quotes from AAHA 3yr rotating annual vaccine guideline

Medical guidelines should insists on proof that time-honored medical practices and procedures that cost money and may harm or kill patients are actually effective. This Forum is about how to force organized veterinary medicine to issue Evidence Based Guidelines.

quotes from AAHA 3yr rotating annual vaccine guideline

Postby malernee » Wed Mar 17, 2004 7:44 pm

AVMA, AAHA to release vaccine positions

Lead veterinary organizations take stance on disease protection
By Jennifer Fiala
ASSOCIATE EDITOR

Lakewood, Colo.—In response to public and professional demand, two of the nation's top veterinary associations prepare to address the contentious topic of vaccine use with unprecedented resolve.

But as the American Animal Hospital Association (AAHA) prepares canine vaccination guidelines, which carry some political risk, critics question why the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA), the profession's largest representative, is content to release just a position statement on the issue, seeming to ignore the need for real recommendations.



DVM Newsmagazine has learned the release of AAHA guidelines are expected next spring. AVMA's position statement was being submitted to the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association for publication at press time.

"I think AVMA should take a more profound stance; the profession expects it," says Dr. Richard Ford, a North Carolina State University professor working on both projects. Ford champions changing vaccination practices. "The position statement is good, but it's not guidelines. I'd like to know what the AVMA has to say, but since when do you remember them doing anything controversial?"



Are DVMs vaccinating too frequently? Some in academia say yes, but practicing DVMs argue their clinical judgment tells them otherwise; and they would like to see more proof. The vaccination issue has become so contentious both the American Veterinary Medical Association and American Animal Hospital Association are drafting guidance for veterinarians.

Serving a need
While the position statement isn't a "cookbook," it’s far from sub par, says Dr. Elizabeth Curry Galvin, AVMA assistant director of scientific activities. The statement stresses AVMA's stance on education, a reduction in the profession's dependence on vaccine sales, which account for a significant portion of practice income, and encourages practitioners to use their own clinical judgment. "This is a huge issue," Galvin says. "Vaccines have been incredibly successful in curbing disease, and the optimal revaccination durations are not known, this is true. But there just isn't enough information out there for us to develop guidelines. "What we're saying is veterinarians have to continually educate themselves with what's out there, and do their own research into the annual vaccine environment."

Lack of guidance
But even research-savvy veterinarians hunger for more direction. Aside from following immunologists like Dr. Ron Schultz, a University of Wisconsin professor who's performed duration of immunity studies since the 1970s, or epidemiologist Dr. Larry Glickman, a vaccine critic at Purdue University who's studying post-inoculation antibody development, DVMs have little elsewhere to turn.

AAHA panel members are tight-lipped about contents of the group's forthcoming guidelines, but the American Association of Feline Practitioner's (AAFP) 1998 version for cats lends to speculation. While the 29-page document doesn't offer a cut-and-dry approach, it recommends increasing one-year revaccination intervals to three years, speculating that most vaccines last for at least that length of time. In conjunction, some manufacturers have increased their rabies inoculation protocols to three years as well.

Co-author Dr. Tomas Elston says writing the guidelines "opened up a can of worms."

"The subject is just so controversial," says Elston, a feline practitioner in Irvine, Calif. "The research that's out there has certainly changed the way we look at vaccines, but there's just not enough information. Vaccinating is a medical decision, and unfortunately with more knowledge, we have more questions. "You don't just grab a vile from the refrigerator, read the manufacturer's label and use it. It's not that black and white."

Lack of Research, Support
Speculation feeds the gray area of vaccines. Practitioners and scientists like Glickman theorize the repeated use of vaccines breed antibodies that can attack a host's own organs, causing autoimmune disease. Schultz argues that many annual vaccines remain effective throughout a lifetime; at least one of his reports successfully challenges a distemper vaccine after seven years. But despite all the research, it wasn't until veterinarians started noting soft-tissue sarcoma developing at vaccine injection sites in cats that the issue sparked widespread debate.

That's when the Vaccine-Associated Feline Sarcoma Task Force began its ongoing quest to prove the vaccine-sarcoma connection. AVMA admits that the practice of annual vaccinations is based on historic precedent and not research. But that research is expensive, requiring large numbers of animals to be isolated and studied for long periods of time, says Schultz.

"That's why a lot more work doesn't come out," he says, "In the 1970s, there were four vaccines for dogs and we weren't using them often. Now there are 16 vaccines for dogs, and if they’re not getting them annually, they're getting them more often than that.

"I'm the only one in the profession who challenges the immunity of vaccines. I'm really one among a total of three individuals who have challenge studies out. With just a few of us studying them and more vaccines on the market, how are we supposed to keep up?"

Framing concerns
As AVMA continues to "circle the issue," according to critics, AAHAs board members say the guidelines, still in draft form, aren't strict. Ford says they are just what the profession needs. "We're not dictating what you should vaccinate with, but a lot of veterinarians want to know the protocols," Ford says. "The health implications of vaccines are difficult to know because there aren't enough studies to determine a cause and effect relationship between vaccines and induced injury. "Still, most authorities agree there's a likely correlation and a lot of interest in the issue."

