Definitely, which is why I personally don't believe it's the vets that are at fault here. I've heard many (especially on the internet) make it out like vets are knowingly trying to harm their animals by over-vaccinating and they're just doing it for the money, etc. When, in my personal opinion, I think it's really the pharmaceutical companies manufacturing the vaccines that are the ones to blame. I don't think they change the guidelines because they'd be selling a heck of a lot less vaccines!
I was referring to the core viral vaccines in my previous post - except for rabies (I do realize the interval for that is regulated by state law - thankfully it's every 3 years in my state!). Hopefully rabies intervals will be changed in the near future - The Rabies Challenge Fund is attempting to conduct duration of immunity studies and get the intervals extended to 5 to 7 years (
http://www.rabieschallengefund.org/).
Bacterial vaccines (like lyme and lepto), yes, typically have a shorter duration of immunity but they also aren't generally recommended in most protocols and carry a much higher risk of adverse reaction than the core viral vaccines. Concerning lepto Dr. Schultz says “I find there’s still a fairly high percentage of dogs that do not respond to the 4-way vaccine. In addition, of all the bacterin vaccines, leptospirosis causes the most adverse reactions.” [
http://drjeandoddspethealthresource...6980/leptospirosis-dog-vaccines#.U6NsMLHJ2nl] Concerning the lyme vaccine: "In general areas with a low infection rate <10% infection the vaccine should not be used as the vaccine will be of no value and may enhance disease (e.g. arthritis) directly or in some dogs that become infected. In areas where infection rates are high (>50%) then the vaccine will be very useful. Thus, I believe it is irresponsible to suggest that all dogs in low-risk exposure states should be vaccinated." [
http://drjeandoddspethealthresource...516592/schultz-lyme-vaccine-dog#.U6NsL7HJ2nl] BTW - there's some fantastic information about vaccines on Dr. Dodd's website, so for those interested in this type of thing I highly suggest sifting through it.
Vaccines really are the tip of the iceberg though. I mean this same frequency of administration issues applies to other things as well. Heartworm prevention for instance. Most people don't know that in the clinical trials Ivermectin preventatives (like Heartgard) were shown to have the same efficacy after 60 days as they have after 30 days yet the packaging is still labeled for dosing every 30 days and, for this reason, most veterinarians recommend this (I was told by a veterinarian that the reasoning behind this is that it's easier for pet parents to remember to dose their dogs the same day every month). There are some veterinarians out there that recommend dosing every 45 days. For anyone who's interested:
"Three hundred seventy dogs in controlled efficacy trials were treated with ivermectin. Of the 83 dogs treated at monthly intervals in natural infection trials, or treated 30 days after induced infection, with doses of ivermectin at 3.0 mcg/kg or greater, only 2 dogs developed infections. Even when the treatment interval was extended to 45 or 60 days following infection, only 2 of 88 dogs given ivermectin at 6.0 mcg/kg or more developed infections."
http://www.fda.gov/AnimalVeterinary...lDrugProducts/FOIADrugSummaries/ucm111205.htm
Interesting stuff.
)..... Did you want to go into Path from the get go??
He went into bioinformatics instead 
I feel like I'm taking immunology 101. This is cool. That reminds me if that dumb thing that was going around on FB claiming their vet was selling trifexis, knowing it's a "killer" and they were like NEVER GIVE YOUR DOG PREVENTION, USE BANANA OIL or something ridiculous.
