Here is a great article on Lepto we found.
LEPTOMANIA
The Problem With Leptospirosis Vaccines
by
Patricia Jordan, DVM, CVA, CTCVH, & Herbology
http://www.seasidenaturalhealth.com/index.html
TheDogPlace May 2010 -
In
several vaccine lectures that I have attended in the past four years,
the most current information from our premiere veterinary vaccine
researchers, Dr. Ronald Schultz (Immunologist) and Dr. Richard Ford,
(Infectious Disease Professor,
Clinical
Director of NC College of Veterinary Medicine), is that Leptospirosis
vaccines are not recommended vaccines.1, 2 Dr. Ron Schultz,
who lives in a Leptospira endemic area of the country, still does not
recommend the Leptospira vaccines and does not vaccinate his own dogs.3
First let us look at information from the CDC website on the disease of
Leptospirosis as it stands here in the United States. The most current
CDC fact sheet states that Leptospirosis in humans is not a reportable
disease in the United States. The few cases that occur are mostly traced
to Hawaii which is not a part of the continental United States. The
disease does occur more in tropical climates and is reported to have a
fatality rate worldwide in humans of 1-5%. With most of the cases in the
US occurring in Hawaii or in travelers that went to tropical
destinations we can put the exposure of Leptospirosis in the US into
proper perspective.4
Indeed while I requested the epidemiological information on
Leptospirosis in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts prior to a lecture
promoting Leptospirosis vaccines in dogs, I found that Massachusetts had
never had even one case of Leptospirosis reported in humans since they
started looking for Leptospirosis .5 There were no cases of
Leptospirosis reports in dogs documented and confirmed for the
Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
Again, I gathered this information for the purpose of properly
understanding the true status of the Leptospirosis disease and the need
for a preventative program within the veterinary clinical setting.
Researching the areas of the world that are trouble spots of Leptospira
exposure - Okinawa, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Indonesia, Brazil,
Cuba, Guatemala, Borneo - most of the areas that suffer from this
disease in a natural setting, have a number of common environmental
parameters. One is standing water or flooding, post hurricane flooding
and in tropical areas of increased water fall. US military personnel
have seen infections with Leptospira when at duty in stations in
tropical and subtropical locations. Another factor to consider with
Leptospirosis is the presence of rat infestations. This can be found in
slums of Brazil and the crowded areas of rat infested alleys of the NY
Bronx, to the rat infested prisons of Malaysia. Sewer workers in China
are exposed to Leptospirosis; post flood waters from hurricanes in Cuba
bring predictable exposure to Leptospira.
There is also a seasonality of autumn associated with the disease.
People and animals exposed to infected areas of water, ponds and smaller
lakes, hunters and people taking part in water sports are at risk in
selected reservoirs harboring pathogenic serovars of Leptospira.
Occupations exposing the workers to animals - as in butchers and
slaughterhouse workers - are at increased risk, as are veterinarians and
farmers. One dairy maid in the UK lost a pregnancy at 23 weeks due to
the first known case of human intrauterine exposure to Leptospirosis.6
A caution to handling the tissues of any animals that could become
infected with pathogenic strains of Leptospirosis would be prudent to
note; namely in cows, pigs, and dogs. Understanding the factors that
increase the risk of exposure to Leptospirosis is necessary in
understanding how to avoid Leptospirosis exposure.
Last year there was a report of the use of Leptospirosis as a biological
warfare weapon in Somalia, the pathogen being added to the drinking
water supply of soldiers.7 A newly reported reservoir of
Leptospira in bats is also a matter of study .8 California
sea lions and harbor seals have been found to carry Leptospira and Japan
has found Leptospira in flying squirrels imported from the United States
as pets from Texas.9,10 Other than these aforementioned
areas, the fact is that the typical veterinary patient in the
continental United States will not be at risk nor exposed to a
pathogenic serovar of this organism that is nevertheless listed as the
most rapidly growing zoonosis in the world.
