again, if anyone can show me a documented case of a vaccinated, truly negative cat turning positive, i'll believe it.... i've looked, and tho i've heard a couple of anecdotal stories, in none of them was an IFA or retest ever done to assure the "negative" cat really was....
i truly believe that the efficacy studies were in HIGH-RISK cats--ie, very young, very old, otherwise compromised cats. remember that the vets who are saying, "it's only 85% effective," are the same ones who routinely euthanize healthy FeLVs (not to mention FIVs).... i've seen way too many unvaccinated cats who originally tested positive, then went to live in a setting with DEFINITE positives, who not only never became ill, but who later, when retested, show up as negative.... so, yes, they had been exposed and became positive, but at some point threw the virus off-yet continued to live with full positives without staying positive themselves. i've known a number of FIVs who tested positive for FeLV, went into a FeLV environment, then later on tested negative. (since people didn't realize that it takes a while for their bodies to process the virus, retesting just wasn't part of the plan.)
the OTHER thing that's been shown many times by now is that healthy UNVACCINATED adult cats can be exposed to the virus, contract it and process it out of their systems. with that in mind, it makes a lot more sense that vaccinated cats don't seem to get it.
why have combo vaccines been marketed and promoted so long as necessary every year? even with the new guidelines, i don't know that they've ever actually done large-scale research on how long the vaccines REALLY do protect. some breeders run titre tests to see if the vaccine is still active, but there's question about what that proves, too.
there are, and have been for a long time, a number of places/organizations with "captive" populations of FeLVs, the best possible place to do non-invasive research--but that hasn't been done. of course, even if it HAD been done, would the word have gotten to vets' offices and shelters? who knows how effective any vaccine or treatment protocol is when the population you're talking about is routinely, almost universally, treated by euthanasia,
until FeLV cats are allowed to live long enough to be retested to see if they really ARE positive (or negative, for that manner--a cat coming into a shelter could test negative because he/she was JUST exposed, so we don't really EVER know a cat's status without a retest), and until really adequate research is done, i just don't trust most vets or pharmaceutical firms to be accurate.
so, "healthy adult cat" is a big part of the equation--wherein lies the uncertainty. we very rarely know the actual genetic and medical history of the cats who come to us--so we don't know what problems are in their background, what illnesses they might have conquered before they came to us that has weakened their immune systems but might not show up til later
On 11/11/06, Gary Murphy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
If there were no documented cases of a vaccinated felv- contracting it from a positive, then wouldn't the vaccine be marketed as 100% effective, instead of 85% or so? I agree that many of the apparent vaccine failures could be due to "false negative" tests, but IMHO, until the testing gets more reliable and we know more about the disease, I don't think we should tell people their vaccinated cats are at absolutely no risk. We may suspect that from our own experiences, and we can relate those experiences to them, but we really don't know for sure. In my case, I did eventually decide the benefits of mixing vaccinated positives way outweighed the potential risks.BethOriginal message:as far as i know, there are no documented cases of VACCINATED negative cats contracting FeLV from living closely with positives--so if you have a positive kitty that you want to mingle, you have to weigh the pros and cons of vaccinating your other cats.ie, yeah, what tonya said!
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