D. E. Larsen, DVM

A warning: This post is inspired by a bit of politics. Something I seldom address, but I have a few points to help people understand some of the difficulties “experts” have in making vaccine decisions.

1) The Polio vaccine

I was going on a long trip with my grandparents in the summer of 1956. Polio was a major infectious disease at that time. The polio vaccine had been released in 1955, and they insisted on my vaccination. In 1913, they had lost a nephew to polio. He died twenty-four hours after diagnosis. I don’t know, but I suspect that my grandparents paid for the vaccines.

I was lucky that the trip had not been in 1995. That year, Cutter Laboratories released a batch of vaccine that had been produced with a manufacturing defect and contained live poliovirus. This caused 40,000 cases of polio, with some 400 children paralyzed and ten deaths. The link below allows you to read the full account. I encourage you to read it.

The polio vaccine was reworked, and controls and testing were instituted. The vaccine was needed, but it needed to be safe.

2) The veterinary Pasteurella vaccine.

The Pasteurella vaccine, a killed bacterin, was first introduced for cattle in 1949 – 1950. Pasteurellosis was a leading cause of death in pneumonias and played a significant role in shipping fever.

This vaccine was the most used vaccine in cattle for the next thirty-some years. In veterinary school at Colorado State, I was told by Dr. Pearson to never use this vaccine. Dr. Pearson was highly respected and a master cow doctor.

“This is a terrible vaccine,” Dr. Pearson said. “You should never use it. In fact, I would suggest that you decline service to any herds that are using this vaccine.”

I followed Dr. Pearson’s recommendation to the letter, turning down at least one herd when the owner would not discontinue the vaccine.

Sure enough, in the early 1980’s, research told the world the the vaccine did more harm than good. 

Shipping fever was so severe because the immune system of the cow would send many white blood cells into the lungs to fight the infection. The white blood cells would engulf the bacteria, which would then kill the white blood cells. The accumulation of dead cells in the airways worsened the pneumonia.

The vaccine made it easier for the white blood cells to engulf the bacteria. This actually led to making the pneumonia much worse.

I was at a state veterinary meeting in the early 1980s, seated at a table with a group of young veterinarians. One of the new doctors from the new veterinary school at Oregon State University stopped by to speak with us.

He wanted our opinion on the new research and on our use of the vaccine. I was the only one at the table who did not use the vaccine.

With thirty years on the market, it was apparent that the veterinarians and experts could not recognize the problem with the vaccine.

The vaccine was withdrawn, and over the following two years, it was reworked and reintroduced. I never did use the vaccine, even in its new and improved version.

3) Feline Leukemia vaccine.

The feline leukemia vaccine was released in 1984. Before the use of the vaccine, I would see cats come to the clinic and die every week. Sometimes daily.

One week that stands out in my memory, I saw three eighteen-month-old cats come to the clinic and die on the exam table from the stress of the trip in their weakened state. They were all young male cats of the same color. When the third one came to the clinic, I finally questioned the owner. Those three cats were all from the same litter. 

That was a common event in those days. In my first years of practice, confirming a diagnosis was difficult, and treatment options did not exist. Today, diagnosis is easy, but treatment options are few.

Before 1984, the average age of cats was seven years. I never saw a male cat over fifteen, and females over sixteen were rare. Now that average age is around fifteen, and cats in their twenties are common.

When most of my patients were vaccinated, I rarely would see a case of feline leukemia. Cases went from one to three a week to two or three a year. Problem solved, right?

After a couple of years of use, there were reports of fibrosarcoma tumors at the injection site of the vaccine. These were reported to be occurring in about one in 20,000 vaccinations.

It would take me a long time to do 20,000 vaccinations in Sweet Home. But we made the recommended adjustments in giving the vaccine. It was in the early 1990s before we saw our first tumor. As reported, it was difficult to manage. 

We removed the tumor twice, but each time it came back, it was more aggressive than before. The owner elected euthanasia.

One cat lost from the vaccine over six or seven years, compared to a hundred cats lost to the disease every year, seemed like a good trade to me.