Last year, the predictable season of post hurricane flooding and
Leptospira exposure in Cuba was handled with the public prescription and
use of homeopathy. This successful use of homeopathy for public health
is documented with over 2.4 million people in Cuba administered two
doses of homeoprophylaxis in 2007 by the Ministry of Health in Cuba. The
doses of Leptospira nosode had been prepared at the Finlay Institute, a
center dedicated to development and production of vaccines. Finlay
Institute is a WHO qualified facility dedicated to research, production
and development and produces high quality homeopathic products in
addition to vaccines.11 Understanding that there are much
safer ways to address exposure to Leptospira in the example of a
chemoprophylaxis also is important when the record of adverse events
from Leptospira vaccines are discussed.12,13
Outside the United States where recognized pathogenic serovars of
Leptospira exist and certain workers are at higher risk for Leptospira
infections, except for a few weak references of sewer workers and
agricultural workers in Asia, people are simply not vaccinated against
Leptospirosis.
The reasons are:
- the vaccines do not work to prevent infections
- the vaccine is associated with adverse events that preclude their
use14
So, if exposure to Leptospirosis is so specific, if
there are known adverse events, and if there is a lack of protection
from the vaccines in humans, why are Leptospira vaccines promoted for
dogs in the United States, or in the United Kingdom or in Australia?
THE BAD VACCINE
There are over 230 serovars of Leptospirosis, only a few which are
pathogenic.15 The vaccines are serovar specific and several
factors are impacted by this information.16 First of all, any
vaccine administered for specific serovars will only create
agglutinating antibody to those specific serovars.17
Once vaccinated, the patient’s serum can no longer be a useful record
for diagnostic tests, as the serum antibody titer from the vaccine
cannot be distinguished from antibody caused by natural infection. This
leads to interpretation problems when trying to diagnose the presence of
infection or disease..18
Records of multivalent vaccines lead to test results of antibody
generation against serovars that were not even included in the vaccine
to begin with.19 This, of course, means that antibodies came
from natural exposure, and not from the vaccine. This leads to problems
using the MAT titer test to even try and determine beyond doubt which
serovar was the serovar of infectivity, if any.20 If the
production of antibody following vaccination were synonymous with
immunity (which it is not) or immunization (which it is not) the obvious
conclusion of this information is that vaccination does not even result
in protection.21
Due to molecular mimicry with antigens, the unsettling factor for
disease presence is complicated with cross reactivity of the antigens
with many different disease organisms such as Syphilis, Lyme,
Legionaries, HIV and autoimmune disease.22 Put simply, this
means that it is difficult to distinguish between antibodies to this
range of diseases. Testing of the patient suspected with a Leptospirosis
disease is now done via the PCR DNA test for the actual organism
retrieved from either blood or urine.
Oregon State Veterinary Diagnostic laboratory and IDEXX now both
advertise this PCR testing on the DNA of the actual organism.23, 24
One problem with the tests is to understand that you should not
administer any treatment prior to obtaining test samples if you want a
chance at retrieving useful information - as even one dose of
antibiotics is able to turn a positive case to negative on the PCR test
following treatment.25 Any treatment will also render a test
taken at a later date negative.
This would be a good time to let you know how easily Leptospirosis can
be treated. Doxycycline is the antibiotic of choice. This antibiotic has
the ability, even in renal compromise, to sterilize the urinary tract of
Leptospira infection. Doxycycline can be administered to dogs with renal
insufficiency and is effective in both the infection of the blood or
urine stage, clearing the organism from the kidneys.26
Since there are so many Leptospirosis serovars out there, and since the
pathogenic strains vary, and since the vaccines cannot guarantee
protection from infection, it would make better sense to not inject your
dog with any Leptospira vaccines.
The trade offs to avoiding adverse events from vaccination - not the
least of which can be renal failure within 48 hours of injection, or
four years of dermatitis and puritis - would be the human caretakers
actually knowing their dog is sick with a pathogenic strain and having
their dog presented immediately for treatment.27 To do this,
animal guardians need to be aware of the symptoms of Leptospirosis in
the dog.
