Animal Vaccines

KitKat and her baby Buttons, born 30th April 2012, both unvaccinated. KitKat Unfortunately decided to give birth next to my computer and try as I might, I can't coax her into the nesting box!

Lectures On The Dangers Of Pet Vaccination And How To Care For Your Pet!

Holistic Canine Healthcare

£29.00 (approx. US$45.00) for over four hours of lectures in the comfort of your own home

Split over three consecutive weeks in easy to watch instalments at your convenience

Available in any country worldwide.

See http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/k9health/wwwchc//Catherine/OnlineLectures.html#Onlinelectures to book your lecture.



* all the information on creating and maintaining good health in your dogs.

* the pros and cons of vaccines, processed pet food and modern drugs

* the practical aspects of a raw/natural diet: the right foods / how much / where from / what to avoid

* natural immune boosting: how and what to use / the body’s requirements

* using vitamins / minerals / supplements: function and food sources / when to add

* using natural products: to maintain health or for specific purposes

* complementary therapies and alternative healthcare

The lectures will be broadcast over three weeks. Each part will be available for a whole day to allow anyone in any time zone the chance to watch (and replay) at their convenience. Parts two and three of the lectues will be broadcast in weekly intervals. The fee of £29.00 covers the full three part series in total.

This series of lectures is aimed at providing all the information in a straightforward and understandable manner. A free comprehensive PDF booklet is included, giving a full back up of all the topics in the lectures.

WHEN BOOKING YOUR LECTURE ON PET VACCINES, PLEASE QUOTE CO/AFF/23 AND THEN VAN UK WILL BE GIVEN A DONATION TO HELP RUN THIS SITE.

Dog Dies After Having Rabies Vaccination

Charity Frazier took her 1-year-old bulldog mix puppy to the Franklin County Animal Shelter Friday for a rabies vaccination.

The shot was administered by medvet.

Charity says her dog vomitted and turned blue after the shot, but when she tried to bring the situation to someone’s attention, she says they brushed it off like nothing was wrong.

Charity took the dog to the Obetz Animal Hospital, where a veterinarian said the dog was suffocating and appeared to be going through shock. Attempts to save the dog were unsuccessful.

The Franklin County Dog Shelter says Charity did not tell a medvet veterinarian what happened while she was at the shelter, otherwise steps would have been taken to try and save the dog.

The shelter is very apologetic but says this is a very rare occurrence and has never happened there before.

The shelter workers vaccinated more than 800 dogs on Friday and no others became sick. The shelter assumes the death was a reaction to the vaccine but will not know until an autopsy is complete.

The maker of the vaccine is paying for the autopsy.

Anyone who administers the vaccine is not required to provide information about risks, but the shelter says it is considering doing this in the future.

Source: NBC4 News, by reporter Ana Jackson, 15 May 2009.

Vaccinating Poultry May Contribute To The Spread of Avian Flu

nappropriate use of vaccination in poultry to try to prevent the spread of bird flu has become part of the problem and has serious human health implications, officials of the World Health Organization warned this week.

"Vaccination can sometimes cause silent transmission of infection from asymptomatic birds. Mass vaccination programmes entail people tramping around the countryside from farm to farm and they can spread the disease with them. The first response must be culling," said Peter Cordingley, WHO's spokesman in Manila.

Source:

BMJ 2005;331:1223 (26 November), doi:10.1136/bmj.331.7527.1223

VAN UK'S Comment: If birds can 'silently transmit' infection, why can't humans? It is plausible to assume that vaccinees could be asymptomatically infected and spread this to others.

Vaccines are Making Our Pets Sick While Vets Cash in

Vaccines given to dogs are making them ill, a pet charity claimed yesterday.

Profit-hungry drug companies and vets are 'frightening' dog owners into inoculating their pets more often than necessary, according to Canine Health Concern.

Some puppies have developed conditions including autism and epilepsy after a raft of injections, it warns.

Catherine O'Driscoll, from the charity, said: 'We are not anti-vaccination. What we are saying is that currently our pets are receiving far too many.

'The latest scientific research shows that after the first course of injections as a puppy most dogs are immune against these diseases for at least seven years, if not for life.

'Every year pet vaccination companies hold National Vaccination Month, a national campaign when pet owners whose boosters have lapsed by 18 months or more are terrified into having their pet jabbed.

'While the vast majority of vets might simply not be aware of the latest scientific research, we are concerned that for a few undoubtedly doing multiple jabs is a way of making more money from worried pet owners.'

