Dogs cannot get ‘autism’, the British Veterinary Association has warned, after the ‘anti-vaccine’ movement spread to pets.
'Anti-vaxxers' believe that immunisations have harmful side effects and may be the cause of autism in children - beliefs widely debunked by the medical community.
This theory is increasingly being applied to pets, particularly in the US, and there are fears it is spreading to the UK and could cause already low vaccination rates to fall.
The BVA said: “We are aware of an increase in anti-vaccination pet owners in the US who have voiced concerns that vaccinations may lead to their dogs developing autism-like behaviour.
“But there is currently no scientific evidence to suggest autism in dogs or a link between vaccination and autism.”
“All medicines have potential side effects but in the case of vaccines these are rare and the benefits of vaccination in protecting against disease far outweigh the potential for an adverse reaction.”
Senior Vice President Gudrun Ravetz added: “Vaccinations save lives and are an important tool in keeping our pets healthy.
“We know from the example of the MMR vaccine and its now disproven link to autism in children that scaremongering can lead to a loss of public confidence in vaccination and knee-jerk reactions that can lead to outbreaks of disease.
"Distemper and parvovirus are still killers in pets – and the reason we no longer see these on a wider scale is because most owners sensibly choose to vaccinate."
Lisa Tenzin-Dolma, founder of the International School for Canine Psychology and Behaviour, said: “We don’t have scientific evidence to back claims of canine autism, however, we have seen anecdotal evidence of dogs having a marked change in their behaviour (‘canine dysfunctional behaviour’). Symptoms are things like increased aggression or dogs becoming more fearful.
“This could be down to any number of causes: the loss of a carer or the arrival of another dog. Some people link the changes to thyroid issues, but it is all down to individual circumstances.”
Despite accepting these dog behavioral issues were a real problem, Ms Tenzin-Dolma said she “would not advise people against vaccinations due to fear of canine autism as there was a lack of scientific eviden
The comments came after ITV breakfast show Good Morning Britain tweeted: "We're looking to speak to pet owners who haven't given their pets vaccinations because they're concerned about side effects - as well as people who have done so and now believe their pet has canine autism as a result."
The message was criticised by some users of the social media site, with one posting: "Please, please do not give airtime to this unscientific and dangerous mentality.
“If a single person sees the segment and decides not to vaccinate their pet/child, that's on you. This is not a case where 'both sides should be heard' - it's factually wrong and harmful.”
The BVA said: “While we welcome a platform for pet owners to discuss vaccinations, we’d be concerned about the adverse impact on pet health resulting from alarm such a show is likely to cause amongst pet owners if it does not offer a veterinary or scientific voice for a balanced perspective on the issue.”
Pet vaccination rates in the UK are already falling. The PDSA Animal Wellbeing (PAW) Report in 2017 showed that 25 per cent of dogs, 35 per cent of cats and 50 per cent of rabbits had not had a primary vaccination course when young, up on previous years.
Usual vaccinations for puppies include protection against canine distemper; canine parvovirus; kennel cough; Leptospirosis; and parainfluenza.
The BVA suggested that owners who fail to vaccinate their pets could be breaking the law, commenting that: “It is important to remember that under the Animal Welfare Act, pet owners have a duty to protect their animals from pain, injury, suffering and disease.
“We know of no better, and scientifically proven, way to protect against disease than vaccination."
It's a bit different between children and dogs. Children aren't going to bite and fight each other because they simply exist. A dog without it's vaccines can get real diseases that are easily transmitted; because dogs. It's borderline animal cruelty to have your animal go without its shots.
If dogs can't get autism, the entire animal control sub-forum has a lot of explaining to do. Either they aren't doglike or they aren't autistic, which one is it?
Oh boy can't wait for the return of rabies because of these dumb fucks, if they are this stupid about vaccines they are going to try and import rabies infected animals.
Fuck anti-vaxxers. Seriously. They endanger the innocents that depend on them (namely their children and now their pets) because of debunked evidence from crackpot websites.
Guaranteed that what they mean by "autistic behavior" in their dogs, just like what they mean with "my child has autism caused by vaccine injury," is:
"I can't be bothered to train my dog/child not to behave in antisocial ways. If they were normal like other people's dogs/kids, they'd just naturally be good all the time, and I could make them keep being good just by praising them and being their friend all the time. Their autism (unfortunately) means that never trying to control their behavior results in uncontrolled behavior, but of course you can't judge autistic dogs/kids based on normal standards, so there's no point in trying to stop their undesirable behaviors now. My dog naturally displays dog aggression/my child just bites and hits other kids out of overstimulation, and you're victimizing them if you ask for any restrictions to be put on their ability to hurt other dogs/kids."
>antivaxxers having to try this hard
I honestly believe that the only way to really change these retard's minds is to let them experience firsthand just what happens when you decide not to protect your damn kid from illness. It shouldn't be about making sure they don't "catch" autism, it should be about making sure they don't wind up with fucking tetanus or some shit.
What's that? Your kid died from (insert disease that they could have easily been vaccinated for here)? Well, at least they didn't become autistic, right?
The Study was caused because of our previously really good record at bio-safety has been affected by a lot of people not vaccinating their animals, We still have the record for being Rabies free for as long as we have but it only takes 1 case to get past quarrenteen for that to get fucked up.
But the two really worrying ones are Parvo that causes a really unpleasant death in Dogs, and Foot and Mouth which does have a vaccine available and is normally given to animals that can be carriers (like cats an dogs) but not get infected, Foot and Mouth is fucking horrifying and if anyone can recall the last outbreak they will not have to wonder why but we had to terminate 60 - 70% of the UK heard of Bovines and that was devastating.
It got that bad they where taking Sperm, Egg and General DNA samples from rare breeds just in case they had to be culled, and since then they have found a few of them might be resistant to the F&M infection they have also been breeding them like crazy to repopulate the heard so much so some nearly extinct like <100 animals world wide are now in the 10k+ number range and that's done wonders for bio-diversity within the breeds and especially in the Pig industry and specialty local breeds that work for various enviorments are doing much better.
But the Anti Vaccination crowd are normally, either ignorant of the potential vaccinations or Wannabee farmers who have watched one too many Hugh Fernly Whittingstall shows, who are a massive pain in the arse who don't follow regulations out of either ignorance (at best) and willful I know better / I want to be Organic who don't understand that Vaccines won't effect that certification and this is despite massive marketing and informational efforts by EVERY part of the Agriculture sector in the UK.
Oh boy can't wait for the return of rabies because of these dumb fucks, if they are this stupid about vaccines they are going to try and import rabies infected animals.
And the worst is, if their unvaccinated dog catches rabies it's sure death for it. And they'll maintain that idea that better dead than autistic because obviously this British Veterinary Association is allied with Big Pharma...
I don't know about this my little grey hound mix mutt lays on it's back half off my bed and makes faces at me or laps it's nose, it also will randomly do standing jumps in place and make sneezing noises at the same time, why? I have no clue and never will.
>TFW your service dog is a bigger sped than you but you can't help but love him
