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> Edited to add another charming detail from the article: "A 2023 study published in the journal Vaccine found in a nationally representative sample of American

by timr 1y ago

> Edited to add another charming detail from the article: "A 2023 study published in the journal Vaccine found in a nationally representative sample of Americans that nearly 40% believed canine vaccines were unsafe and 37% believed that vaccines could lead their dogs to develop cognitive issues, such as autism." You should always go to the primary source. Here's the Vaccine paper [1,2]. I don't say this often about papers, but this is total crap. They did a YouGov survey of 2200 people, and HILARIOUSLY, 84% of respondents stated that their dog was up-to-date on the Rabies vaccine (another 5% weren't sure.) Oopsie! No matter...they just barge ahead with their pre-determined conclusions, and make a model of "Canine Vaccine Hesitancy" based on these responses anyway. BTW, I see no support for the claim that "40% believed canine vaccines were unsafe". The closest survey response is this one, at 30%: > Most vaccines that dogs receive are not medically necessary (You'll note that this is not a question about the Rabies vaccine. Just vaccines in general. And, of course, your guess is as good as mine what "most" means.) The whole paper is almost designed to create a narrative of "vaccine hesitancy amongst pet owners" -- it asks some questions about how people feel about animal vaccine mandates and safety in general, then tries make a a model to predict negative responses (which they call "CVH"), and then they use that to predict opposition to mandatory vaccine policies. At no point do they actually deal with the fact that the vast majority of their respondents, regardless of opinion, actually vaccinated their pet for Rabies. I don't know if Vaccine is a good journal, but this is just a classic example of a paper that should never have made it past peer review. [1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0264410X23010150 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S02644... [2] (full text of draft here, where you can see the data) https://ideas.repec.org/p/osf/socarx/qmbkv.html https://ideas.repec.org/p/osf/socarx/qmbkv.html

water-data-dude 1y ago
If 10% of people aren't vaccinating their dogs for rabies that's WAY too many, and it's a big problem. Going to good ol' Wikipedia[0], "in countries where dogs commonly have the disease, more than 99% of rabies cases in humans are the direct result of dog bite. In the Americas, bat bites are the most common source of rabies infections in humans, and less than 5% of cases are from dogs." But the article is citing sources from 2011 - if TEN PERCENT of people aren't getting their dogs their rabies shots, that number is going to increase. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabies https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabies
- timr 1y ago
  > If 10% of people aren't vaccinating their dogs for rabies that's WAY too many, and it's a big problem. First of all, it's an internet survey of 2200 people. The data is garbage and you can't conclude anything from it. Huge error bars. I didn't lean on that point above, but it's fundamentally true. Second, even assuming that the number is correct, who says it's a "big problem"? Rabies is not like the flu -- it requires direct, intimate contact for transmission. If the pets in question (like most pets) never meet a wild animal in their lives, the chances are high that it won't matter at all. Your main worry is dogs catching it from other dogs…but at a 90% vaccination rates and a rare event profile to begin with, that’s incredibly unlikely. I grant you that it would be better to have 100% vaccination rates, but I doubt we’ve ever actually had that. Badness is relative.
  - water-data-dude 1y ago
    Rabies is something it's hard for me to be highly rational about. It's 100% fatal after symptoms appear‡, and it's just an absolute horror show of a disease. Most states require you to vaccinate your pets, which is HOW the US became a place where less than 5% of rabies cases come from dogs. You're right though, I don't know the exact threshold of unvaccinated pets where it really becomes a problem. And I also don't know how representative that survey is (I will admit I was waking up and didn't notice the source was an internet survey with a small sample size). ‡ I know, I know, they can put you in a coma and do some dramatic medical stuff and you might survive - but it's very expensive, of debatable efficacy, and even if it works you'll still probably have brain damage

by timr 1y ago

water-data-dude 1y ago

If 10% of people aren't vaccinating their dogs for rabies that's WAY too many, and it's a big problem. Going to good ol' Wikipedia[0], "in countries where dogs commonly have the disease, more than 99% of rabies cases in humans are the direct result of dog bite. In the Americas, bat bites are the most common source of rabies infections in humans, and less than 5% of cases are from dogs." But the article is citing sources from 2011 - if TEN PERCENT of people aren't getting their dogs their rabies shots, that number is going to increase. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabies https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabies

timr 1y ago
> If 10% of people aren't vaccinating their dogs for rabies that's WAY too many, and it's a big problem. First of all, it's an internet survey of 2200 people. The data is garbage and you can't conclude anything from it. Huge error bars. I didn't lean on that point above, but it's fundamentally true. Second, even assuming that the number is correct, who says it's a "big problem"? Rabies is not like the flu -- it requires direct, intimate contact for transmission. If the pets in question (like most pets) never meet a wild animal in their lives, the chances are high that it won't matter at all. Your main worry is dogs catching it from other dogs…but at a 90% vaccination rates and a rare event profile to begin with, that’s incredibly unlikely. I grant you that it would be better to have 100% vaccination rates, but I doubt we’ve ever actually had that. Badness is relative.
- water-data-dude 1y ago
  Rabies is something it's hard for me to be highly rational about. It's 100% fatal after symptoms appear‡, and it's just an absolute horror show of a disease. Most states require you to vaccinate your pets, which is HOW the US became a place where less than 5% of rabies cases come from dogs. You're right though, I don't know the exact threshold of unvaccinated pets where it really becomes a problem. And I also don't know how representative that survey is (I will admit I was waking up and didn't notice the source was an internet survey with a small sample size). ‡ I know, I know, they can put you in a coma and do some dramatic medical stuff and you might survive - but it's very expensive, of debatable efficacy, and even if it works you'll still probably have brain damage