Puppies are vaccinated against distemper, hepatitis, parvovirus, leptospirosis and parainfluenza up to three times by the age of four months.

They may also be immunised against coronavirus, rabies, Lyme disease and bordetella or kennel cough. Booster shots are given every year or every three or four years.

But some have suffered dramatic changes in behaviour or been diagnosed with cancer within months of the injections, Canine Health Concern says.

In a letter backed by 17 vets and other pet experts, the charity has called on the Veterinary Medicines Directorate, which monitors animal vaccines, to issue new advice on their use.

Mrs O'Driscoll, who believes cats and rabbits could also be at risk, added that a simple blood test would determine whether an animal needed a booster shot.

Richard Allport, a Hertfordshire vet who has signed the letter to the VMD, said he was 'constantly' seeing animals that had developed 'worrying symptoms' after vaccination.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1255863/Vaccines-making-dogs-sick-vets-cash-in.html#ixzz0hXCpFPMS

From the Daily Mail: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1255863/Vaccines-making-dogs-sick-vets-cash-in.html

For Photos of Vaccine Damaged Pets and True Cases of Vaccine Damage, See:

http://twolittlecavaliers.blogspot.com/2010/03/spotlight-rabies-challenge-fund-one.html

Infectious retroviral contamination of cat and dog vaccines discovered

The genomes of all animal species are colonized by endogenous retroviruses (ERVs). Although most ERVs have accumulated defects that render them incapable of replication, fully infectious ERVs have been identified in various mammals. In this study, we isolated a feline infectious ERV (RD-114) in a proportion of live attenuated vaccines for pets. Isolation of RD-114 was made in two independent laboratories using different detection strategies and using vaccines for both cats and dogs commercially available in Japan or the United Kingdom. This study shows that the methods currently employed to screen veterinary vaccines for retroviruses should be reevaluated.

During evolution, the genomes of all animal species have been colonized by endogenous retroviruses (ERVs). ERVs are derived from the integration of the retrovirus genome (“provirus”) into the host germ line and are transmitted vertically between generations like any other Mendelian gene (3). Most ERVs have accumulated mutations and/or deletions that render them unable to complete their replication cycle. However, there are several examples of ERVs that have been shown to be fully infectious. These replication- competent ERVs, especially those that have coevolved with their host for long evolutionary periods, can be considered in many ways to be in equilibrium with their host species, which have adopted a variety of strategies to suppress and control viral expression and/or replication.

Regardless of their replication potential, ERVs in general can be considered nonpathogenic for their host, otherwise they would have been counterselected during evolution (1, 11). However, transmission of infectious ERVs to an animal species different from the one in which they originally integrated (“cross-species transmission” ) could have unpredictable outcomes. For this reason, the potential transmission of pig ERVs to humans is one of the blocks hampering xenotransplantation (26).

Here, we wanted to evaluate the possibility that live attenuated vaccines could contain replication- competent ERVs and act as a potential source of retroviral cross-species transmission. We investigated commercially available vaccine preparations for cats and dogs. The cat genome contains an infectious ERV known as RD-114, a member of the Gammaretrovirus genus, to which other mammalian oncogenic viruses such as feline leukemia virus (FeLV) and murine leukemia virus belong (6, 14, 17, 23). Some feline cell lines such as CRFK (Crandell-Rees feline kidney) commonly used to grow feline and canine viruses express variable amounts of RD-114 (2). We attempted to isolate RD-114 from vaccines commercially available in different continents. These vaccines are routinely used to prevent common infections in cats and dogs caused by viruses such as feline herpesvirus, feline calicivirus, feline panleukopenia virus, canine adenovirus, canine distemper virus, canine parvovirus, canine coronavirus, and canine parainfluenza virus (15). For this study, each vaccine sampled was assigned an anonymized code (e.g., J-Aa1, UK-Aa4 etc.). The first letter before the dash indicates the country where the vaccine was acquired (i.e., “J” for “Japan” and “UK” for the United Kingdom). The capital letter after the dash indicates the manufacturer. The lowercase letter indicates the specific type of vaccine, while numbers are used to differentiate between different batch numbers. Thus, vaccines J-Aa1 and UK-Aa4 are two different batches of the same vaccine acquired from either Japan (J-Aa1) or the United Kingdom (UK-Aa4). All of the data obtained in this study are summarized in Table 1
[snip]
Collectively, our data show unequivocally that RD-114 is present in live attenuated vaccines commonly used in dogs and cats from different continents and produced by three different manufacturers. Future studies will be necessary to determine whether RD-114 has any negative impact in cats or dogs. The risks posed by a low-level exposure to RD-114 for pets are likely extremely small. ERVs are in general nonpathogenic for their host species, and RD-114 replication has been found to be restricted in some cat cell lines (4, 5, 12). However, cat cell lines fully susceptible to RD-114 replication have also been described (7). Thus, one would expect that exposure to RD-114 will be of little consequence to cats, given that RD-114 is an ERV of this species. However, it is impossible to rule out any consequences at all in the pet population as a whole. Infectious ERVs have the same biological properties and pathogenic potential of exogenous horizontally transmitted retroviruses, once the coevolutionary mechanisms that have shaped the interaction with their natural hosts cease to exist. In this regard, the large-scale exposure to RD-114, particularly of the dog population, may have effects that are impossible to predict even if successful RD-114 transmission was an extremely rare event. Millions of puppies are vaccinated annually worldwide, and they may be more susceptible to RD-114 infection than cats as the dog genome does not harbor RD-114. Also wild cats do not harbor RD-114, and they are regularly vaccinated in zoos with the same vaccines used for pets. These vaccines have been used extensively for many years without major acute effects on vaccinated animals, but retroviruses rarely induce acute diseases. Therefore, it is impossible to rule out chronic effects, especially as we were able to grow RD-114 very efficiently in dog cell lines (data not shown), confirming older published studies (18).

