didn't die of a vaccine - the death in itself I would imagine is no less painful for the owners or the pets.

The sheer guilt of taking a very healthy dog to the vets, thinking you are protecting it and the vaccine gives the very disease it was supposed to be preventing is something I find difficult to come to terms with. 

But you are lucky that your dogs haven't suffered from a vaccine, surely you can see that?

If the dogs had been vaccinated, though, they probably wouldn't have got ill. Two sides of the same coin - a person has to choose which they think is the greater risk.

I thought I'd read somewhere that the majority of dogs that catch these diseases are vaccinated anyway!

I think there is clearly room for improvement - it shouldn't be a lottery when lives are at risk!

Medicine is not black and white unfortunately Maria so in that sense it is a lottery but you can improve your odds considerably by using sound scientific methods to determine the best benefits against the lowest risks.

If I made the choose now not to vaccinate and lost a dog to disease I would have that same feeling of "what if....." but I have had a reasonably scientific education so it is easy for me to know that as long as I took the path of strongest evidence I can feel pain or loss if the worst happened but never should I feel guilt and neither should you :)

I think you'd feel the same if you vaccinated and the worse happened, you'd definitely be thinking 'what if....'  I know I'd still have Spangler here if only........... and I don't have any scientific background but what I do have is the awful experience of losing a very young, beautiful boy.  That's the reason I will never forgive myself for not looking into animal vaccines beforehand!

I did it with the children when they were young, weighed up the pros and cons and decided not to vaccinate for everything - they certainly didn't come to any harm - they both caught measles, whooping cough, and mumps (mumps vaccine not around at that time)  these diseases are not as deadly as some would have us believe!

I just think there is a better way and it's healthy to have an open mind on such important issues as vaccines - especially when they could lead to dire consequences.
Maria

No Maria I know what I know and I know what I feel :) I would not think "What if" in those circumstances and I would not hesitate to continuing vaccinating my other dogs.

>these diseases are not as deadly as some would have us believe

I think knowing they are deadly at all has certainly made the human medical profession regard vaccination as the ideal.

This is when it would be marvellous to have a crystal ball, so there would be no 'what ifs'! But we haven't, so none of us will ever know what the alternative course of action would have resulted in.

that's why we need to keep an open mind and look for improvement, don't you think?

But of course not so open that our brains fall out!
(I can't claim copyright for that - I read it the other week and thought it really good; this has been my first chance to use it! :D)

I like that !

In what way are the licencing board connected to drug companies Maria?
We had a great many more dogs die horribly of disease before vaccination.  It has certainly proved to be of enormous welfare advantage to the vast majority of animals.

I`ve no idea M. I do know the 2nd vax is given to make sure, in case the 1st didn`t take. But as I say, if you titre about 10days after the 1st then that`ll tell you if its taken or not. In parvo especially, its know pups can hav e maternal antibodies till upto 12wks of age.

Have you read what the American Veterinary Medical Association have to say about titre testing?  In 2001 there were even less encouraging in their Principles of Vaccination

>Serology does not predict a patient's immune status for most diseases. For those diseases where serology has predictive value of a patient's immune status, the variation within and between laboratories renders the procedure generally unreliable.

So what do the vaccine companies base their recommendations on if it isn't antibody testing?

probably guess work!!

Well I honestly can't see what else they could use (titre testing I mean you naughty girl :D) to state an immunity period of 3 years.  Surely they wouldn't actually expose animals to disease to see if they got ill?

Why not, animals are used to test every other licenced drug?

I meant using dogs Isabel.

How else would they examine the efficacy of canine vaccines for canine diseases without using canines?

Yes JG you are probably right, I read somewhere that they deliberately over vaccinate and if it becomes unbearable for the dogs then they use eutanasia!   But that's going off the subject of nosodes and titre testing now which was my orignal question.
Maria

I read that they vaccinate the dogs, wait for a certain period of time, then expose the dogs to the disease. If they don't get ill, then the vaccine's presumed to have worked.

But as you say, that's getting away from the topic. I'd suggest you contact a homoeopathic vet for professional advice, rather than rely on lay-people. :)

JG was answering Annies question :)  but since you mention it.....I am not sure about the US but in the UK all animals are euthenased after a single experiment.  I have never seen any evidence presented from the scientific community on "over vaccination" so not sure how it becomes unbearable for a dog.  Dogs are vaccinated regularly with good levels of immunity, until recently the vaccines that have been recently determined to give cover for 3 years, dogs taken into rescue etc, for instance, but despite this vaccinosis levels have never been shown to be high.

yes I know she was answering Annie's question!  I thought we could reply to all posts! 

Of course we can Maria, I was responding to your comments about getting off subject :)

I would hazard a guess at titre testing Annie, I don't think they would deliberately expose animals to the disease!

>>Surely they wouldn't actually expose animals to disease to see if they got ill?<<

Yes actually they do Annie & Maria. Thats the only way it would be accepted & proved that vax give immunity. Its also how other drugs are tested.

Its why its such a contentious issue, to do more research means keeping animals in research conditions. Then vaxing them, then exposing them to said disease & seeing if the vax works. For x number of yrs.

and periodically taking titre tests to see the circulating antibodies

Clearly not Maria or we would have the same rates of disease as we had before universal vaccination.

Clinical signs of disease in laboratory animals perhaps, I am not a research vet :)

Thats why I`ve stressed many times, the importance of using reputable laboratories.

As Annies already pointed out, it is what they use to determine vax immunity, rabies immunity in fact its how they discover immunity in bodies to diseases!

Hi Maria, I really think you`ll need to go to a h/pathic vet & if you`re going down the nosode road, you`ll need guidance :)

No there wouldn`t be any need to titre test if you use them :)

I agree.  When starting out on this path, you really need a trained person to show you the right direction.  You can find fully qualified Vets who have studied homeopathy here. http://www.bahvs.com/asociate.html

Thread continued here: http://www.champdogsforum.co.uk/board/topic/89892.html