On the horizon
AVMA refuses to reveal much concerning its position prior to publication, but according to Galvin, the statement offers advice for veterinarians and proposes the following:

• Create and promote a national adverse reporting system, documenting reactions to vaccines.

• Manufacturers should improve vaccine labeling, clearly printing all that's known about a product.

• Three-year rabies vaccines should be promoted rather than traditional annual boosters.



Veterinarians must promote the value of the exam and move away from their dependence on vaccine income. Emphasize communication, customization and learning the lifestyle of clients to attract patients to the practice. "We're rolling together what we do know about vaccines, find in published research and expert guidance," Galvin says. "I think this will continue to unfold over the years as we improve on our information. All of our ideas need to come together to make the profession move forward."
*****
Industry questions vaccine guidelines
May 30, 2003
By: Kathy Baumgardner
DVM Newsmagazine

Cleveland—Just months after the release of the new canine vaccine guidelines, the American Animal Hospital Association (AAHA) has agreed to make two minor revisions and continues to stand behind its recommendations despite some criticism from practitioners and industry.
<snip>

Why three-year intervals?
Some veterinarians also question why the task force chose three years as the benchmark for administering vaccines.

“That’s another embarrassing question. It’s completely arbitrary. It’s just completely arbitrary,” says Richard Ford, DVM, MS, dipl. ACVIM and member of the AAHA Canine Vaccine Task Force. “I will say there is no science behind the three-year recommendation, and that’s completely true with the cat.”


Ford says the decision to recommend a three-year cycle for vaccines was a compromise.

“We picked a compatible medium, and it corroborates and corresponds with what was recommended for the cat too,” he says. “We have some level of consistency, but there’s nothing magical about three years at all.


Schultz agrees with Ford adding that he picked the three-year interval because he thought practitioners would be more likely to accept it.

“I thought if the veterinarian understood that if a killed rabies vaccine could work for three years that they could surely understand that a modified-live distemper, adeno or parvo (vaccine) could work for three years, minimum,” he says. “Modified-live vaccines have a much longer duration of immunity than killed vaccines.”


AAHA has published two documents pertaining to the 2003 AAHA Canine Vaccine Guidelines and Recommendations. An executive summary was published in the March/April issue of the Journal of the American Animal Hospital Association and the April/May issue of Trends magazine. AAHA’s Web site (www.aahanet.org) provides a complete report of the guidelines, but it is only available to AAHA members.

“I would think that practicing veterinarians would want to look at all the information that is available and then decide what is most appropriate for their practice, for the pets in their practice and the environment those pets are in,” Wallace says.
“We’re proponents of laying all the information out there and having veterinarians make the decisions based on most current information,” he says.


Ford along with some industry officials say they talk daily with practitioners who are still trying to decipher the new guidelines and how to implement them.
“The bottom line here is what are we going to do with these guidelines? Why were these guidelines written, and how do I use them?” Ford says. “These are the questions I keep hearing veterinarians ask.”
During the last few months, Ford has been traveling the country speaking on the topic of vaccines for Merial and he says he keeps hearing this central theme from practitioners.

“They are consistently skeptical of using (the guidelines) because they don’t know how,” he says.

“There is no definition on how to implement the guidelines, so we’re stuck with that, and I think it has been confusing for practitioners.”

Ford is in the process of developing a Web site on vaccines and plans to include examples of how to implement vaccine protocols from birth to life using rotating schedules. The Web site should be up and running later this summer. (Next month, DVM Newsmagazine will focus on vaccines through a special magazine supplement which will also be posted on DVM Newsmagazine's Web site.)

“What we have done very well in our profession is to educate clients that vaccines are to be given every year. The need for shots is what brings people into the veterinarian at the very beginning,” Ford says.

“So given that, nobody on either the cat or the dog task forces has recommended we do anything but annual vaccinations. Nobody is saying just vaccinate every three years. Just don’t vaccinate for everything every year.”

Ford says practitioners can develop a rotating schedule that allows them to incorporate vaccines annually.
Mills says AAHA has a responsibility to educate both veterinarians and the public on the new guidelines.
appy.”
<snip>
malernee
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three year/annual rotation AAHA vaccine guideline

Postby guest » Thu Mar 18, 2004 8:28 am

Understand from the quotes in the article the three year/annual rotation AAHA vaccine guideline has been written and promoted per its author so that annual revaccination can still continue by following the three year vaccine guidelines. The three year vaccine guideline is written and promoted so that vets can still rotate and continue annual revaccination of their patients. Rather than an evidence based vaccine guideline based on science we get a guideline based on what the author says is based on a compromise to get the vets to accept it. The three year vaccine guideline is written and promoted so vet members of the group can still vaccinate every year. The AAHA doctors group using the new guides can tell the public their members are vaccinating every three years. Pretty slick. When doctor groups say their medical treatments are needed, medical fraud is hard to prove. Science, not compromise, is what the public must use to separate medical care that works from the care that doctors only wished worked.

http://evidencebasedvet.com/forum/viewt ... ?p=202#202
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vaccination SCAM

Postby malernee » Sun Dec 21, 2008 8:22 am

The good stuff is after letter. Show this one to your friends, lawyers, and those in govenment so they can see why vets keep revaccinating every year.

http://www.ebvet.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=406
malernee
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Joined: Wed Aug 13, 2003 5:56 pm


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