This article is taken from a "dogs naturally" website, so analysis may be skewed.
yeah... I would say so. This is from a quack who states:
The word "allergy" is synonymous with "sensitivity" and "inflammation". It should, by rights, also be synonymous with the word "vaccination"
And says that
several studies have been done, and cites 2 sources... neither of which actually cites the original study. It's been over a decade since that original study was performed at Purdue, and no further evidence has been shown to validate the idea that vaccination causes thyroiditis. In fact, the same group that did the original study in 1999 published a paper in 2006 titled "Lack of association between repeated vaccination and thyroiditis in laboratory beagles." (
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16955802). Sure... 20 beagles may not be enough to give you the most reliable results, but if the only follow-up study out there in a 12 year span refutes an idea (and such a provocative one at that) BY THE ORIGINAL GROUP it's probably wiser not to take it as fact.
It may be true that the level of autoantibodies are increased, but no one has been able to show what those extra autoantibodies do. Same thing is going on right now with feline vaccines at CSU. They've shown that vaccination elevates levels of autoantibodies to feline kidneys. They're now working on making that next link. As tempting as it is to jump to the conclusion that autoantibodies --> autoimmune disease, I try to not go there since immunology is such a fast evolving field. I mean, Tregs didn't even exist 5 years ago... and now we know how important they are in regulating T cell mediated autoimmunity. If it were true that autoAbs automatically meant autoimmune dz, and we follow this lady's logic... our dogs would be totally f***ed.
The Purdue studies also found that vaccinated dogs were developing autoantibodies to their own collagen. About one quarter of all the protein in the body is collagen. Collagen provides structure to our bodies, protecting and supporting the softer tissues and connecting them with the skeleton.
I think it
IS important to be skeptical about vaccines, esp when it comes to how often our animals really need to be boostered and such... but I think it's also important to balance that with the KNOWN adverse effects of NOT vaccinating. I prob wouldn't push extra vaccines on an indoor only cat or 17 year old lap dog that never sees other dogs (esp with a history of vaccine reactions). But if some crazy owner came in with a young unpredictable snapping dog that they like to parade in public, and refused to vaccinate for rabies because of possible "vaccinosis," I'd slap them and/or refuse service.
P.S. I think the only known link between vaccines and autoimmunity in dogs/cats is AIHA in dogs. Our immunology prof last semester told us we would get extra credit points for each article we could find that actually showed a clear link in domestic animals (aside from the AIHA study by Duval, et al)... and the only papers that got any credit was one on hamsters and one on salmon.
