Do Skeptics Vaccinate Their Dogs?

Do vaccination deniers vaccinate their dogs? Don’t they love their pets?

We take dogs into our homes and families because we love them: their habits, antics, fears, joys, and the way they look at us. We think they belong to us, but family dogs believe that we belong to them.

Most dog owners vaccinate their dogs as puppies, since dogs have immune systems as ancient, sophisticated, and capable as our own. The standard vaccination series gives dogs immunity to five different viruses. A single vaccine for rabies and a combination vaccine protect against four additional viral diseases: distemper, canine hepatitis, serious infections of major organs, and kennel cough. These canine viruses are biologically distinct and don’t infect humans. The four-disease vaccination may appear on your vet bill as Da2pp. Since most dog owners do vaccinate their pets, rabies and these other diseases are rare.

Distant cousins of the virus that can cause distemper in dogs (from the paramyxovirus group) do infect humans. Viruses from this group can cause measles, mumps, or rubella in people. Are you old enough to remember when, before the development of the MMR vaccine in 1971, babies were sometimes born blind, deaf, and intellectually impaired if their mothers got rubella early during pregnancy? The human version of this vaccine is abbreviated MMR, and it is universally recommended since it is safe and effective in preventing measles, mumps, and rubella. The MMRV vaccine adds protection against chickenpox (varicella).

Thanks to widespread MMR vaccination, measles had essentially disappeared from the U.S. by the early 2000s. But it’s back. This past July, more measles cases were reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention than in any year since 1991. Since the start of last year, more than 4,700 people have been infected, and three unvaccinated children have died from measles infections.

Some vaccine deniers worry that measles vaccination could lead to autism. In 2000, 1 in 150 children were diagnosed with autism, but now this diagnosis is more common, likely due to the use by the CDC of a broader definition and better reporting of the disorder. The emergence of the idea that there could be a link between vaccination and autism was probably hastened by the arrival in the U.S. of a disgraced former British gastroenterologist, Andrew Wakefield.

Wakefield appeared in the U.S. because he was stripped of his medical license by U.K. medical authorities. He lost his license and his career because he falsified data in a publication suggesting that measles vaccinations could cause autism in children. His co-authors retracted the paper, but Wakefield refused to acknowledge the fraudulent data. Subsequent studies with large cohorts of subjects in the U.K. and the U.S. have consistently found no evidence that childhood measles vaccination leads to autism. But sadly, this bogus conclusion has been accepted as a fact by vaccine deniers ever since.

So what influences those who choose not to prevent measles in their children, even though measles in U.S. children was declared eliminated in the early 2000s? How does one even talk with a vaccine contrarian?

Maybe deniers listen to the same anti-science fraudsters that used to preach against cancer therapies and now try to mislead people about vaccination science? Dr. Hugh Straley, an oncologist, reminds us in a recent Seattle Times editorial that the pitch from the quacks is that “Doctors aren’t trained in the real cures; the drug companies will profit from keeping you sick; there is a conspiracy to suppress what works; here is a study that they don’t want you to see; and beneath all of it, the engine (is) fear and the desperate need for hope.”

A recent executive order from the White House said that vaccines for children should be for single agents, not the combination MMR or MMRV that have been in use for 55 years. The order ignores the fact that measles virtually disappeared from the U.S. thanks to nationwide vaccination, and the fact that single-agent shots should be used. President Trump may be unaware that single-agent vaccines as alternatives for MMRV are not commercially available.

Although this executive order has no authority beyond federal agencies, it may reduce the vaccines available to children and cause vaccination rates to decline, which could trigger a surge in infections and reinforce public skepticism and hostility to vaccination in general.

How does one talk with parents who may be concerned about vaccine safety? There may be many reasons behind vaccine hesitancy since they feed into a person’s identity and who they trust.

Katelyn Jetelina, an epidemiologist who writes the newsletter “Your Local Epidemiologist,” has explored this question in an emotionally intelligent way. The language and words used should be familiar, not technical or specialized. You could inquire about online information sources. Some sources have no actual, vested experience. You can simply ask, “Where did you hear that?” without being judgmental. The conversation could be with a friend, fellow parent, coach, or a neighbor, but an M.D. may not be the right person. Some skeptics may have had harmful or dismissive encounters with the medical system. So a conversation must use empathy and affirm the identity of their belief system, beyond vaccination topics.

Changing minds takes time, curiosity, and empathy, along with the reassurance to accept people and their beliefs. You could start a conversation with a skeptic by asking if they have vaccinated their dog.

Richard Gelinas, Ph.D., whose early work earned a Nobel Prize, lives in Lakebay.