Antibiotic treatment is quickly effective. The possibility of human
infection from their dog disappears after the first day of treatment
with antibiotics, so early detection of
a real problem impacts human public health issues as well.28
Doxycycline (chemoprophylaxis) is also used successfully to prevent
human infections (weekly 200 mg for military personnel without previous
exposure to Leptospirosis who are going for jungle training) when taken
prior to the possibility of Leptospira exposure.29
Vaccination with Leptospira is fraught with problems. Leptospira
vaccines cannot even protect the dog from infection with Leptospira or
renal colonization. Leptospira vaccines have little effect on the
maintenance and transmission of the disease in the animal populations in
which they are applied.30 The Leptospira becomes the very
source of infection of the humans in contact with the Leptospirosis
vaccinated dog.31 There are several cases that I am
personally aware of that, in the end, I could not say beyond any doubt
that the Leptospira vaccine administered to the dog was not the actual
reason for subclinical infection. Chronic shedding of the Leptospira
in turn infected the humans living in the same household!
Read the paper on the use and overuse of veterinary vaccines leading to
emerging public health issues and realize that use of Leptospira
vaccines in dogs is an obstacle to public health!32
In the case of a duck hunter contracting a case of Leptospirosis,
following the epidemiological field study undertaken by the state of
California and the inability to recover any Leptospira from the bodies
of water, the question needs to be answered if the man became infected
through transmission of the Leptospira from his vaccinated dog.33
There is a cost associated with monitoring the environment to continue
to assess the extent of any purported Leptospirosis serovars causing
disease in a given population. To date there are no such programs set up
as the scarcity of the disease economically makes Leptospira not a
“priority” disease, not one that even needs to be tackled with
vaccination. A successful vaccination program requires that the
epidemiological studies are done to assess the extent of a problem and
this is currently not even being preformed.34
The public and the veterinary doctors usually do not know that this
vaccine does not confer immunity. Challenge studies are rarely done and
the studies I have evaluated are conflicted and ineffective in measuring
immunity in vivoo35, 36 Production of Leptospira vaccines are
expensive and labor intensive to the drug companies who must recoup the
precious monies spent to have brought them to market. Is this enough of
a reason to allow the adverse events that follow use of this troubled
vaccine?
Most information available to the animal caretakers that come from self
proclaimed “dog experts” on the internet are false. The marketing
misinformation that recommends this vaccine is everywhere. Unfortunately
this includes most of the advice available from veterinary run websites
on the internet, and in the veterinary office in the brochures available
to clients. I found one very fair column on the subject of Leptospirosis
written by a retired veterinarian in Oklahoma, and a great article that
even listed the contraindications for the Leptospira vaccines in dogs by
a veterinarian in Bali - one place that has a serious Leptospirosis
problem.37, 38
Why is this? The truth is that veterinarians are
painfully inept at discussing the facts surrounding Leptospirosis
because the bulk of their information comes from the very drug companies
that stand to profit or at least recoup the many monies this troubled
vaccine has cost their corporations.
One serious problem veterinarians make is marketing conflict material
for the drug companies. I have seen this misinformation published - not
only in the local newspapers but also on the worldwide web. A
Reidsville, NC veterinary facility that promoted the Leptospira vaccine
in partnership with Pfizer was the source of one particular case.39
The advice of our professional medical experts is seriously compromised
and devalued when they do not perform due diligence in the release of
misinformation marketing material. The conflict material included a
telephone number to the veterinary facility, so I made a telephone call
and heard the veterinary receptionist continue to disperse marketing
misinformation. Where is truth in advertising? Truth is not even found
at the very facilities that administer the jab!
Who then will be held accountable for the adverse events that follow the
administration of Leptospira vaccines? Certainly not the corporations
that make the vaccine, they have no license to censure.
I am including pictures of animals harmed by the Leptospira vaccines and
a listing of those adverse events reported by the clients. Anaphylaxis,
anorexia, fever, dehydration, autoimmune disease, digestive issues,
limping, loud vocalization following vaccination, acute organ failure,
renal failure, liver failure, pancreatitis, death, dermatitis, puritis,
cancer, degeneration of soft tissue - all of these are reports following
administration of the Leptospira vaccine.
