Many people have speculated that annual vaccination is responsible for cancer, immune-mediated diseases, kidney disease, and other common ailments in older dogs and cats. To date, there is no clear evidence that vaccination has increased the incidence of any of these specific health problems.
In cats, fibrosarcomas (aggressive, malignant skin tumors) have been found to grow in areas of the body where vaccinations are routinely administered, although these tumors can also occur spontaneously independent of vaccinations. The FELV and Rabies vaccines have been implicated in this type of tumor growth, and the adjuvants (or carriers) of the vaccine specifically have been suspect. The reported incidence of vaccine-associated fibrosarcomas is anywhere from 1 in 1,000 to 1 in 10,000 cats which is rare relative to the incidence of the diseases that we are vaccinating against. In an effort to minimize your cat’s risk of fibrosarcoma, we use vaccines that have no adjuvant, minimize the frequency of vaccines given by using 3-year vaccines when possible and only vaccinate your pet against diseases they are at risk of being exposed to. We also administer vaccines in specific locations of the body where should a tumor occur it could be most easily removed surgically.