The location where the vaccine was administered was changed. Changing it to the left hind leg, low on the leg. I mentioned the tumor, but still strongly recommended the vaccine.

Over the following years, we would see a tumor every two or three years. To me, this meant the incidence was much more frequent than one in 20,000. But the results were still better than looking at a dead cat every week.

The vaccine manufacturers started covering the treatment cost for the tumors that did occur. Initially, if the tumor was large, an amputation was recommended. That would be life-saving in most cases. Later, I would see good success in removing the tumor if I got to see it soon enough.

Now there are few veterinarians who were in practice prior to 1984. The incidence of feline leukemia is very low. Cats are often kept indoors only, or at least mostly. Vaccine recommendations place the feline leukemia vaccine low on the list, and probably rightfully so.

My concern is that the virus is still around, especially in feral cat populations. If I were still in practice, I would give the client the information and allow them to make the decision. If it were my cat, I would vaccinate it, unless it were kept indoors only.

The vaccine is still on the market. The benefits outweigh the risks.

Photo Credit: My daughter, DeLaine Larsen. Cats are Wishbone and Crystal. They are KATA Alumni. KATA was a kitty rescue group in Sweet Home. Wishbone and Crystal live in San Francisco. We delivered them 12 years ago. When we picked them out, we entered an old chicken coup holding twenty or thirty kittens. These two climbed up my pants leg, so they got selected. I am certain they are littermates, but who knows for sure.  

The Cutter Incident: How America’s First Polio Vaccine Led to the Growing Vaccine Crisis

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1410842/

D. E. Larsen, DVM

Prologue: I was forced to use my pocket knife to open a packet of mustard at the dinner table and it reminded me of this story, first published on December 30, 2019. It was a relatively new knife, purchased after I retired.

I have a vivid memory of having only a single request for a present for Christmas in 1950. I was five years old, and the only thing I wished for was a pocket knife. I was delighted when I opened the small package. It wasn’t much of a knife, small and thin with a single blade and fake pearl on the handle. But it was a pocket knife and for me, probably my first rite of passage. Virtually everybody in my life carried a pocket knife, my brothers, my father, my grandfather, and all my uncles. Now I was closer to that group of men.

I carried that knife, or others, every day since that Christmas. I don’t remember the pocket knife being much of a thing at school until about the third grade. At that time, skills with the knife became essential to the other boys (and a few girls) and me. Being able to ‘stick’ the knife when thrown, at the ground, at a wall he or in the chest of invading Russian, became a valuable skill.

  We played knife games before and after school and during recess. Mumbly-Peg was the main game played. We would stand to face each other, maybe 3 feet apart. The object of the game was to throw your knife a distance out from your opponent’s foot. If the knife stuck, the opponent would have to move his foot to the knife and then retrieve your knife. Then it was his turn. If the knife did not stick, then you lost a turn. The winner was determined when someone could not spread his feet far enough and could not retrieve your knife.

We also played a Cross Country game where you would throw your knife from a starting point, and you could advance to the knife if it stuck. There was a goal line, usually the fence around the schoolyard, and the first to reach the goal line won the game. 

In those years, 3 – 6 grades, I would go to school with my knife and a pocket of marbles. Marbles were also huge in the lives of most of the student body. There are not many pictures that survive those school days at Broadbent Elementary School. Cameras were not in every pocket in those days. 

      You can tell from this picture that the economic status of the school students was far different than what you see today. If you look closely at our shoes, you can read a lot into the picture. Jimmy was from a family less well to do than ours; he is in rubber boots. My shoes are new and too large for my feet. We got new shoes only at the start of the school year, and they were sturdy, work shoe types, and always large enough to allow the growth during the school year. These shoes would become my work shoes next year. The funny thing is that we were all poor, but we didn’t realize it. 

From these humble beginnings, most of us turned out pretty good. Jimmy became a minister of a church in Washington. Like so many men in my age group, he recently died from liver cancer from Agent Orange exposure in Vietnam.

