Still vaccinating your pet every year?

Kim Campbell Thornton • E-mail

Vaccinations have saved many pets' lives over the years, but they aren't without risk. Now, with new research showing that immunity may last longer than once thought, veterinary experts say it's safer to decrease the frequency of most shots that typically have been given every year.

Side effects from vaccinations range from mild itching and swelling to anaphylactic shock leading to death. Cats may develop vaccine sarcomas, which are cancers that develop at the site of the injection. And dogs may develop certain autoimmune diseases.

Veterinarians have suspected for years that annual vaccinations for cats and dogs aren’t necessary, but large, well-controlled studies just didn’t exist to prove it one way or the other. With the exception of rabies vaccine, the U.S. Department of Agriculture doesn’t require data beyond one year for any vaccine.

With that being the case, vaccine manufacturers arbitrarily recommended annual vaccinations, and most veterinarians, concerned about liability issues, concurred.

Sometimes immunity lasts a lifetime
More recently, however, several published studies have shown that immunity provided by some vaccines lasts for much longer than one year and in some cases for a lifetime.

FAST FACTS ON VACCINE REACTIONS Most dogs and cats never develop vaccine-related problems. But vaccines are medications, and any medication has the potential to cause side effects. Here’s what you should know: — Signs of local reactions to vaccinations include itching, swelling, pain, hair loss at the injection site, and cancer development at the injection site. — Systemic reactions, which involve the entire body or a specific area other than the injection site, include allergic reactions; anaphylaxis and collapse; polyarthritis (lameness); vomiting, with or without diarrhea (most common in cats); trouble breathing; fever; and lethargy. — The vaccines most likely to cause reactions are distemper, parvovirus, rabies and giardia. — The breeds most at risk for vaccine reactions are Akitas, American Eskimo Dogs, Cocker Spaniels, Great Danes and Weimaraners. Any animal with a white coat and pink nose or a dilute coat color, like that of the harlequin Great Dane, is more at risk.

"We know that for [canine] distemper and parvo, for example, the immunity lasts a minimum of five years, probably seven to nine years, and for some individuals for a lifetime,” says veterinarian Jean Dodds, founder of Hemopet, the first nonprofit national blood bank program for animals, located in Santa Monica, Calif.

“For cats, so far we have challenge data out nine years showing that immunity is still protective," says Dodds. And with rabies vaccine, new data indicate the immunity lasts for at least seven years, she says.

What does all this mean for your dog or cat? As with many other aspects of veterinary medicine, vaccinations are becoming individualized, but in most cases, fewer and less frequent vaccinations are the way to go. Most animals need only what are known as core vaccines: those that protect against the most common and most serious diseases. In dogs, the core vaccines are distemper, parvovirus, hepatitis and rabies. In cats, they are panleukopenia, calicivirus, rhinotracheitis (herpesvirus), and rabies as required by law.

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