Here is another important fact of vaccine use in general… vaccines are
being linked to death, disease and chronic disability. Vaccines -
because of the immunopathology they activate once the jab has been
delivered - are responsible for the disease that results in those
receiving the jab. Immune reaction to the soup of ingredients delivered
in the jab result in autoantibody production.40 Microbial
antigens can also elicit autoantibody production.41 Indeed
vaccines are now found to be responsible for autoantibody production,
autoimmune disease, and cancer! The immunogenetics of autoantibody and
autoimmune diseases are under genetic control; however the inciting
disturbance to elicit gene response is from the jab itself.42
Vaccines lead to mutations of the genome, autoimmune disease in one
generation leads to genetic disease in the next. Vaccines generate
genetic impact that not only determines the severity of the immune
response in natural infections but also dictates response from tissue
histocompatibility markers and the expression of autoimmune disease with
repeated exposure to antigens with subsequent vaccine administrations.
The histocompatibility markers on the tissues are also reactive to the
results of the jab. The genetic compromise that occurs to anyone’s
genome receiving the jab has never been researched by the drug
manufacturer’s that produce vaccines and therefore prove that vaccine
safety and efficacy have never been determined by the government
regulatory agencies that license and unleash these products upon the
populations.
Indeed, research is now available to show how the histocompatibility
sites of human and animal tissues are reacting with vaccine-injected
antigens that in turn are responsible for the adverse, lethal disease
pathology that kills or dis eases the patient.43 Indeed there
are examples of the very vaccine antigen to immune cell response with
both Leptospira and Lyme disease vaccines producing the same pathology
as the natural infection itself.44, 45, 46
To clarify, these vaccines can cause the disease pathology that we are
vaccinating against. In some cases with viral vaccines they can even
result in the viral disease itself.
This brings more understanding to the statement in the book ‘Vaccination
Examining the Record’ by Judith A. DeCava: “a person not vaccinated has
ONE RISK, catching the disease, where a vaccinated person has TWO RISKS;
catching the disease and damage from the vaccine”.47 We now
know that the vaccines have not been safety tested and they have not
really been proven effective in providing true immunity. The immune
system reactivity vaccines are responsible for can be the expression of
the adverse events and diseases that follow vaccine administration.48
Specific Leptospirosis severity may be associated with the intensity of
the humoral immune response. Vaccines and previous natural exposure
would determine this humoral immune response.49 Therefore the
“gene environment” which is impacted by every jab delivered can
determine the T cell activation and immune complexes, auto antibodies
and cytokine cascade that results not only with future natural exposure
to antigen but with every additional jab delivered. The making of a
“super antigen” and lethal consequences would at the hands of the
vaccine administrators.50 This is why Dr. Ron Schultz is on
record with a minimal vaccine protocol and has said you better have a
good reason for injecting because any time you inject you could kill the
patient.
The hypothesis is that the disease of Leptospirosis is in actuality
immune mediated.50 I believe I have support of this in the
reporting by doctors of the use of pulsed steroid treatment to save the
kidney in cases where the symptoms are the very description of immune
mediated dis ease itself. Patients that were treated with pulsed
steroids were too far from immediate medical facilities and were treated
in the field situations with high doses of pulsed steroid.
Immunosuppressive dosing of steroids was able to save them from renal
failure and the immune mediated pathology of the disease until they were
able to reach critical care facilities and fluid support for the
kidneys.51 This means the antigens in the vaccine are just as
capable of producing disease as in the natural infection because of the
interaction of the antigen and the immune cells, is the dis ease!
Another factor now understood is that in direct opposition to the germ
theory of Pasteur, it appears this is another example of the proof that
Microbiologist Antoine Bechamp was correct about disease and the theory
of “terrain”. Terrain theory states that it is the individual’s system
that determines dis ease and the individual response to presentation of
the antigen to the patient’s immune cells. However, multiple
administrations of vaccines hyper sensitize the patient to a real
crisis, and when antigen and immune cells collide, dis ease results.
So beware the medical professionals that are not Leptospirosis literate
and are just promoting corporate marketing information. Misinformation
seems to me to be the majority of Leptospirosis information available.
Marketers - especially now in this tight economy - are engaging all of
their “business resources” in order to generate revenue. Adverse event
associated vaccine administration are a real boon to the coffers when
the adverse events follow the cost of vaccinations.
