On the 24th of this past April, the breakfast show “Good Morning Britain” tweeted the bizarre
request to be contacted by “pet owners who haven't given their pets vaccinations because
they're concerned about side effects - as well as people who have done so and
now believe their pet has canine autism as a result”.
Such an odd request raised several remonstrations and criticisms, because “in a single tweet they managed to perpetuate the myth of a
link between autism and vaccination, and the myth that autism is something that
can be contracted. But even more than the harm this does to public health, the
comparison between autistic people and poorly-trained pet dogs is immensely
insulting and hurtful”. The British Veterinary Association
(BVA) immediately reacted with a tweeted statement “There's currently no reliable scientific evidence to
indicate autism in dogs (or its link to vaccines). Potential side effects of
vaccines are rare & outweighed by the benefits in protecting against
disease”. Yet, not all the experts share their views, for
instance Lisa
Tenzin-Dolma, book author, chair of the International
Companion Animal Network, and founder of the International School for Canine Psychology and Behaviour,
stated “We don’t have scientific evidence to back claims of canine
autism, however, we have seen anecdotal evidence of dogs having a marked change
in their behaviour (‘canine dysfunctional behaviour’)”.
The notion of “canine autism” is not new, it dates to a paper “A syndrome in the dog resembling human infantile autism”
published in 1966 on the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical
Association, by Dr. Michael
W.Fox. British veterinarian and former vice president of the Humane Society of the United States, one of
the most influential animal protection organizations in the U.S. Dr. Fox is an
expert in animal behaviour and passionate animal advocate. His scientific
production is vast and assorted -
ranging from animal rights to sustainable agriculture, to vegan cat foods
–including also eccentric papers, such as one devoted to the evidence of
the Oedipus complex in dogs. Dr. Fox is also a
prolific journalist. As a columnist, he regularly collaborates to the
Washington Post, where he publishes about post-traumatic stress disorders in
cats, obsessive-compulsive disorders and panic attacks in dogs,
and so on. Brief, Dr. Fox is not just a scientist, he has a mission,
"To help heal
the broken bonds between my own species and other living beings and the natural
environment for the good of all: One Earth, One Health."
However, notwithstanding Dr. Fox, it was only recently that the notion
of “canine autism” became mainstream. In facts, searching “canine autism” on
Google, one gets 11,500 results (the query “dog autism” gets many more results,
which also include dog companions to assist autistic people, while “canine
autism” is quite selective). Surprisingly enough, restricting the query to a
smaller date range (from Jun 1966 – Fox’s paper publication - to Jun
2014), one gets only 154 results. The remaining 11,150 results have been all
produced in the last four years. What happened in 2014 to justify such an
explosion of interest? On October 2014, Translational Psychiatry -
a prominent academic journal, issued by the Nature group, with an impact factor
of 5.601 and an article influence score of 1.943 - published an
original paper authored by a team of biologists, veterinarians, and
psychiatrists, led by T.C. Theoharides, chair of the Department of Integrative
Physiology and Pathobiology, at Tufts University School of Medicine.
The paper was devoted to comparing serum
neurotensin and CRH levels in children with autistic spectrum disorders and
tail-chasing Bull Terriers with a “phenotype similar to autism.” The
paper goal was to propose a new animal model for human autism, more reliable
than those based on mice and parrots. According to the team, Bull-Terriers
affected by compulsory tail-chasing showed stereotypic movements very close to
those exhibited by autistic children, as well as behavioural problems
(aggression, seizures, fixed stare, and immobility) similar – authors claim -
to behaviours characterising autistic spectrum disorders in children. Authors
also suggest some biological markers, which would be shared by human and canine
syndromes. Michael W.Fox, probably considered more an activist than a pure
scientist, was not referenced in the bibliography, or otherwise mentioned, by
the paper. Theoharides’ paper was a signal of the zeitgeist.
Always in 2014, the Tufts University Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine and
the University of Massachusetts Medical School – in collaboration with
the Southwest Autism Research & Resource Center,
the American Humane Association, and the Translational Genomics Research Institute –
launched the research project “Canines, Kids and Autism”,
involving both dogs and children, with the primary aim to investigate the
causes of obsessive-compulsive disorders in dogs, “in hopes of pinpointing those genes that might be
responsible for atypical behaviors” in dogs and autistic children.
So, the notion of “canine autism” grew in popularity and captured the
imagination of general press, social media, and, presumably, pet owners.
Finally, in 2017, a “pet anti-vax movement” also emerged, becoming soon in fashion
among Brooklynites: more and more, in New York, “the young and the hip are refusing to vaccinate their dogs
against such potentially lethal diseases as distemper, hepatitis and rabies,
because vaccines absolutely, positively cause autism”. From New
York, the “pet anti-vax movement” spread in the U.S. and
now also in the UK. Dr. Amy
Ford of the Veterinarian Wellness Center of Boerum Hill, one the most reputed
animal hospitals in Brooklyn, said: “We do see a higher number of clients
who don’t want to vaccinate their animals, this may be stemming from the
anti-vaccine movement, which people are applying to their pets.”
Most commentators used the same argument to explain the “pet anti-vax
movement.” They are only partly right.
There is no doubt that anti-vaccine movement deeply influenced (and took
advantage) of the urban myth of “canine autism,” but – as I pointed out – such
a myth was fuelled, if not created, by distinguished medical and academic
institutions. Even more seriously, these scholars implicitly supported the
anti-vax movements. The first lines of 2014 Theoharides’ paper are appalling,
notably if one considers that they were published by a journal ranked 22/142 in
Psychiatry: “Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are
neurodevelopmental disorders (…)Fifty percent of such children regress at 2–3
years of age, often after a specific event such as reaction to vaccination,
infection, trauma, environmental toxins or stress (…) Recent evidence
suggests that ASD involve some defective immune responses in many ASD patients
and their relatives, as well as some neuroimmune component, especially
allergic-like symptoms”. As far as this author knows, no one in the
academic world has ever protested against such a grave, misleading, statement.
Admittedly, this silence is more perturbing than anti-vaxxer barks.
