I actually know the person who posted that article to the Best Friends Network. She's a friend of mine; however, her vet is Dr. Norsworthy and she trusts him completely, much like I do my vet. If my vet told me my cat needed a vaccine for this condition, I would believe him. In fact, when she told me she was getting her cats vaccinated against this mutated calici virus I went to *my* vet and asked him about it. Dr. Norswothy published an article in the January issue of Cat Fancy, which I do not subscribe to but he does, so I went so far as to dig through his issues and drag it out and show it to him. I would say the Cat Fancy article is more the source of the rumors than the BF article is, as it came out in January and the BF article came out just a couple of days ago. That is just my opinion though.
He told me that Fort Dodge makes vaccines of questionable quality, and that he did not recommend giving the vaccine. He only uses Meiral vaccines. Also does not recommend the FIP vaccine which is also manufactured by Ft Dodge. He says he has never seen a case of this and that the (admittedly gruesome) pictures that accompanied the Cat Fancy article could be several other things. So I never paid any attention to this calici thing after that. I'm not going to argue with my friend about what her trusted vet says, though. It wouldn't serve any purpose and is not a battle I would win. On 4/29/07, [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
PLEASE CROSS-POST THIS REPLY WIDELY! I've concluded this is a scam by Fort Dodge (via a vet working under their thumb through a big-time advertising company that has questionable ethical practices). I have submitted it to snopes.com so they can research it further, as they have better researchers than myself on their staff. I can find no studies or evidence online to back up these statements of a wide-spread new Calici outbreak requiring immediate vaccination with the new vaccine. All the "many" outbreaks I've seen posted are the word of mouth statements by one Dr. Norsworthy - a vet with current articles online that state blatantly FALSE facts with regards to current vaccination options and protocols. The only reference to calici outbreaks that matches the descriptions are on these webpages, which are several YEARS past now (the one outbreak I've seen documented by trusted sources happened in a very confined area in CA in 2002): http://www.sheltermedicine.com/portal/is_vs_fcv.shtml http://www.sheltermedicine.com/portal/journals.php http://www.goodnewsforpets.com/Articles.asp?ID=695 http://www.dvmvac.org/swiftaction.asp http://www.patentdebate.com/PATAPP/20040259225 (vaccine seems to have been at least partly patented in 2004 by UC Davis researchers) I did find the name of the vet who is traveling the country giving presentations about this new strain of calici, Dr. Norsworthy: http://network.bestfriends.org/texas/news/14454.html (this article may be the main source of all of the rumors, actually, as many people trust Best Friends as a good source of information. What people need to be aware of is that ANY news source can be influenced by the drug company campaigns. I believe this is an unfortunate case of just that having happened.) Not very surprisingly to me, when I found a link explaining Dr. Norsworthy's work and presentations, the page for "more info" is no longer there: http://www.goodnewsforpets.com/Articles.asp?ID=699 http://www.dvmvac.org/drnorsworthy.htm Doing more digging, I did find this on the same website, and if you just READ the answers this "vet" gives to the questions you can quickly conclude that one of two things are going on here: 1. This vet is a total moron that doesn't know about the most basic aspects of veterinary care, like INTRA_NASAL vaccines. 2. This is SO outdated, it was pre-Intra-nasal vaccine days, and thus makes it so medically outdated as to be completely useless in modern medicine circles, thus completely removing any credibility to this rumor: http://www.dvmvac.org/norsworthy_calicivirus.asp Also of note, this entire website is a VERY PRO_VACCINE website, even going so far as to deny the proven facts about VAS and denouncing the new APPROVED feline vaccination guidelines of every 3 years for many vaccines! This one particular vet seems to be "in the pocket" of the pro-vaccination people, namely, the vaccine manufacturers. In fact the website dvmvac.org, is run by a company that blatantly, on their main website proudly professes their specialty, making people believe what they need to believe to get the client's message across: " Germinder & Associates, Inc. Reaching influentials and decision-makers, building categories and achieving outstanding results are our hallmarks. Although the Internet has vastly changed communications today, Germinder & Associates knows from our twenty-six years of agency experience that providing the right mix of tactics and targeted information is still essential to success. Our award-winning firm brings you the best of both worlds - traditional marketing communications experience and online communications expertise to deliver the most effective programs for your message. " Not so coincidentally, one of their OTHER main clients are Wyeth Animal Health, a sister company of Fort Dodge Animal Health, the makers of this new vaccine: http://www.germinder.com/wyeth.asp I did, however, call both the poster of this email: Bonnie Morrison - 513-604-5509 Ohio State Coordinator Emergency Animal Rescue Service United Animal Nations, and Co-Founder Tri State County Animal Response Team And I also called the office of the vet who supposedly wrote this article for this specific paper: Dr. Dan Meakin All Creatures Animal Hospital 1894 Ohio Pike Amelia OH 45102 513-797-PETS Bonnie confirmed that she did post the article to the internet originally, and quoted her source as "The SUN newspaper". She states that it was indeed published in her paper there. Any spelling errors might have been due to her transcription errors, I assume. I then called Dr. Meakin's office, and got the emergency answering service there. While she couldn't give me any details, she did say that they have been seeing some calici in their office, and they had a "specialist" in the area come give a presentation at their office recently, which may have been why Dr. Meakin wrote and submitted that article to this paper (I suspect this would have been the Dr. Norsworthy mentioned in the above link). She did say she can't confirm that he did, but she also stated that he DOES contribute to that particular paper upon occasion, and gave the full name of the paper as the Claremont Sun. She told me if I wanted more details, I could call tomorrow during office hours, as she doesn't have that information available to her. It is my conclusion that neither Bonnie nor Dr. Meakin intentionally mislead the online feline community, but they, themselves have been mislead by a doctor (Dr. working under the guise of good intentions, but under direction of the vaccine company, to influence these vets to routinely vaccinate cats for this NON-CORE vaccine, against a virus which has been limited in it's outbreak range. Oddly enough, the Fort Dodge, and Wyeth website DO NOT HAVE any information about this vaccine posted on their websites! Even though every vet clinic that is advertising it on their website states that Fort Dodge has information about the vaccine available, it appears that it is NOT AVAILABLE: http://wyeth.com/products/animalhealth http://www.wyeth.com/search?searchQuery=CaliciVax&search=Search&index=wyeth_web_site In fact, the only place I can find it online at all is for sale at websites and being advertised on vet websites, or other sites referring back to Dr. Norsworthy - NONE with any studies, or technical information about the vaccine at all: http://www.dvmnewsmagazine.com/dvm/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=408460 http://www.lambriarvetsupply.com/i_007FTD13-1_Calicivax-50-1-tray.php http://www.revivalanimal.com/product.asp?pn=21-320&bhcd2=1177885147 https://www.webstervet.net/app.aspx?cmd=get_item&id=411588 That, in itself, is scary. WHY would they NOT have it's information publicly accessible? What are they hiding?
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