Here’s a Thought: I’m No Longer Vaccinating My Pets

Jenna McCarthy is back with questions about pet vaccines and the billion-dollar industry behind them.

I used to be the public health poster girl—the kind who never missed a “wellness check” for my kids, dutifully dragged her family to the annual flu shot clinic like it was a moral duty, and believed society was one selfish decision away from a full-blown polio pandemic. I vaccinated my kids, my dogs, my cats, and, frankly, my conscience. I was the CDC’s dream patient: compliant, unquestioning, and fully insured from ankles to ears.

Then Covid hit. When medical freedom, common sense, and critical thinking flew out the window, they took my blind trust with them. Somewhere between “safe and effective” and “sudden and unexplained,” I decided maybe—just maybe—the people profiting from all of the nonsensical pandemic protocols weren’t the best stewards of anyone’s health.

The more I learned, the farther I drifted from my formerly willfully-ignorant self. I didn’t just shun Covid jabs; I became a raging anti-vaxxer. I got exemptions for the few shots my daughters still “needed” to function in society, and even stopped vaccinating my pets. Never again, if I can help it, will a needle pierce the skin of anyone or anything I love.

According to The New York Times, I’m far from alone. It’s not just the deliciously abysmal Covid booster uptake or even the recent and highly encouraging ACIP decision to pull the hepatitis B vaccine from the infant schedule that proves it. I’m talking about the fact that vaccine skepticism has officially spread to the animal kingdom.

“Over the last several years, the anti-vaccine movement has gained ground in the United States, fueled, in part, by the politicization of the Covid-19 vaccines and the increasing power of vaccine critics like Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.,” The New York Times lamented. “Antipathy toward vaccines is also spilling over into veterinary medicine, making some people hesitant to vaccinate their pets.

‘I talk to thousands of veterinarians every year across the country, and the majority are seeing this kind of issue,’ said Dr. Richard Ford, an emeritus professor at the North Carolina State University College of Veterinary Medicine who helped write the national vaccine guidelines for cats and dogs.”

Because of course he did.

You can practically hear the panic dripping from media keyboards: “Some owners are even refusing the rabies shot!” Cue the ominous music. I half-expected the Gray Lady to end with, “Scientists warn that vaccine-hesitant poodles could set back veterinary health 200 years—possibly longer if they’re standard size.”

Psychology Today tackled the topic, too, inexplicably blaming a group of celebrities for the rise in general vaccine hesitancy.

“Sadly,” the magazine moaned, “we live in a media-dominated era where the unschooled opinions of social influencers and celebrities such as Jim Carrey, Robert De Niro, Jessica Biel, Letitia Wright, and Charlie Sheen carry more weight than scientific data from unfamiliar researchers at Harvard Medical School or Stanford University. Because of that, anti-vaccine sentiments have grown from a seed of doubt into a cultural movement that claims there is a link between vaccination and diseases like autism.”

(Who wants to tell them?)

Psychology Today goes on to cite a recent study out of Texas A&M University that surveyed 2,853 dog owners and 1,977 cat owners about the vaccine status of their pets.

“The results showed that around 1 in 5 dog owners (22 percent) and nearly the same percentage of cat owners (26 percent) were vaccine-hesitant. The data also indicated that these are the same individuals who are shying away from vaccinating themselves or their children. This should not be a surprise, as research has shown that around 90 percent of dog owners consider their pet to be part of their family.”

*Shakes head sadly at the shady ten percent who don’t love their dog as if they birthed it.*

Let’s talk about the $38 billion–with-a-B veterinary services industry (in the U.S. alone), a solid chunk of which comes from “routine care.” Translation: The annual poke, prod, and guilt trip your furry friend gets when he’s “due” for another booster. Because honestly, if your pet’s healthy, what else are you even going to the vet for?

