Anti-vaccine proponents are increasingly making the same unfounded claims about pets and vaccines they have been repeating about children and vaccines for the past 20 years: that vaccines are unnecessary, dangerous and that they can cause diseases. According a TIME magazine article, the negative attention on vaccines is growing globally. Looking at the circulation demographics, TIME readers are likely to be some of the better potential clients of veterinary practices.
Often, the concerns the pet owners have are both vague and catastrophic, with vaccines said simply to overwhelm the immune system and leave the animal susceptible to any and all diseases. That creates a neat kind self-validating reasoning: any illness the animal contracts, no matter how unrelated to vaccination, can be blamed on it.
Source: TIME, March 8, 2019. Link. There is not a dog in the world that has ever enjoyed the feel of a veterinarian’s needle. But that pain is incidental and fleeting; the pain of the diseases the shots prevent is far worse, far more enduring—and sometimes fatal.
Not to vaccinate against these diseases is crazy. Our pets count on us to be smarter than that.” – Nicholas Dodman, BDVM
INSIGHTS: Please share this article with veterinary team members and other team members. Why is this article important to animal health pros often numb to vaccine compliance issues? Consider:
TIME’s U.S. National Audience Profile
Total U.S. Audience 18,837,000 . . . yes more than 18 million
Female 48 percent
Male 52 percent
Median Age 50
Median Householde income $80,617
Att/Grad College+ 12,116,000 . . . 64.2 percent of total readers
Professional or Managerial 5,502,000
Household income >$100,000 7,094,000