I understand the need for vaccines. But what I haven't seen come up in this thread is a debate on how often they need to be given. The AVMA used to have an annual vaccine schedule for small animals, and they changed it to every three years. I asked my equine vet why horses are still scheduled for annual vaccines, and she said it's probably because their physiology is different.But that was just a guess. MY guess is that small animal owners (esp cat owners) got sick of the high reaction rate so things had to change. At any rate, my personal belief is that annual vaccinating is overkill in horses, and I've become especially leary because I have a horse that has had a completely messed up immune system ever since he had a vaccine reaction as a yearling. There's plenty of debate on this
issue, and if you are willing to stop believing everything western medicine tells you, start surfing online and read some of the holistic web sites for a view you may not have considered. Blindly sticking a 3-way or a 5-way into my horse year after year, because a profit-driven pharmaceutical company's research says I should, is not something I'm willing to do.
I have a family history of auto-immune diseases, so no way are you gonna see me getting a flu shot!