The peak drama, of course, is around rabies. Manhattan’s Ministry of Truth practically faints over this one—as if millions of unvaccinated schnauzers are marauding through suburban playgrounds foaming at the mouth and looking for the tastiest toddlers to nibble on.

The reality is that rabies in U.S. pets is about as common as polio in Pilates class.
According to the CDC, more than 90% of rabies cases occur in wild animals—bats, raccoons, skunks, foxes—and not golden retrievers named Cooper.

Still, traditional vets love that word “required.” It’s how you turn a suggestion into a business model.

Vaccines are a convenient gateway. They get you in the door for “preventative” care (another word for the profit pipeline), and before you know it, you’re buying “flea prevention” with a side of liver failure and a $78 bag of kibble that’s guaranteed* to stop your cat from vomiting (*because he’ll refuse to eat it). If you think that’s paranoid, ask yourself: why does every single visit end with a sales pitch for “baseline labs” (so we can catch anything early, I mean, unless you don’t love Pawdrey Hepburn that much) and a “routine teeth cleaning” that’ll run you $1,000 and involve anesthesia?

Here’s what the Times won’t say: the veterinary industry is running the same playbook as the human one—push more shots, shame anyone who questions them, dismiss every adverse reaction as a quirky little coincidence, and label all skepticism as “dangerous misinformation.”

It’s brilliant, really. Keep the “anti-vaxx” label hot and you can bill $300 to “update Mr. Whiskers’ immunity record” without breaking a sweat. And when you’ve scared everyone into thinking that skipping one booster means instant death by raccoon, well, congrats—you’ve created a self-renewing revenue stream.

Dr. Will Falconer, a friend, holistic veterinarian, generous substacker, and my go-to guru for all things animal, insists that most vaccines aren’t a harmless annual ritual—they’re one of the biggest drivers of chronic illness in the animals he treats. The deeper he went down the vaccine rabbit hole, the clearer the pattern became: pets developing allergies, seizures, skin issues, digestive problems, anxiety, even paralysis after their “routine” shots. Eventually he moved his entire practice toward homeopathy because it was the only way he could get real, lasting improvement in those animals—improvement that wasn’t constantly being undone by the next round of boosters.

When new clients started requesting the vaccine-free menu, Falconer happily offered homeopathic nosodes (remedies made from disease discharges), which he and other practitioners have used for decades to help protect puppies against the big killers—parvo and distemper—without triggering the fallout they were seeing from conventional vaccines.

As for rabies? He’ll tell you it’s a sticking point, not because the science demands it but because the law does. If you live in a place where rabies risk is essentially zero (something that can be searched on public health department sites) or your 12th-floor, pee-pad-trained Shih Tzu hasn’t touched a blade of grass since the Obama administration, Falconer says you can use common sense. (He offers a free Rabies Short Course that features strategies for avoiding vaccines and/or vaccine injury, and suggests not registering your pup with anyone who’s going to send annual “Your pet is overdue!” love notes.)

Dr. Falconer also warns people not to fall for the idea that immunity mysteriously expires on a schedule designed by vaccine manufacturers. In his experience, once an animal has mounted a real immune response, that protection doesn’t evaporate on its birthday. The annual-booster carousel, he argues, has far more to do with “profit-grubbing” than immunology, and seniors—whose systems are already fragile—are the ones he sees harmed the most. And now that there’s an RNA rabies vaccine in the pipeline? The doctor’s advice: “Run like the plague.”

Dr. Falconer’s bottom line is simple: people need to be smarter about vaccines, because the risks aren’t theoretical. He’s watched too many pets become sick from the very injections meant to “protect” them, and he’s not shy about saying so.

So, yes, The New York Times is right: I am absolutely “vaccine hesitant.” I’m also hesitant to keep pretending that the same system that made billions off unnecessary boosters for people is somehow pure and selfless when it comes to my pets.

They can call me whatever they want. I call it using my brain.

Are you still jabbing your fur babies? Tell me what you think in the comments!