As the years have passed, I have continued to carry a pocket knife. Even today, I feel naked if I don’t have one. Naked to the point of returning to the house to retrieve it if I get to town and realize that it is not in my pocket.

With the urbanization of our culture and the advent of political correctness, I have come to strenuously resent those who would call my pocket knife a weapon. To me, it is an essential tool that I use daily. In recent years that might be limited to opening boxes, but in the past, I have used it to kill fish, gut deer, peel oranges, open cans when camping and slice meat. The blade usually gets cleaned by a good swipe across a pants leg when necessary.

I have used my knife professionally also. Not often, but I can remember saving at least one life with my pocket knife. It was in the early winter when I was called to look at a backyard goat who was down and could not get up. Wintertime was often a time when those animals who were not fed well started to suffer from environmental stress. Backyard goats were often expected to survive on berry vines growing in the back yard. The first freezing weather would show the ones who had no reserve, and they were essentially starving to death.

We received a call to look at a goat who couldn’t stand. Arriving at the house, the driveway was packed with cars. We had to park some distance from the house. Dixie was with me on this call. Dixie was a short, trim, blonde girl who had worked for me almost from the beginning of my practice in Sweet Home. We walked up the driveway to the open garage, where a group of men was working on something. At the outside corner of the garage was a small, pitiful little goat laying flat out.

I knelt and did a brief exam. This gal was pregnant; you could see the kids kicking at her belly. She was skin and bones. I didn’t think there was any hope for her. The owner came over as I stood up. Jim was a young man with a full head of dark hair, the hand he extended was smooth and had no sign of a callous.

“What do you suppose is her problem?” he asked as we shook hands.

“Agroceryosis!” I said. “She is starving to death. I know everyone thinks you can tie a goat in a brier patch, and they will do well, but this little gal is pregnant and still trying to grow a little herself. I doubt if we can save her.”

No sooner than the words were out of my mouth, and she took her last breath. We stood for a moment and looked at the lifeless little goat. Then there was a noticeable kick on her belly. 

Dixie and I exchanged glances. “Run,” I said, “get a scalpel blade.”

Dixie was off like a shot. I watched her, and the kick in the goat’s belly. It is too far, I thought. She will not make it in time. I reached in my pocket and pulled out my knife. I hope it is sharp enough.

With a stiff swipe, I opened the abdomen. I pulled the uterus to the edge of the wound and opened it only slightly more carefully. I grabbed one kid by the neck and pulled him out of the open uterus. No pulse, hopefully, the next one will still be alive. I reached into the uterus and found a foot; it retracted from my grasp. I reached deeper and grabbed the kid by the back of his pelvis. He came out with one pull.

About this time, Dixie returned with the blade. A little out of breath, she was quick to turn her attention to clearing the airway of the little surviving kid. It took a deep breath, shook its head, flapping his ears, and then let out a short bleat.  

We took care of his navel, gave a dose of BoSe, and milked out what little milk was in mama’s udder. We gave him the milk with a stomach tube.

“You got lucky,” I said to Jim. “This kid will give your kids something to for a few months.”

Then, with a little bit of my Army voice, I said, “You need to drop by the office in the next hour or two. We will discuss what you need to do to raise this little guy and how to care for him later. We can also hook you up with a goat lady in Brownsville who has a herd of goats and will be able to help you out with some milk and more advice.”

Dixie smiled as I wiped my knife blade on my pants leg, folded in closed, and returned it to my pocket.

“I will remember that the next time you offer me a slice of apple off that blade,” she said.

Photo Credit: Miss Ralph, Broadbent School, 1954.

D. E. Larsen, DVM

Sandy was standing at the front counter when I returned from a farm call. I was hoping to get lunch before the afternoon appointments started in the clinic. She looked like she had something to say. I would guess that my lunch idea was going to be shoved onto the back burner.

“Charlie called,” Sandy said as soon as I stepped through the door. “He has his new Angus bull caught and would like you to put a ring in his nose. I told him the only open time you had today was over lunch. He said, ‘That was alright, he really needed lunch, and you looked like you could afford to miss a meal or two.’”