To our knowledge, this is the first identification of an infectious ERV in commercially available vaccines. In the 1960s, it was shown that yellow fever live attenuated vaccines prepared in chicken embryo fibroblasts were contaminated with avian leukosis virus (ALV). However, no increased risk for cancer was shown in vaccinated individuals, and this was expected considering that ALV does not grow efficiently in mammalian cells (8, 24, 25). Avian endogenous retrovirus genomes and RT activity have been detected more recently in yellow fever, measles, and mumps vaccines by RT and RT-PCR assays (9, 21), but no evidence of infectious viruses was presented in these studies. As expected, avian ERVs were not detected in the vaccine recipients.

A recently identified novel human retrovirus (xenotropic murine leukemia virus-related retrovirus [XMRV]) has been found in some forms of prostate cancers and chronic fatigue syndrome in humans (13, 20, 22), although causal association has not been proven yet. XMRV is almost undistinguishable from an ERV present in mice, and it will be important to investigate how this virus passed into the human population, regardless of its pathogenic potential. Interestingly, the current methods used for screening human vaccines for retroviral contaminants include extremely sensitive PCR-based RT assays (not required for veterinary vaccines) that are much more sensitive than conventional RT assays. Thus, contamination of human vaccines with XMRV would not pass undetected with the currently available technology, although this may not be necessarily true for vaccines produced in previous decades.

Finally, although the risks posed by RD-114 are seemingly small, it would be appropriate to produce live attenuated vaccines in cells that do not express this endogenous retrovirus. To this end, cells of dog origin may be better suited to produce pet vaccines than cat cell lines, although not all cat cell lines express RD-114 (2, 10). Contamination of subunit or inactivated vaccines by infectious agents in general (including ERVs) is obviously less of a concern.

In conclusion, our study suggests that the presence of infectious ERVs should be taken into consideration when assessing the purity of live attenuated veterinary vaccines. The methods currently employed to screen veterinary vaccines for retroviruses need to be reassessed.

Source: Takayuki Miyazawa, Rokusuke Yoshikawa, Matthew Golder, Masaya Okada, Hazel Stewart, and Massimo Palmarini

Laboratory of Signal Transduction, Institute for Virus Research, Kyoto University, 53 Shogoin-Kawaracho, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto 606-8507, Japan,1 Institute of Comparative Medicine, University of Glasgow Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, 464 Bearsden Road, Glasgow G61 1QH, Scotland2

Received 24 December 2009/ Accepted 19 January 2010.

The More Vaccines Your Dog Has, the More Risk of Adverse Reactions

Adverse events diagnosed within three days of vaccine administration in dogs

George E. Moore, DVM, MS, PhD, DACVPM, DACVIM Lynn F. Guptill, DVM, PhD, DACVIM Michael P. Ward, BVSc, MS, MPVM, PhD Nita W. Glickman, MPH, PhD Karen K. Faunt, DVM, DACVIM Hugh B. Lewis, BVMS, DACVP Lawrence T. Glickman, VMD, DrPH
Department of Veterinary Pathobiology, School of Veterinary Medicine, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907-2027. (Moore, Ward, Glickman, Glickman); Department of Veterinary Clinical Sciences, School of Veterinary Medicine, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907-2027. (Guptill); Present address is the Department of Veterinary Integrative Biosciences, College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843-4458. (Ward); Banfield, The Pet Hospital, 11815 NE Glenn Widing Dr, Portland, OR 97220. (Faunt, Lewis)

Objective—To determine incidence rates and potential risk factors for vaccine-associated adverse events (VAAEs) diagnosed within 3 days of administration in dogs.

