Let me begin by stressing that I’m not an anti-vaxxer — not by any stretch of the imagination. And every time I use this post title, I want you to remember that.
It’s not just that I’ve had childhood vaccines and a couple of tetanus shots, but vaccines remain the most important step forward for the health and longevity of purebred companion dogs (of which I am a breeder) of the last 100 years. Vaccines are a way of life here, and like many of you in the agriculture industry, I routinely administer them myself. They protect against the horrors of parvovirus and distemper. Diseases that once wiped out a lifetime of work in a week are no longer a threat, and for that I am grateful.
That said…
Holy Hell, failures like this have a way of making you sit up and pay attention.
Something strange started happening to calves in Europe in 2007: Horrific blood clotting issues & depletion of bone marrow Read how in 2010, under pressure, Pf!zer finally withdrew the BVD vacc!ne linked to Bleeding Calf Syndrome
From 2011: Vaccine linked to ‘bleeding calf syndrome’
Bleeding calf syndrome (bovine neonatal pancytopenia or BNP) affects new born calves resulting in low blood cell counts and depletion of the bone marrow. It first emerged in 2007 and a serious number of cases are reported each year. In affected calves, bone marrow cells which produce platelets are also destroyed. Consequently the calves’ blood does not clot and they appear to bleed through undamaged skin. There is evidence that BNP is linked to the use of a particular vaccine against “Bovine viral diarrhea virus” (BVDV). […]
Prof Till Rümenapf from Justus-Liebig-Universität Giessen commented that, “Alloantibodies (antibodies generated by one individual of a species against another of the same species) are produced by the mother if she has different MHC I than the bovine cells used to grow the vaccine. These do not harm the mother. However if her calf has the same MHC I as the vaccine production cells, the antibodies in her colostrum will destroy the calf’s cells, including those of the bone marrow. Destruction of megakaryocytes results in the calf being unable to produce platelets and consequently its blood cannot coagulate.”
I can guarantee no one at Pfizer saw that coming. Let’s hope they learned something from it.
