Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I just got a postcard from my Vet with an advertisement for Red Rock Rattlesnake Vaccine. How does the vaccine work and do the dogs suffer any ill effects from the venom if they have the vaccine?

How feasible or far are we from having vaccines for humans?

If you enter "Vaccine" in the search engine on this site and select 2005 archive you will see many threads about this topic. Don't ever expect a vaccine for humans, our immune system doesn't work like a Canine's. Not to even bring up the fact it would have to pass muster with the FDA and it would be another orphan drug that no company will develop because they can't make $$ on it. Just be thankful somebody makes A/V.

Al
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Confidence is what you feel before you comprehend the situation.

Any questions regarding the dog vaccine should be directed to Dr. Wallis, who is most knowledgeble and helpful with regards to this question(Red Rock Bio.).

As far as humans go, I'm lucky enough to get the support of many doctors who are very " out of the box " with this issue. And none other then those is Dr. Focosi from Italy. His support and amazing direction with the ophidian vaccine gave me great hope for snakebite death in the Old World. And not just me, the people who die. This is a great site to check out under anti-toxic DNA vaccines.http://focosi.immunesig.org/DNAvaccines.html.

With that send, this year will hopefully yield some cool DNA stuff that is being looked at very seriously by some large firms. Fingers crossed. Tim Friede

The rattlesnake vaccine is made by using a toxoid to immunize the dog. A toxoid is a toxin that has been altered in some way to not cause the same biological reaction (ie toxic effects) but still cause the same immune response in the animal. It does not mean that the dog will not need antivenom, but the vaccine may provide some protection in the case of a bite. 'Protection' means that the symptoms and effects can be less severe, and that less antivenom or maybe none will be needed. Because each bite is different, it is impossible to say what exactly may happen if your dog got bit, SO YOU SHOULD STILL TAKE YOUR DOG TO THE VET IF A BITTE OCCURS. If I lived out west in an area where rattlesnakes were common, and my dog spent a lot of time outside, I would probably do it.
I really like the fucosi site, but that is not current research being done on human vaccines. It is a synopsis of the old work done in Japan on a habu toxoid, which is not in use because it was deemed too dangerous for human use. The entire site seems to be a collection of papers and references on a wide variety of topics, and snake antivenoms are just one of the topics covered. Glenn and Straight actually tried to make a human vaccine (again using a toxoid, not raw venom) years ago, but stopped because it was deemed to be too risky and expensive to be feasible.
-Kristen Wiley
KY Reptile Zoo

Did I say toxoid? No, DNA vaccinology! There's no reason to fight it, and I think you'll really like what's next. TF

I'd like to see some info on it. I tried the link you posted but it didn't work, so I went to the home page and tried to find it from there. If you can tell me what it is under I will try again. I don't really have time to search the entire site, as it is quite large.
The reason I mentioned toxoid was that I was replying to the original question about the dog vaccine.
-Kristen
KY Reptile Zoo

Hopefully the company I'm working with will spell out the DNA protocol, and our goals real soon. That's about all I can say at this point, simply b/c it's not in hard print as of yet. And it might not work like we hope, which means back to square one. Since DNA vaccinology is very new tech., it'll be new ground.

Another neat site. http://focosi.immunesig.org/chemicalcauses_lepidosauria.html.

TF

I hope the one for dogs actually does work.
My dog has had the vaccine. The first round of vaccines were given last year then he's had his booster this year.
He was rattlesnake bitten in 2001, treated and survived. He's not been bitten since taking the vaccine, if he ever is I sure do hope it works.

I am a licensed Veterinary technologist with a 4 year bachelors degree in the program, I can tell you the vaccine is BS!!!

they wont even release the testing data which was replied and an insider told me they only used 5!!!! dogs as a test group

no merit what so ever and if you are worried about this sort of thing go seek out avoidance training, humane shock collar treatment, you pay once and repeat for life free.. using live rattlesnakes

cheers
PatrickR

When the vaccine was initially introduced, it was on a limited basis, with pretty much the vague testing that you mention. It has become of much wider use now, and much more data has been accumulated.

With that said, it isn't nearly as affective as say, the parvo virus vaccine or distemper (other k9 vaccines), but in the event of a severe bite, it will likely save your dog. For any other bite, it'll just likely reduce the costs, as hospitalization is usually at least cut in half.

Ian

ps, on a side note, a vet here used to work in Virginia Tech College, and since antivenom was so costly, they never used it. Success was still pretty high with fluid therapy and symptomatic treatment. Then again, it's mostly copperhead bites down there.

Joey,
Where I live most vets do not use the antivenin for dogs. They only use high doses of steroids and painkillers. From what I've been told by several local vets this works and they do it because people are not willing to pay for the antivenin.

The vet that treated our dog used to live in Sweetwater TX where they have that horrible rattlesnake round up. He told me that he has treated so many rattlesnake bites he can't even tell me how many, hundreds at least. He had never used antivenin in his 20 some years of practice.

We were the first people he's ever encountered who were willing to pay for antivenin.
Although the other way works the vet told me that our dog recovered much faster than he's ever seen a dog recover, it had to be the antivenin that did it.
We use a different vet today who says the data on the testing that was done on this rattlesnake vaccine had positive results. We are in a very risky area so if the vaccine is BS then I guess we're out the $$ we paid for the vaccine.. I really don't care at this point. It wasn't all that expensive, no where near as expensive as the treatment for the actual snake bite in 2001 was. To me the money paid is worth taking a chance on the vaccine.

I don't know if we'll find out if it works and I hope not. We know that if our dog is bitten again we will have to see a vet no matter what, but if this vaccine helps the dog recover faster, then it's worth having the dog vaccinated. Faster recovery that results in a live dog is our goal.