Rabies Vaccines or not?

Thank you for the insight, M&T. It took a while, but I did find Sissy's story. You did a good thing there, but it sounds like her pain was due to vet incompetence, and not so much as a direct result of the vaccine.

That's a good point about taking her out to the vets, dweamgoil. Io is very mellow in travelling, but she can definitely fit out the "petting window" in her carrier if she gets it in her head to. There are no legal requirements here regarding vaccinations. Despite that, I just looked at the numbers and there's only been ~20 rabies cases here in the last ten years (all but 2 of those in bats).

But New Zealand is completely rabies free, so I can understand why they'd want pets from other countries to be vaccinated against it. Does the rick of cancer increase with multiple injections? If so, it would be better for us to wait and vaccinate her shortly before moving (since once we're there, she won't need anymore). But the mortality rate for pets going overseas is so high it might be better to risk multiple rabies injections instead of battering her immune system with something new right before travel.

yingying said:

To ppl who don't vaccine their cat because they heard/read all kind of scary stories: I have heard many stories about ppl chocked to death, ppl being hit by a car while crossing street (almost happened to me once), and ppl slept to death. Does that stop me from eating, walking on the street, or sleeping? There are cats died during s/n surgery. Would you be against s/n because of it? There is nothing safe in this world. There is a fine line between being cautious and paranoid.

What's the odd of cat getting cancer from rabies vaccine? Give us numbers please! And when a vet/cat owner find a lump, what test did they do to confirm the lump is a direct result from rabies vaccine?

When you decide if you want to give rabies vaccine to your cat (or make any kind of decision), you need to weigh the pros and cons. To me, the pros far outweight the cons.

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I hope your not saying people on this forum sharing thier experiences dont do the research or have valid opinions from both.

Continued yearly vaccinations is a hot debate right now in the rescue community. More and more vets are not doing yearly vacs because of the research.

Im with a small group of cat lovers that do TNR and rescue. We banded together to do TNR/rescue because the local shelter we all volunteered with didnt give proper medical care to the cats. Our biggest conviction starting our group is we would get the best medical care for the ferals and abandoned companion cats we foster. Weve done over 3000 cats since 2006 when we started.

The reason I started researching about vaccinations is because of the sheer number of bad experiences we were having involving vaccinations and when were were vaccinating new rescues after surgeries.

There is research documenting the bad effects of over vaccinating. Esp the one out of Madison Wisconsin researcher. Plus number provided by thethe Federal government with info of what kind of animals contracted rabies.

I did say in an earlier post to do the research. I would never want some one to do something because I shared a scary story. But Im also from the generation that said to question authority. Views evolve. Whether smoking is safe. Declawing is humane. Lay your baby on its back to avoid crib death. On and on. I like this forum because it has so many knowledable kind people on it. And passionate TNR and rescue/fosterers who passionately care about cats.

I hope your not saying people on this forum sharing thier experiences dont do the research or have valid opinions from both.

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No, by no means I was implying this. But unfortunately, in this post I didn't see any results or information about any research related to the topic. All I've read is something like "I have personally seen ...", "I've had several experience ...", "Another vet ... removed the lump ... ". Sorry, those are by no means research.

Now don't get me wrong. I'm not even questioning if those stories are true. I believe they are. However, since you work for a rescue, you see more cats than most ppl do, so propotionally you see more cats having any kind of issue. My mom is a doctor, she possibly see more death in a day than I would in my entire life. That doesn't mean she would be scared for her life all the time.

There is research documenting the bad effects of over vaccinating. Esp the one out of Madison Wisconsin researcher. Plus number provided by thethe Federal government with info of what kind of animals contracted rabies.

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I have no doubt there were unfortunate cats died from rabies vaccines. To prove something exists, you only need one example. However, to say something happen fairly frequent, you need statistics with a large, unscrewed sample. This is all about the odd. Say, out of 10000 cats, randomly drawn from an unbiased population, how many will develop cancer directly induced by rabies vaccines? Do you have a number or do you know a research that makes such observation? (If you have both, I would prefer to see the research publication, because many times the setup of the experiments has an impact on the result.)

Now, say, if the odd of getting cancer from rabits is 0.1%, would someone willing to take the risk? Then it's totally up to each person. We all have our threshold. But, keep in mind that rabies is deadly, to both cat and human. Also keep in mind that a strictly indoor cat may sneak out and get bitten by a racoon, a stray cat, or even a squirrel. And though I don't have data to back me up, I do believe the chance of your cat get lost is higher than it gets cancer from rabies shot.

But Im also from the generation that said to question authority.

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I fully agree with your attitude to question authority. But I would like to add that, authority not only includes government, vet association, and your vet. It also include person who has more experience than you in a certain area, because, as I mentioned before, their view may be skewed due to their frequent exposure toward certain scenarios. And, the authority even include many, many research done by reputable institutions. If my education taught me anything, then that is there is a huge leap between data to fact, and even between fact to conclusion. Do you have experience that reading a research saying drinking coffee is bad, then the next day some other research says coffee is good, then the other day coffee is killing you again?