Why do some people think that we should stop vaccinating cows?
The usual suspects…
Should We Stop Vaccinating Cows?
Of course, these folks who think that we should stop vaccinating cows likely don’t know that:
the first vaccine for cows was developed in 1881 - it was Louis Pasteur’s anthrax vaccine, which made an immense impact on farming and led to plummeting anthrax mortality rates in France.
by the early 1900s, cows were routinely vaccinated for anthrax, blackleg, rinderpest, and foot-and-mouth-disease
In 1900, the blackleg vaccine was very effective! next, we got a vaccine for brucellosis in the 1940s, a disease that often caused late-term abortions, birth of unhealthy calves, infertility, and decreased milk production
vaccines for leptospirosis, infectious bovine respiratory diseases, including infectious bovine rhinotracheitis, also became available in the 1940s through the 1960s
combination vaccines against infectious bovine rhinotracheitis, bovine viral diarrhea, parainfluenza-3 respiratory disease, bovine RSV, and leptospirosis and clostridial diseases routinely used since the 1970s.
And today, cows still receive those same vaccines, although many more are available depending on herd risks.
Should we stop giving them?
Do farmers and ranchers want to go back to the day when their cows were getting and dying from anthrax, blackleg, brucellosis, and all of these other now vaccine-preventable diseases?
Of course they don’t!
“Vaccine scepticism and misinformation is affecting uptake of bluetongue jabs needed to protect farm animals, senior vets have warned.”
Vaccine scepticism affecting bluetongue jab uptake
Or at least the great majority of them don’t…