Design—Retrospective cohort study.

Animals—1,226,159 dogs vaccinated at 360 veterinary hospitals.

Procedure—Electronic records from January 1, 2002, through December 31, 2003, were searched for possible VAAEs (nonspecific vaccine reaction, allergic reaction, urticaria, or anaphylaxis) diagnosed within 3 days of vaccine administration. Information included age, weight, sex, neuter status, and breed. Specific clinical signs and treatments were reviewed in a random sample of 400 affected dogs. The association between potential risk factors and a VAAE was estimated by use of multivariate logistic regression.

Results—4,678 adverse events (38.2/10,000 dogs vaccinated) were associated with administration of 3,439,576 doses of vaccine to 1,226,159 dogs. The VAAE rate decreased significantly as body weight increased. Risk was 27% to 38% greater for neutered versus sexually intact dogs and 35% to 64% greater for dogs approximately 1 to 3 years old versus 2 to 9 months old. The risk of a VAAE significantly increased as the number of vaccine doses administered per office visit increased; each additional vaccine significantly increased risk of an adverse event by 27% in dogs ≤ 10 kg (22 lb) and 12% in dogs > 10 kg.

Conclusions and Clinical Relevance—Young adult small-breed neutered dogs that received multiple vaccines per office visit were at greatest risk of a VAAE within 72 hours after vaccination. These factors should be considered in risk assessment and risk communication with clients regarding vaccination. (J Am Vet Med Assoc 2005;227:1102–1108)

Source: Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association
October 1, 2005, Vol. 227, No. 7, Pages 1102-1108

Puppy's Reaction to Shots

The puppy’s face was swollen, his muzzle pads pushing out until they were hard because the skin was stretched unnaturally tight. The swelling pinched his nostrils and there was a wheezing sound with every breath he struggled to take. His lymph nodes were swollen. He was listless. His eyes showed me clearly he felt terrible. The puppy was in distress.

Just two hours earlier, we’d been at the vet’s office for his shots. This little character, a Brussels Griffon puppy who we call Gherkin, happily licked the vet’s face as his eyes, skin, and knees were examined; his heart stethoscoped, and there was a long listen to his lungs.

“And we have one… two!” Dr. Batts exclaimed, counting the tiny, eight-week old testicles.

Gherkin was proclaimed a healthy eight-week-old puppy. And now this.

It looked like an allergic reaction. To what? It had to be the shots. In the two hours since we’d been home, he hadn’t encountered any foreign substance.

It was 730 pm, but Dr. Batts has given me his home number for emergencies. I called and got the answering machine. I explained the problem and asked him to call me.

Now, what to do? Running to the emergency vet clinic is always an option. But over the years, Dr. Batts has taught me to keep a cool head. “90% of the dogs’ problems would clear up anyway, without medical intervention,” he said. Most veterinarians would not tell you something like that. They would be too busy running MRIs and blood tests and running up your bill.

What do you do with allergic reactions? In an extreme case, inject epinephrine. But I didn’t have that. In a mild case, you would treat with an antihistamine like Benadryl. I knew I had that.

The liquid Benadryl in my medicine closet listed doses for children that ran to two tablespoons. Gherkin weighed two pounds, considerably less than a child. I decided that 1 ml would most likely be the correct dose. I used a syringe to squirt it into Gherkin’s mouth. He perked up to object and let me know it tasted awful.

Next comes the hardest part. Wait. If he didn’t start to get better quickly, if his breathing worsened, I would rush to the ER clinic.

Thankfully, the swelling started to abate. Slowly, the sound of wheezing lessened until he was breathing noiselessly. Normally.

At 10 pm, the phone rang. Dr. Batts agitated. “I just got the message,” he said. “What happened?”

He listened to the explanation and asked about the strength of the medicine and how much I’d given him. He calculated quickly in his head. “That’s about right,” he said. There was a hint of satisfaction in his voice, because anything I know about doctoring canines, I’ve learned from him. If I’d done it right, it meant I’d been listening all these years.

