Immune Mediated Hemolytic Anemia

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Immune Mediated Hemolytic Anemia

NOTE:  This is excerpted from a well note Vet's newsletter.

"I have to tell you about a life-threatening disease that I absolutely hate.  It comes on very quickly - and to young healthy dogs.  Many dogs get it and more than 50% of dogs that get it die.  It is awful.  No one knows exactly why it happens.  I wish there was a cure but there is not."

"The disease is called immune mediated hemolytic anemia and it is caused by some abnormality in the dog's immune system.  The body's immune system normally helps keep us healthy by killing bad bacteria.  But for some reason  with this disease it suddenly identifies healthy red blood cells in the body as foreign  "bad"  cells - and it starts destroying them."

"This disease is really awful.  Over the course of sometimes hours, a dog can become weak and lethargic.  Sometimes the dog will vomit.  The gums become pale as the dog becomes anemic from losing the red blood cells in its body.  Treatment of this disease is difficult and expensive.  You can give the dog blood transfusions but the body will often destroy the transfused cells too.   Sometimes transfusions are necessary but they are not a cure."

"The other treatment is drug therapy to suppress the immune system.   Drugs will work for some dogs but not all.  It is very frustrating."


And now my perspective:








A holistic perspective on the  "But for some reason"  noted above in red

It may come as a surprise to you that not all vets recommend vaccines, in fact, more and more ethical and well informed vets never vaccinate.  They will use Titer testing as an alternative because of the known health dangers associated with vaccinations.  All vets can write health exemptions for any vaccine, including rabies.

The simple fact is that un-vacccinated animals live longer, healthier and happier lives, as noted by Buddy above.  Hera is 15.5 years old and just yesterday she was out trotting around, with a few energetic bursts of short gallops!  

We've had several 16 & 17 year old Rotts!

It breaks our hearts when we see animals dying younger and younger and know how easily, in most cases, that can be prevented.  The two causes, we believe, to be contributory for these tragic diseases and deaths are vaccines and toxins in most commercial dog foods, and that goes for people too.

You may also be interested in knowing that vets, and medical doctors, obtain a fee for each vaccine and pharmaceutical that they suggest for their clients.  In other words, they have a strong financial incentive to recommend what we consider to be known toxins to their clients.

There are some excellent holistic vets who do not put their financial interests ahead of your animals health.

Most don't know or understand how your body responds when vaccine pathogens, cultured in decaying tissue of both animal and human origin, coupled with any combination of synthetic ingredients are injected into your body.

Many doctors & vets have attributed the current epidemic of auto-immune diseases and cancers to the experimental injection of vaccines.  An autoimmune disease is defined as any disease that is characterized by abnormal functioning of the immune system that causes your immune system to produce antibodies against your own tissues.

If vaccine ingredients aren't scary enough there is more.  Many of the vaccines use attenuated vaccines which are a live but weakened form of a pathogenic virus, such as Swine flu, Kennel Cough, Parvo, Rabies etc.  

Attenuated vaccines can be particularly deadly.

When a vaccine containing a live virus is injected into a person or animal, the viral organism moves through the body with the potential of infecting the host and then exits through the feces, mucus membranes, sweat & saliva glands of the infected person or animal, thus potentially spreading the disease and causing the disease that the vaccine was designed to prevent.  This is called Virus Shedding and can last for weeks and in some cases months.

GoodSearch.com  for "attenuated vaccines"  for more information.

Who would really want to risk their health, or their animals health, by injecting attenuated vaccines into their bloodstream in the hope it will immunize them?

American Animal Hospital Association
Canine Vaccine Task Force 2003 Canine Vaccine Guidelines
"Current knowledge supports the statement that no vaccine is always safe, no vaccine is always protective and no vaccine is always indicated."

In a research study published in 1996, the authors looked at a deadly canine disease of a confused immune system.   Known as  immune mediated hemolytic anemia   (IMHA),  it means the dogs' immune systems attacked their own red blood cells as if they were foreign.  Needless to say, this is life challenging and the death rate is high, as one cannot live long without the oxygen-carrying red blood cells.

This is the exact disease that the vet newsletter mentioned.  So why doesn't that vet know about a study done 15 years earlier?

In the study, 58 dogs with the illness, presenting at a veterinary teaching hospital over a two year period, were compared to a control group presenting for other problems over the same time.  The question was asked.

"Did anything precede the onset of IMHA?"   Lo and behold, a highly statistically significant group of the sick dogs had been vaccinated with the usual yearly vaccines one month earlier.

It was so significant that the authors entitled their paper.  "Vaccine Associated Immune Mediated Hemolytic Anemia in the Dog." (Duval and Giger, J Vet Intern Med 1996;10:290-295)

It's Happy Tails sad experience that it most often follows a single Rabies vaccination.  One of our beautiful Rotti girls was adopted to a wonderful holistic person who used an alleged holistic vet.

This vet intimidated her into giving a single Rabies vaccine.  Two months later Stella was dying.

That was years ago, and only through extensive, herbal, homeopathic and other natural remedies is Stella alive today.  She continued to have ups and downs periodically, but otherwise, was gorgeous, energetic and lucky to be alive.  Stella enjoyed an organic raw and cooked diet, including raw goat milk.  She used homeopathy, herbs and lived five more years.

Had she been taken to most vets, they wouldn't have associated her auto immune disorder with the Rabies vaccine, even though there was thorough research dating from 1996.