My Alfie passed away in March 2016. He declined rapidly after receiving the Versican Plus Lepto 4 vaccine, made by Zoetis. Alfie received Lepto 2 vaccines by two different manufacturers over 9 years without reaction.

I submitted a petition to the UK Parliamentary Petitions Committee in October 2016. After numerous emails and delayed responses, the Clerk to the House Of Commons (HOC) Petitions Committee rejected Alfie's petition because they felt Lepto is a trade mark rather than a disease - despite all the evidence provided to them. 

I submitted Alfie's petition to the Parliament of the European Union (EU) in November 2016 asking for all the L4 vaccines to be suspended. The EU condensed the petition down to a single page (which pretty much destroyed it) and translated in to every language of the EU.

The EU Petitions Committee then deemed that the European Medicines Agency (EMA) are the body best suited to deal with the petition, rather than the Parliament dealing with it. So that petition was closed in 2017.

In May 2017, disheartened by the attitude of HOC and EU Petitions teams and whilst still grieving, I started a Change.org petition. The petition was translated in to French and German by friends, although it appears that there is less of a problem in those countries - possibly due to attitude and practices of vets in those countries.

The closed petition is at Change.org/Alfie's Petition

A Facebook group was created for dog owners to share their dog's experience of Versican Plus vaccines, although that has now been widened to include all Zoetis vaccines. I am aware that Zoetis staff view the group. The group is specifically to shares one's dog's experience and not a general vaccine discussion group.

The petition was also shared on Twitter to help raise awareness

By January 2018 Alfie's petition had received some 2500 signatures, at which point I closed the petition and submitted it to EMA and the UK's The Veterinary Medicines Directorate (VMD) on 28th January 2018 . 

Alfie's petition was submitted to EMA and VMD, and a joint response was received.

VMD is Veterinary Medicines Directorate, and is a part of UK's DEFRA.
EMA is European Medicines Agency, and an agency of European Union. 

The petition is at https://www.change.org/p/european-medicines-agency-suspend-canine-lepto-4-vaccines-and-improve-use-control-of-dog-vaccines-alfie-s-petition?

A response was received on 28th February 2018.

Full details of the case is below.

The joint response from EMA and VMD is on the next page.

I'd like to thank everyone who signed the petition or completed the Lepto vaccine experience survey.

The 17 key points were

1. To suspend authorisation of all Canine Lepto 4 vaccines from all manufacturers until such time as further research is done on the products. Specifically, to identify if the range of Adverse Event reactions is due to the additional Lepto strains or due to the liquid that the vaccines are suspended in, or both.

2. For the volume of all vaccines to be reduced from 1 ml to 0.5 ml. Carrying half the excipients and therefore injecting only half the amount of excipient in to the dog, 0.5 ml vaccines have been available in America for a couple of years now.

3. For pharmaceutical companies to carry out laboratory trials to see just how long Duration Of Immunity lasts, compared to the current process of proving minimum immunity period.

4. For pharmaceuticals to give guidelines on what is a healthy animal, or what is not healthy enough to receive vaccines.

5. For pharmaceuticals to give guidelines on what age dogs and cats should stop receiving vaccines.

6. For vets to acknowledge and proactively report to EMA illnesses/conditions that occur after vaccination. There is currently an attitude of instantly dismissing any link to the vaccine and blaming underlying issues but by administering the vaccine they have deemed the animal fit enough to receive it.

7. To encourage all European vets to follow the World Small Animal Veterinary Association 2015 guidelines on the Vaccination of Individual Dogs. E.g. Titre before vaccination, Lepto 2 if there is a high risk.

8. For vets to discuss openly and honestly the local disease issues with the animal owner and agree a course of action.

9. For vets to prove where they claim that the additional Lepto strains exist in their area.

10. To encourage vets to use L2 by default instead of the current trend of injecting L4 by default, which sometimes happens without client knowledge or agreement.

11. To encourage the use of Lepto vaccine only if there is a genuine high risk in the area, and for that vaccine to be L2 unless there is proven scientific evidence of other Lepto strains in the area.

12. To encourage vets and all places of vet education to adopt the attitude of “To titre test and only vaccinate core and non-core vaccines when necessary after the initial puppy/14 week injections”, compared to the current attitude of “Better to vaccinate every year with core and non-core to protect the dog”.

13. After initial puppy/14 week vaccinations, for all vets to discuss and offer titre testing for core vaccines before contemplating revaccinating with core vaccines.

14. For EMA to have figures of adverse reactions to each canine vaccine type readily available and displayed in reports and available on the EMA website.

15. For EMA to encourage all European vets to report to EMA of disease infected dogs, and in the case of Lepto, of which strains infected the dog, and when and where.

16. To encourage vets to show clients this data of infected dogs on EMA’s website when discussing vaccination regimes.

17. For dogs infected with Lepto, if the dog was vaccinated prior to infection then for EMA to encourage all European vets to report to EMA which strains the dog had been vaccinated with prior to it becoming infected with Lepto.

My Alfie passed away in March 2016. He declined rapidly after receiving the Versican Plus Lepto 4 vaccine, made by Zoetis. I submitted a petition to the European Parliament in November 2016 asking for all the L4 vaccines to be suspended, but EU haven't translated that yet, so it can't progress forward.

On Facebook we're hearing all sorts of horror stories, including of vets taking the vaccines straight out of the fridge and straight in to the dogs. So with help from a friend, I got the wording right (I think) to get the points across clearly - and it is now on Change.org.

Thank you.