"The efficacy of the vaccine is running about 97 per cent, nationally.
Extremely healthy horses have contracted West Nile, including endurance horses (ask Truman if you don't believe me), so don't get a false sense of security by listening to those "Christian Science" type of horse owners who recommend not to vaccinate. These folks have left the world of "reality" and entered some sort of delusional moronic twilight zone where true science does not exist. Pity their horses."
Howard, I didn't read in your post how 'they' are measuring the vaccine's efficacy. The uneducated person might assume that veterinary science and its research are perfectly done and without bias. I (and I hope you do too) know better. The problem is that people forget the difference between INCIDENCE (the number of patients who actually get sick from a disease) and PREVALENCE ( the actual number of patients who have had a measurable exposure to an illness, sick or not). The latter is hard to calculate without testing alot of healthy subjects, both vaccinated and non-vaccinated. My concern is that the scientific evidence you support is biased in that healthy horses are excluded from the calculations. Another way to put that, is there may be alot of healthy horses, even unvaccinated horses who are exposed to WNV and don't get sick and we don't know it because we don't test healthy horses.
I would really be interested in how the efficacy is being calculated. Perhaps some of the Ridecamp Vets can shed som light on that topic. Is the Prevalence of WNV known with any accuracy? My experience is only with people vaccines. Jennifer.
Do you Yahoo!?
HotJobs - Search new jobs daily now