What floored him was that a DHLPP + corona shot could cause a reaction in a puppy the first time he received it. “I’m going to call this in to Schering Plough,” he said. “They insist that this can’t happen. A puppy can’t be allergic to something he has never encountered.”

“Be careful when it’s time for his second shot,” he said. “He’ll need to be pre-dosed before he gets it.” He advised giving Gherkin another dose before bed.

Gherkin objected again to the icky taste. I made it right by giving him some cut up hot dog bits, which he happily chewed. Tragedy averted, thank goodness. What’s next?

Source: The Examiner, 29th May 2010

More Vets are Warning about the Dangers of Vaccination

Dear Dr. Fox:

My holistic veterinarian in North Carolina told me not to vaccinate my 1-year-old cat for feline leukemia. The Humane Society where I got the cat said it doesn't provide the vaccination because it is controversial.

I would like your opinion on this. My cat is a fixed, indoor and outdoor cat.

B.D.

Blowing Rock, N.C.

DF: It has been a long time coming for attitudes toward vaccinations to change. Giving various vaccines that are far from zero risk to cats and dogs that are at almost zero risk because they live indoors is imprudent.

But you are going to have to accept that risk if you are going to expose your cat or dog to other animals that might be infected with a contagious viral disease, including rabies, which can be transmitted to humans.

Keep your cat's immune system strong with a biologically appropriate diet, including raw foods. For more about vaccinations, go to my Web site, http://www.twobitdog.com/drfox. If you want to allow your cat to roam free, I would advise having one set of "core" vaccines. After 12 months, have blood titers taken. You might never need to vaccinate your cat again, except for rabies, which is mandated by law.

Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/22/AR2010062204522.html

Excess Vaccinations Harm Pets

AUSTRALIAN pet owners may be over-vaccinating their cats and dogs and inadvertently exposing them to harm, leading consumer group Choice has warned.

Despite new national guidelines, Choice says many adult cats and dogs are still receiving injections annually instead of no more than every three years. They claim that pet owners are not being told about the triennial immunisation guidelines and are paying for doses that their pooches don't even need, with vaccinations costing between $70 and $90.

The animal could be exposed to more harm - over-vaccination has been linked to tumours in cats and immune-mediated diseases in dogs, which can be fatal.
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Last year, the Australian Veterinary Association altered its guidelines to meet international standards (set by the World Small Animal Veterinary Association). Core vaccinations are mainly for parvovirus in cats and dogs, distemper and hepatitis in dogs and feline calicivirus and herpes virus.

But since the triennial guidelines were introduced Choice spokesman Christopher Zinn said many vets were still recommending annual vaccinations. He said there was a potential conflict of interest because vaccinations were a major part of vets' turnover.

''The vet might say there is no conflict of interest, but there is certainly a perceived conflict of interest because we know that so much of their revenue is derived from their vaccinations,'' he said, citing a report by a vaccine manufacturer that says a majority of vets believe dog and cat vaccinations are the most important contributor to their turnover.

The head of the Australian Veterinary Association, Barry Smyth, said while it was important that Australian vets continued to inform consumers that the guidelines had changed, determining when to vaccinate a pet depended on a variety of factors including the cat or dog's lifestyle.

''I'm not sure exactly of the advice given in any individual practice, but certainly there has been a change about some of the advice about some of the vaccinations administered to cats and dogs, there is no doubt about that,'' Mr Smyth, an equine veterinarian, said.

Elizabeth Hart, of Burnside in Adelaide, fought for guidelines after her own dog, Sasha, died shortly after an annual vaccination. ''I used to get a reminder letter every year saying don't forget your dog's vaccination, and I just obeyed that letter every year,'' she said.

Sasha had hemorrhagic gastroenteritis and was put down. Ms Hart said she would never know what happened to her dog but said because of the timing she started researching the topic and found that yearly vaccinations were controversial. She fought for national guidelines to match international standards and is speaking out so that other pet owners are better informed.

Source: The Age, 19th August 2010.

4,000 Goats Die after Vaccine Injection in China

More than 4,000 goats in eastern Jiangsu province died days after receiving goat-pox vaccines, local authorities said Wednesday.

The goats in Rudong county developed symptoms of tearing and fading appetite two or three days after the vaccination and suffered diarrhea the following week, the county government said in a statement.

None of the common medications proved effective in this case, it said.

Wang Qingyi, director of the veterinary station in Rudong, said factors ranging from the vaccines' quality, weather changes, feeding management to a new pathogen could be behind the deaths.

