April 24, 2008
‘Dog Guardian Angels’ sought for Rabies Challenge Fund
Charitable Trust
By Lee Schoenbart
She might look demure but this little saucy gal, who can trace her lineage all the way back to the Island of Malta, can tell you that if you don’t have your health, “Fame Is a Bitch.”
She said so on her You Tube video and on her Web site – fameisabitch.com.
Welcome to the world of Chiclet, a well-heeled, four-pound, 8-year-old Maltese who lives just outside Fairbanks Ranch with her cousin Jiggy and their human Jan Rasmusen.
Chiclet is here to dispel an ugly medical fact that’s been plaguing canines across the country for many, many decades. Rabies vaccinations are for the safety of the people population and not dogs, even though “man’s best friend” has been taking the shots for humankind for what seems like, well, forever.
Unfortunately for the pet, a vaccination that pet owners believe ought to last a lifetime, must be administered every three years as mandated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Additionally, components that help carry the vaccine into the bloodstream can have lethal consequences for the dog.
“The rabies vaccine is to protect people, not dogs. It’s the only one mandated by law,” said Chiclet T. Dog, narrator of Rasmusen’s award-winning book Scared Poopless: The Straight Scoop on Dog Care. “You’re protecting dogs, so that dogs don’t bite people.
“And it’s made from a ‘killed’ vaccine because sometimes a ‘live’ vaccine will cause the disease that it’s supposed to protect against – whoops!
“And they can’t let the rabies vaccine cause the virus, although from time to time it does,” Chiclet said.
Oddly enough, and to the chagrin of dog owners in the United States, the government does not accept the findings of foreign tests (a 1992 French study showed five-year immunity) and the USDA has rebuffed requests to conduct a study of its own to discover the length of immunity past three years or the serious side effects of the components added to the killed vaccine.
On April 1, The Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association published its “Postmarketing Surveillance of Rabies Vaccines for Dogs to Evaluate Safety and Efficacy” report.
The Journal noted that despite the extreme under-reporting of vaccinal adverse reactions, between April 1, 2004, and March 31, 2007, the Center for Veterinary Biologics learned nearly 10,000 adverse event reports (all animal species) were received by manufacturers of rabies vaccines. Approximately 65 percent of the manufacturer’s reports involved dogs.
According to The Journal’s study, rabies vaccines are the most common group of biological products identified in adverse event reports received by the Center for Veterinary Biologics. Among those reactions suffered by dogs were vomiting, circulatory shock, lack of consciousness, fever and death.
Soon a five-year and seven-year study will be under way to test how long the vaccine’s protection remains effective as well as the safety of the shot’s ingredients. The studies are needed if federal laws are to be challenged regarding the frequency and content of vaccinations forced upon dog lover’s pets.
In order to complete the studies, the nonprofit Rabies Challenge Fund Charitable Trust needs to raise $1.25 million.
Beginning May 1, Chiclet and Rasmusen will be making a matching donation to the Rabies Challenge Fund.
“That means we’ll match any donation of $100 or more, up to $10,000,” said Chiclet who will also be on the lookout for “Dog Guardian Angels” to help them grow the matching fund.
“Jan and I will be involved in a campaign asking others to donate to the fund and asking other extreme dog lovers like ourselves to add to our matching fund in the name of their dogs. Their dogs will be pictured on the site and in other publicity along with mine.”
The funding challenge is personal to Chiclet and Rasmusen because Jiggy suffers from autoimmune liver disease.
“He was well at six months. He had a rabies shot at one year and right afterwards he had autoimmune liver disease,” Chiclet recalled being told by her human mom. “There’s a whole list of things that dogs get; it just doesn’t happen the next day.
“Let’s say you go into the vet’s office and get a rabies shot and your dog drops dead. – it happens more often that you would want to believe – then you go, ‘oh, it was the shot.’
“But if you get the shot and next week your dog starts having seizures or next month it starts having seizures or develops an autoimmune disease that maybe you don’t catch for six months because you aren’t doing blood tests or you might not even catch it for a year until the dog is really sick, all of these different things could happen after the rabies vaccine, in particular,” she said.
Chiclet said she is not trying to get the rabies vaccination abolished.
“Rabid dogs make lousy pets!” she said.
Chiclet is just challenging how often the vaccine is given and is trying to help make it safer.
To learn more about the challenge fund locally, e-mail Chiclet at dogs4dogs@aol.com or call Rasmusen at (858) 755-8820.
For information, e-mail info@rabieschallengefund.org.
Fund donations can be made by calling (714) 891-2022 or e-mail donation@rabieschallengefund.org.
Donations by mail should be made payable to “Rabies Challenge Fund” and sent to Rabies Challenge Fund, c/o Hemopet, 11330 Markon Drive, Garden Grove, CA 92841.
To learn more, visit http://www.Dogs4Dogs.com {or http://www.Truth4Dogs.org}
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