Pfizer sponsored “scientific” papers on Leptospira are sponsored with “educational “grants in order to produce
recommendations for vaccination of the dog without proof that the
vaccine is safe or effective. They use words like “likely” and “appears’
to expotentialize the nonexistent benefit of vaccination. They are
“reaching” in their efforts to provide a benefit for vaccine use. They
say these vaccines “appear” to be effective. They write off any adverse
events from the vaccines stating “published data to validate these
concerns are lacking because there is no independent mechanism to report
vaccine reactions in the US”.52
The drug companies and the veterinarians that are
paid as corporate mouthpieces can all hide behind this statement and all
help keep independent mechanisms for reporting adverse vaccine events
from manifesting by influencing government. The repeatable phenomena
that continue to follow vaccinations are not merely “coincidences”.
AA Pfizer mouthpiece states that “they
would advise to strongly consider vaccination” because “they appear to
work”, yearly boosters “appear to be necessary”. They admit that the
weak spot is “vaccine development” and “diagnostic assays”, that
reemergence of this disease could very well be the result of vaccine
programs!53
When I pressed for the proof from Merial that their Leptospira vaccines
did indeed provide an entire year of “immunity” they finally sent me an
article that did not even test their vaccines. The company forwarded
work from Intervet in the Netherlands. Intervet is the source of much
conflict in the UK for mounting yearly marketing campaigns in order to
advocate yearly vaccinations of pets, despite the fact this is not a
recommendation from the World Small Animal Veterinary Association or our
AVMA or AAHA, or in Australia. The paper that was supposed to prove the
worthiness of the Leptospira vaccines was conflict material that also
failed to properly test vaccinates in a method that would prove
immunity. The paper was also not even using the Merial vaccines in
their study. The conflict work was performed at the Dept. of
Bacteriological R & D for Intervet International BV in the Netherlands.54
If you read the paper A Shot in the Dark about the scandal surrounding
the push to vaccinate dogs in the UK with Leptospirosis vaccines,
despite the lack of proof of the existence of a Leptospirosis problem.
You will find out that the drug companies conspired to format a market
for their product with only anecdotal evidence of the existence of any
Leptospirosis problems.55 What truthful information or facts
do we really have to base due diligence on?
This problem of the drug company making a market for their product when
a risk for the disease does not exist, or when there is a risk of
vaccine induced adverse events, is not beneficial to the animals is
counter-productive for animal welfare. A few examples of this happening
in human medicine with Glaxo Smith Kline and the Hep B vaccine, the
Merck Gardasil vaccine and the Bird Flu and Swine flu vaccines have all
resulted in a call for investigations and criminal charges to be brought
against the WHO.56, 57
The WHO Vaccine Advisor, Juhane Eskola made over 6
million Euros researching vaccines he then advised the WHO to recommend
for the recent swine flu “pandemic”. Similarly, the CDC Childhood
Vaccine Advisor, Dr. Paul Offit made so much money with Merck making a
rotavirus vaccine that he said “it was like winning the lottery”. Now
Professor Ulrich Keil Director of WHO Collaborative Center for
Epidemiology is admitting to PACE investigation that the vaccine
advisors are often employees of the pharmaceutical companies and the WHO
is only a screen for unearned commercial promotion of pharmaceutical
products.
Indeed, even the US courts hearing the case of Lymerix vaccine damage
and ordering the recall of the adverse event associated vaccine stated
that the federal employees should never be allowed to consult in areas
where they set federal policy. In veterinary medicine, many researchers
are indeed employees of the pharmaceutical companies they become the
mouthpiece for. Despite being on faculties of our leading veterinary
institutions, many have their research grants supplied to them from the
pharmaceutical industry.
Vaccine adverse events will remain anecdotall so long as government and
industry continue to protect vaccine use. When the only safety or
effectiveness studies come from conflict sources - those that stand to
profit from the sale and use of the vaccines - we need to understand
that corporate integrity or lack thereof is the only unit of measure.
