Herd Immunity

I’m regularly bombarded with folks decrying vaccines as unnecessary and potentially dangerous. Certainly some dogs do react to vaccines, and many vaccines are given far more often than necessary. To some degree I’m one of those natural type folks. I have fed raw diet for over 10 years. I don’t use combination vaccines, space my vaccines a week or two apart, and only vaccinate for parvovirus, distemper, rabies and lepto. I do rabies on the legal schedule of 3 years, parvo and distemper are not repeated on dogs over a year unless I’m going somewhere that requires it or it is a bitch to soon be bred. Lepto is annual as it is expected that the effectiveness of this vaccine is not long lasting.

I am thankful for vaccinations. I don’t need to worry about my dogs getting these potentially deadly diseases.

The idea that examples of dogs who were not vaccinated and did not become ill is proof that the vaccines are unnecessary holds no water. The bulk of dogs are now vaccinated for the common diseases. Outbreaks of parvo and distemper used to be quite common. These diseases have not been eradicated, but we have attained what is called "herd immunity". Infectious diseases require hosts. They travel through a chain of hosts to get to a particular individual. When a significant number of the population is immunized, the chain breaks regularly. The immunized individuals break the chain, protecting the individuals with no immunity. I'm on the board of health in our town and was well involved with our vaccination at the school for swine flu. The goal was not to vaccinate every child, but to get a high enough percentage that should the virus enter the school it could not travel freely through hosts. The children who were not vaccinated were protected by the children who were.

There are folks who don't vaccinate at all and proudly display this as proof that vaccines are un-needed or that their dogs have a better immune response. As long as we have herd immunity, basically as long as most folks vaccinate their dogs, we will know nothing. The health of the unvaccinated individuals is more a tribute to the herd immunity than proof of the resilience of those individuals or that vaccines are unnecessary.

If you want a true demonstration of whether dogs should be vaccinated we need to stop vaccinating all dogs. With parvo and distemper many believe that the immunity created by the vaccine is lifetime. I tend to agree with this. So if we stop vaccinating dogs now, in 5-10 years we will have lost the herd immunity and will be able to see whether or not it is a good idea to refrain from vaccinating our dogs.