Pet Vaccine Bill Deserves Support

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Pet vaccine bill deserves support

Because many veterinarians have failed to disclose that most core veterinary
vaccines protect for seven or more years, pet owners, unaware that their
animals don't need multiple yearly vaccinations, have overvaccinated their
companions -- taking an unnecessary toll on their finances and animals'
health. Rep. Peter Rines of Wiscasset has introduced legislation -- LR883,
An Act to Require Veterinarians to Provide Vaccine Disclosure Forms -- to
solve this problem.

Most Maine veterinarians have vaccinated clients' pets annually, biennially
or triennially and not disclosed the fact that challenge studies by Dr.
Ronald Schultz of the University of Wisconsin's School of Veterinary
Medicine have proven that distemper, hepatitis and parvovirus vaccines
protect for at least seven years. According to Colorado State University's
Veterinary Teaching Hospital, "Yearly booster vaccine recommendations for
vaccines other than rabies virus have been determined arbitrarily by
manufacturers."

Why haven't veterinarians disclosed this information to clients? One
possible explanation is in a Veterinary Economics August 2004 cover story
titled "Targeting Changing Vaccine Protocols," which states: "In the 1970's
and '80s many veterinarians derived a substantial percent of their total
incomes from vaccinating dogs and cats ... (a)nd in many practices today,
the vaccination reminder is the one thing that drives visits from healthy
pets. So changing ... vaccine protocols could have a significant affect on
finances."

The American Animal Hospital Association's 2003 Vaccine Guidelines reports:
"(T)he ethical issue that our profession struggles with today is whether
economics justifies giving an animal a drug (vaccines are biologic drugs)
that is not necessarily required. As a minimum, we should allow pet owners
to make this choice rather than make it for them." Rines' legislation would
give pet owners the information they need to make that choice for their
animals. Please ask your legislators and pet-owning friends to support this
bill.


Kris L. Christine