This year another effort by Canine Health Concern in the UK is once
again trying to stop the unethical marketing of vaccine protocols that
are not within the standard of care for veterinary medicine and
constitute fraud. This letter of concern has been signed by many
veterinary professionals in the hopes that unsafe and dangerous vaccines
are not promoted to the public from drug marketers.58
The Leptospira vaccines are not safe. Pfizer gives
‘immunization support guarantees” and this says,
‘;buy ours it is the best”. As they
talk about “serovar shifts” and discuss that “diagnostic assays are
wrought with problems”; that they cannot explain how high MAT titers
are obtained against serovars not even in the vaccines, that the vaccine
itself can produce disease in the dog, you see quickly over a dozen ways
to beat the ‘immunization guarantee”.59
Cornell helped Pfizer with the “educational” paper and now, we see
Cornell has a” better vaccine” as they have yet another idea how to make
an effective Leptospira vaccine. Cornell disses the aluminum adjuvant
used for a century in veterinary vaccines. The aluminum adjuvant; which
has been in all the Leptospira vaccines even now to this very day,
despite being found to cause cancer. Cornell is now reporting that the
aluminum adjuvant used for five decades is now known to be
“unreliable”. They say it “destroys the antigens structure” and that
it” degrades amino acid sequence “. Did the aluminum do this to the
genomes of the victims receiving these adjuvants? Apparently so as the
WHO in 1999 declared these adjuvants, the same found in children’s
vaccines, as “carcinogenic” in the IARC.60
Cornell wants to take a whack at putting yet another
Leptospira vaccine out there. Cornell’s Baker Institute of Animal
Vaccines will make yet another type of vaccine and this one will be
better, this one is made with genetically engineered bacteria genes from
E. coli, this one will be safe, try this one.61 (January 25,
2010)
Understand that there is no backbone for support of vaccination. The
most widely used statement from disease illiterate professionals
marketing the vaccines is: “the long history of well established success
that vaccines have been responsible for the control of infectious
disease” is as long as the history of vaccine use and as much a figment
of the promoter’s imagination as I have ever seen consistently appear as
defense for vaccinologists. There is no proof that vaccines create
immunity. Vaccines are linked to the generations of immune reaction
diseases that now plague highly vaccinated populations. As my colleague
Dr. Stephen Blake has said over and over,” never before in the history
of man has there ever been a greater medical assumption more responsible
for the death and disease than the use of vaccines as we know them
today”.
Know the risks for natural infection, seek immediate treatment if your
dog gets sick, and realize the germ is not the problem; the individual’s
immune system is the determinant. Optimal nutrition is the key to
immune health .Prior genetic damage from vaccines should be considered.
Become proactive in the search for truth, never assume the medical
professional performs due diligence. Poison is poison no matter if
injections contain toxins, chemicals, heavy metals, viruses and
microbial protein, antibiotics and fungi stats or genetically engineered
monsters.
Having the “new thing” with genetically engineered products will not be
proven any safer than the earlier poisons. Know the promoters will not
perform due diligence in establishing safety, that our government to
date accepts safety studies from this conflict source and provides for
no independent testing, that the vaccine-promoting professionals, the
doctors, will not be expected to perform due diligence in the
researching of these products and at this time still do not recognize
the vaccine induced disease and adverse events nor report them to any
independent monitoring system. Understand that they will unleash this
vaccine without really knowing if the vaccine is safe or effective, just
as they have for all the vaccines that have come before.
Intervet Schering Plough is revving up for their annual
vaccine propaganda marketing in the UK again, promoting unsafe vaccines
on the anecdotal evidence that there is even a need for the vaccine in
the first place.62 The only protection from this marketing
mania is to know the lack of science behind both the making and
administration of these vaccines. Understand that the client will not
have recourse against these marketing giants when their pets become ill.
Understand that drug companies are responsible and yet are unable to be
held accountable. To the vaccinologists out there, Dr. Ron Schultz says
it is an indefensible practice. Culpable responsibility does lie in the
hands of the administrator of the jab. Only the informed animal owner
will understand this so pass the information forward!
Dr. Jordan's website:
http://www.seasidenaturalhealth.com/index.html
Dr. Jordon is part of a
new public service group
www.veterinaryhomeopathyconsultants.com answering questions about
veterinary homeopathy.