How many years of work in canine health research does someone have to have under her belt before she gets a pass from the dog world on belonging to an organization some of us may not like?
Apparently more years than there are stars in the sky, if the recent reaction to a letter to PETA written by Dr. Jean Dodds is any indication.
Dr. Dodds is a regular speaker at dog clubs, including purebred dog clubs. She has assembled three decades of data on canine diseases both genetic and infectious. She operates a canine blood bank, Hemopet, and has published research on vaccination, thyroid disease, and other topics related to hematology. She is famous in the dog world for doing vaccine titer testing at a very reasonable price, as well as thyroid testing, and then getting on the phone with the dog owner to discuss the test results. Believe me, that kind of access is not typical.
Dr. Dodds is certainly no stranger to controversy. Some of her research leads to nothing much more than raised eyebrows among the veterinary community, while in other areas she's regularly published and quoted even by skeptics. Some vets find her "too alternative" while most alternative vets find her not "holistic" enough.
Lately the holistic camp has been loving on her, because she, along with leading vaccine researcher Dr. Ronald D. Schultz, is conducting the Rabies Challenge Fund Study, a long-term investigation into the real duration of immunity of canine rabies vaccines, in the hopes of reducing unnecessary vaccination and providing some science behind the perception that the immunity from rabies vaccination lasts far longer than the one to three years listed on the labels.
PETA hates the study because, at the end of several years, some of the dogs will be killed because they have been challenged with, and contracted, rabies, and they wrote to Dr. Dodds to tell her so.
Some background before I go on. As you may or may not know, this is how all your pets' vaccines get licensed: a group of animals is vaccinated, another group isn't, and at some point, usually a year, now and then more, all the animals are challenged with the virus against which they were vaccinated.
In many such studies, all the animals are killed at the study's end. In some, only those animals who become ill are killed, and that is the design of the Rabies Challenge Study.
The argument over the use of animals in medical research is a heated one, and I've hesitated to raise it here for that reason. But two days ago, a letter Dr. Dodds wrote responding to criticism by PETA, in which she defends the study and insists she is working hard to conduct it humanely, started making the rounds of the dog lists, and the fallout has been shocking to me.
This study is not being done by a vaccine manufacturer, but is funded by donations from dog owners who are concerned about the ill effects of unnecessary rabies vaccination. If a dog is already immune, there's no benefit to re-vaccinating him, and at least some risk. This study was designed to put some data out that demonstrates actual duration of immunity based not on an arbitrary study end-point, but the length of time vaccinated animals continue to resist challenge by the virus. It's an expensive study, but its goal is to save and protect millions of dogs from harm. Because rabies is a fatal disease that is transmissible to humans and many other mammals, dogs in the study who contract rabies are going to be killed.
In her response to PETA, Dr. Dodds says she belongs to AVAR, the Association of Veterinarians for Animal Rights. And while her tone was angry given that she felt she'd already answered many of their questions in earlier correspondence, she nonetheless was taking PETA's concerns seriously.
So suddenly I'm seeing, everywhere, statements like, "I'll never listen to Dr. Dodds again, now that I know she's AR."
So here's a question for you: how pure does someone have to be that their work and research can be taken on their own merits?
If we expect to put a litmus test of agreeing with us on political and social issues on every scientist, researcher, and veterinarian on the planet before we'll allow ourselves to look at the results of their research, we're going to cut ourselves off from critical information without which we cannot make educated decisions.
I have no doubt that Jean Dodds and I disagree on many issues pertaining to pets, what we like to eat for dinner, our favorite movies, and for all I know, a thousand other issues both trivial and important.
The only thing that matters is her work. Look at her data, the conclusions she draws from it. Look at the design of the studies, or the body of information on which she bases her advice. Evaluate it for what it is, not who she is.
Certainly one of the many questions we should be asking as regards all scientific research is about researcher bias -- every study is paid for by someone, designed by someone, conducted by someone. Knowing their biases helps us evaluate their work, and Jean Dodds is no different.
But that's not what's behind all those people saying they'll "never listen to Jean Dodds again" because she's "too AR." Because her work hasn't changed, her research hasn't changed, the facts of the Rabies Challenge Study have not changed.
I suspect you'd find, if other researchers put themselves out there and interacted with us on a personal level the way Dr. Dodds routinely does with dog owners, that many of them believe in things you don't. Many of them belong to organizations you would hate. And trust me, nearly all of them take money from drug companies, vaccine companies, and pet food companies, and then turn around and do research on the products of the companies who pay their bills. That concerns me a hell of a lot more -- and has a far greater likelihood of tainting science -- than the fact that Jean Dodds belongs to AVAR or actually replies to PETA when they write her.
As someone else who doesn't fit neatly into categories, who has been attacked for being "too holistic" and "not holistic enough," who refuses to get in bed with the commercial dog breeding industry just to protect the right to preserve purebred dogs, I say this:
Judge information on its own merits, not some litmus test of purity on the researcher, author, or speaker. Take bias into consideration, yes; but to throw out not just science but decades of service to dogs and dog owners because you think a researcher is "too AR" is neither rational nor helpful. And don't be so obsessed with the results of that litmus test that you miss the far greater conflicts of interest that threaten scientific objectivity.
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