Originally Posted by A1Malinois

They can give you a medical exemption for 2 weeks, 2 years or life. But they cannot titre and say "Ok, his rabies titre came back good so heres another 2 year certificate"



I was specifying just for the Province of Ontario

Originally Posted by Tuco

As I have said repeated there is vet little research on the subject over over vaccination those resources not only have to do with over vaccination but with vaccine reactions. As for the dating, I failed to find any current studies that relate to the subject, nevertheless I read over them and most aren't dated enough to make a significant difference on what the study was of.

Originally Posted by Penny & Maggie's Mom

Dr. Dodds and Dr. Schulz have ongoing research with their rabies challenge fund. Duration of Immunity Study for Rabies Vaccine - Rabies Challenge Fund The co-founder Kris Christine posts here occassionally on related issues.

Originally Posted by hotel4dogs

yep, that's the study killing the 125 beagles.

Originally Posted by BajaOklahoma

A medical exemption is not available everywhere.

Originally Posted by hotel4dogs

I was going to stay out of this highly emotional topic, but finally couldn't resist.

First, the people who are against vaccinating, for the most part, aren't old enough to remember what it was like before the vaccinations were routine. If you haven't seen the animal control come to a house to get all the pets and have them destroyed because they had distemper, you don't know how contagious and horrendous it is. If you haven't watched puppies bleed out and die a painful, horrid death from parvo, it's easy to blow off the vaccinations. (Same with measles and polio, but I digress).

Secondly, I have an autoimmune disease and have attended numerous medical conferences on autoimmunity. The thing that the "anti-vaccination" people are missing is that autoimmunity IS A GENETIC PROBLEM. You need two things to have an autoimmune reaction. First and foremost, a genetic tendency to autoimmunity. Secondly, a "trigger event".
Yes, the trigger event can be a vaccination IN A DOG WITH A GENETIC TENDENCY TOWARD AUTOIMMUNITY. But as Tippykayak said, anything can trigger the autoimmune disease and one of the first things that they teach us mere humans with autoimmune problems is that the risk of being exposed to the disease is much more likely to trigger the autoimmune event than a killed vaccination is (live vaccines are a slightly different story). If the dog does not have a genetic predisposition to autoimmunity, you can literally vaccinate them EVERY DAY and it will NOT cause an autoimmune disease.
There is so much misunderstanding about it, and crap on the internet gets picked up and passed along as gospel truth.
They have NEVER found any relationship between vaccinations and cancer in dogs. They have NEVER found any relationship between vaccinations and (good grief) hip dysplasia, unless you use the "mother's milk theory".
In one of my many science classes in which they were discussing experimental methods, and how careful you have to be to not report a "cause and effect" relationship when none exists, they talked about the "mother's milk experiment theories".
All drug addicts begin life on either mother's milk or formula or some sort. Therefore, we can conclude that mother's milk and/or infant formula cause drug addiction. Seriously?
To say that vaccinations cause HD because all dogs who develop HD have been vaccined is equally ludicrous.

I do agree that we shouldn't vaccinate dogs any more than is necessary, but that's where the question comes in. How long do vaccinations last?
Well, no one really knows. And the titers are not considered "reliable" because no one really knows what the numbers mean. There are some excellent scholarly articles about titers if one wants to google and read them.
Also, there is some evidence that the length of immunity is breed specific. Rottweilers, for example, are notorious for not developing enough or long-term immunity from vaccinations. No one knows why.
So will we do challenge studies on every breed? I think not.
And why don't we do challenge studies in the first place? Well....because you have to kill a whole lot of dogs to do one. Yep, like the rabies challenge that's going on right now, they plan to "sacrifice" about 125 beagles. By definition, the only way to do a challenge study is to keep exposing the dog to the virus until it contracts it. And since the big 3 diseases are pretty much universally fatal, you have to "sacrifice" the experimental animals. Animal testing anyone??
So what are we left with? It's a personal decision that everyone has to make after they discuss it with their vet (of which most are pretty clueless, sorry to say) regarding their dog's age, risk factors, general health, and so on.

Originally Posted by Shalva

Be very careful to read the fine print and read the law on these medical exemptions...

I have done some research on this as my Cuinn qualified for a medical exemption. In many states all the medical exemption does is allow you to register your dog without a rabies shot

BUT

It treats your dog as it does any other unvaccinated dog in the case of an incident. Thus the dog is NOT exempted from being euthanised if something happens or quarantined or any of the other repercussions that can happen if something happens.

So if your medically exempted dogs tooth catches your neighbors hand while playing ball and the neighbor finds out that the dog is not vaccinated that can be big trouble. If your dog tangles with wildlife again that can be trouble. In my case my Cuinn fly bites due to his seizures and I was very concerned that someone could come over and accidentally get scratched or a tooth could catch and we could have a problem.

everyone has to make their own decision but be sure to read what the law actually says

Originally Posted by Shalva

Be very careful to read the fine print and read the law on these medical exemptions...

I have done some research on this as my Cuinn qualified for a medical exemption. In many states all the medical exemption does is allow you to register your dog without a rabies shot

BUT

It treats your dog as it does any other unvaccinated dog in the case of an incident. Thus the dog is NOT exempted from being euthanised if something happens or quarantined or any of the other repercussions that can happen if something happens.

So if your medically exempted dogs tooth catches your neighbors hand while playing ball and the neighbor finds out that the dog is not vaccinated that can be big trouble. If your dog tangles with wildlife again that can be trouble. In my case my Cuinn fly bites due to his seizures and I was very concerned that someone could come over and accidentally get scratched or a tooth could catch and we could have a problem.

everyone has to make their own decision but be sure to read what the law actually says

Originally Posted by hotel4dogs

I know this is also the case in Illinois. And it doesn't have to be a bite, a scratch with their toenail is the same problem.