'Sentencing their dog to death': how the anti-vax movement spread to pets

[Eugene]

Source: The Guardian

'Sentencing their dog to death': how the anti-vax movement spread to pets

There has been a spike in people refusing to vaccinate pets against deadly diseases, including some that can infect humans

Michael McGowan
Fri 5 Apr 2019 22.12 BST Last modified on Sat 6 Apr 2019 05.52 BST

Sam Kovac can’t say for sure what prompted it, but in the past few weeks the Sydney veterinarian has been faced with the same alarming, beguiling question over and over: “Will this vaccination give my dog autism?”

“It’s actually ridiculous. I mean you hear chatter over the years, but just in these last few weeks it’s really, really ramped up,” he tells Guardian Australia.

“Most of the time people are OK, they’re not staunchly against it once you tell them the science and the statistics [but] we have had people walk out in hysteria, saying that there is absolutely no way their dog is getting [vaccinated] because they believe it causes auto-immune diseases or, specifically, autism.”

Kovac is so perturbed by the trend that he felt moved to speak out about it in Sydney’s Daily Telegraph this week, saying he didn’t believe anti-vaxxers deserved to have animals as pets if they were willing to put them at risk of diseases such as canine parvovirus.

-snip-

Vaccinations do not cause autism in dogs or humans. But there is an important distinction: there is no such thing as autism in dogs.

-snip-

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/apr/06/sentencing-their-dog-to-death-how-the-anti-vax-movement-spread-to-pets

[d_r]

1. How the heck

Could a dog even have autism

[sinkingfeeling]

2. Isn't a rabies vaccination required by law in most places?

[peacebuzzard]

3. In most U.S. states it is with the exception of a few

and those states give waivers for underlying disease conditions. There are just a handful of states with this exemption. Most states regulations require all pets vaccinated for rabies.
There is a titer test an owner/guardian can opt to check for the rabies immunity, it is expensive and does not serve as a replacement for the rabies vaccination by law.

[meow2u3]

4. Anti-vaxers ought to have their pets yanked from them

and adopted out to people who will give their pets their shots. This willful ignorance burns me up to no end!