More than half of U.S. dog owners expressed concerns about vaccinating their dogs, including against rabies, according to a new study published Saturday in the journal Vaccine. The study comes as anti-vaccine sentiments among humans have exploded in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Pets are now often considered to be a member of the family, and their health-care decisions are weighed with the same gravity. But the consequences of not vaccinating animals can be just as dire as humans. Dogs, for example, are responsible for 99% of rabies cases globally. Rabies, which is often transmitted via a bite, is almost always fatal for animals and people once clinical signs appear. A drop in rabies vaccination could constitute a serious public health threat.
In the new study, the authors surveyed 2,200 people and found 53% had some concern about the safety, efficacy or necessity of canine vaccines. Nearly 40% were concerned that vaccines could cause dogs to develop autism, a theory without any scientific merit.
Sure, but with the much bigger minus that rabid dogs are also likely to bite a lot of perfectly innocent people, particularly kids, and even more particularly, kids who have crazy anti-vaxxer parents that might not get them a (human) rabies shot in time to save their life after a dog bite.
(note how many kids die of self-inflected gunshot wounds because their parents are too stupid to keep them safe from those)
As a kid I remember a rabid dog confronting me in an alley. A cop showed up an shot him dead. You might think I would be traumatized, but actually thought it was kind of cool.