The Jiangsu provincial agricultural bureau has dispatched a group of experts to look into the cause of the deaths.

The provincial finance bureau purchased 60,000 vials of goat pox vaccines in two groups from the Lanzhou pharmaceutical factory of China Animal Husbandry Industry Co in 2011, of which 25,000 pieces have been used.

Source: China Daily, 15th June 2011.

Faulty vaccine caused foot-and-mouth outbreak

A botched vaccine intended to protect Paraguay’s livestock against foot-and-mouth disease was responsible for transmitting the ailment to hundreds of animals that later had to be destroyed, the government said Tuesday.

After extensive laboratory tests, Paraguayan and international scientists concluded that "human error" and "negligence" in the production of the vaccine caused the outbreak last September, a top veterinary official here said.

"After the most recent laboratory analysis, we have confirmed that the outbreak of foot and mouth disease... came about as a result of problems with the vaccination of animals," said Daniel Rojas, head of Paraguay’s National Service for Animal Health and Quality.

"There now is no doubt that it was human error that led to the outbreak of foot-and-mouth," he said.

The affected animals were at the Santa Helena ranch, a hacienda some 400 kilometers (250 miles) northeast of Asuncion, in the department of San Pedro.

Authorities said all told, more than a thousand cattle had to be sacrificed during the outbreak, which sent tremors through a region that prizes its meat industry.

Officials said they have not yet determined who would be held accountable for the costly mistake.

Source: Canada.com, 1st November 2011. http://www.canada.com/technology/Faulty%20vaccine%20caused%20foot%20mouth%20outbreak%20Paraguay/5637999/story.html?mid=51

Our New Baby who will be unvaccinated like his mother and his other feline friends, Patch and Kate.

Joanna holding Buttons - thankfully now KitKat has moved her behind the armchair instead of near the computer wires

How I Naturally Rear my Animals

We believe most pet foods are junk food in the same way that microwave dinners are junk food, pets will get by on them but they're not good for you.

For this reason I feed my cats foods intended for human consumption. They eat a diet of:

Fish - normally tuna, sardines and pilchards, usually organic and 'dolphin friendly'.

Raw meat - usually chicken, not the junky crispy chicken leg variety but proper meat, always raw.

Sometimes we will give 'cat food' to make sure enough vitamins are in the diet (as the stuff is so junky they have to fortify it with vitamins), but when we do this, we always add raw organic egg yolk into it for extra protein (I have to mix it in or they won't eat it).

When the budget allows, we get organic cat food (available from Waitrose and their home shopping site Ocado) and Lily's proper cat dinner which is very expensive but worth it as it has herbal stuff in it and essential oils which is helpful for their immune system and also to detox if they've been ill), because of its price I usually only get that one to solve an ill health issue.

We are vegetarians but we recognise that cats aren't and cannot be (after all, you see lions killing zebras to eat in the wild), so while we find it unpleasant for ourselves personally, we feel it is nature. Some vegetarians choose not to keep pets for this reason but we have had one find us, rescued one from a shelter and re-homed one whose owners were leaving the country so we don't feel any ethical problem with this.

With strong immune system's we find that fleas, worms and mites etc are not attracted to our animals and they rarely get them. On the rare ocassion it happens (that was mostly before I learnt about cat's optimal diet), we have used food grade diatomaceous earth (DE) to get rid of them. Microscopically it has tiny shards in it (that will not hurt the animal) but will kill fleas, ticks, worms, mites etc.

You put it on your pets fur every day during infestation and mix a tiny amount in his food (very small amount or he won't eat it). You also sprinkle it all over your carpets so fleas don't lay eggs in them and leave it on for a week, the place will be a mess of white powder but I promise it's worth it and not dangerous to the kids. After that you vaccum it off and if you have a carpet washer, go over the floors with that and then hey presto, no more fleas!

I successfully treated a bad flea infestation like this and treated my cat Patch who got mites when the regular mite treatment failed to work and the vet consultation and chemical mite treatment did no good at all. Wish I had done DE treatment first because it cost £13 for the bottle, whereas it cost me £60 for the vet consult and useless chemical treatment.

None of my cats have had any other health issues. I have an old girl of 15 who is a bit thin and has poor balance, to be expected in old age, but none are vaccinated.

The only major vet treatment ever required was an injection of antibiotics after the elderly cat got attacked by a fox and nearly died of a neck wound - apart from that they have had sparkling health!

Please only use FOOD GRADE DE, and don't use this treatment if you are asthmatic as it might make you wheeze.