“I don’t know if I have a ring,” I said. 

“Ruth already looked,” Sandy said. “You have a large ring, and she laid everything out before she went to lunch.”

I gathered everything and verified that I had all the necessary items. I headed out to Charlie’s place on Crawfordsville Drive.

Charlie was waiting at the corral when I pulled into his barnyard. He had the bull in the crowding alley. This was a big bull. It looked like it weighed close to a ton.

“Charlie, I don’t think this guy is going to fit into your chute,” I said as I shook his hand.

“I was thinking the same thing,” Charlie said. “What do you think we should do?”

“Even if we get him into the chute, his neck is too big, we won’t be able to close the head gate,” I said. “If we can get a halter on him, we can do this right there in the alley.”

“He is pretty gentle,” Charlie said. “I think he was probably a show animal in his younger days. Just a moment, I have a big rope halter in the barn. I’ll grab the ring I bought. Maybe you can show how the thing works. I can’t quite figure it out.”

“That will help us put a halter on him,” I said. “But you need to remember, the bull that is considered gentle is the most dangerous.”

“Why do you say that?” Charlie asked.

“They are the ones that you don’t expect to be a problem,” I said. “You let your guard down. You need to respect all bulls as if they can kill you. Sort of like all guns are handled as if they are loaded.”

We slipped the halter on the bull with no problem. Then I pulled his nose up high and tied the halter short, on the strongest post along the alley.

“How do you get this ring in the nose?” Charlie asked.

“You removed this little screw,” I said as I removed the screw and opened the ring on its hinge. “You see, this sharp end is made to just shove through the nasal septum, but I use a surgical trocar to make it easier. That and some lidocaine for local anesthesia.”

“I was wondering if it was going to hurt,” Charlie said.

“The lidocaine stings a bit, but if we did this ring without the anesthesia, we would find out how strong that was,” I said as I drew up a syringe full of lidocaine.

“That looks like a bunch,” Charlie said.

“I don’t want to end up with a broken arm,” I said.

The bull complained a bit when I injected the lidocaine into his nasal septum. But he quieted quickly as it took effect.

“We will give it a minute or two, just to make sure things are good and numb,” I said.

“I hear stories of bulls tearing these rings out,” Charlie said. “Does that really happen?”

“I’ve heard those stories,” I said. “But I have never seen it happen. I grew up around Jersey bulls. They are reputed to be some of the meanest of our bulls. I’m not sure if that’s true or if it was said to make sure the kids get close to them. I did see a couple of bulls become belligerent when I was young. But they could still be handled with that ring in their nose.”

I stuck the bull’s nasal septum with the point of the trocar, and there was no response. With a quick shove, I pushed the sleeved trocar through the septum. Then I pulled the trocar out, leaving the sleeve in place.

At that point, it was a simple chore to fit the open nose ring into the end of the trocar sleeve and retract the sleeve, leaving the nose ring in the nose. I closed the ring and replaced the screw holding it closed.

“There you go,” I said as I untied the halter and pulled it off.

“What about that bleeding?” Charlie asked.

“It will stop shortly,” I said. “All bleeding stops, eventually. Besides, it’s a long way from his heart.”

Charlie smiled, not quite sure whether I was trying to be funny or not. We backed the bull out of the alley so he wouldn’t have to try to fit through the chute. He licked the blood and snorted a bit as he shook his head, not quite sure of his new jewelry.

Photo Credit: Mark Stebnicki on Pexels

Epilogue:

Today I noticed two young ladies, both in their early twenties, with nose rings. It is beyond me to understand why they would do such a thing to themselves.

My guess is they feel it makes them feel more attractive. But to whom, or to what?

When I was a young man, if a guy was under the spell of a young lady, he was often said to be led around by a ring in his nose. That was a metaphor, equating a situation to a bull. There were other terms, some not so nice. Pussy whipped for one.

My grandfather, who grew up in a time when there was no treatment for a dog with Salmon Poisoning, would say that “he was salmoned on her.” The thought of a girl with a ring in her nose did not exist.