USDA: Our Pets and Livestock are in Danger

As most of you know, Jill and I have been breeding horses for over two decades. We take this very seriously, and usually have somewhere between ten and twenty horses here on the farm. We strive for the best quality possible and specialize in a rare breed called the Lusitano. A horse whose preservation is a worthy cause, as it is probably the oldest domesticated breed in the world and represents our collective western military history for the past millennia, before modern warfare. The Lusitano is the quintessential warhorse. This is a passion that pays the taxes and makes a little profit, but not much more.

So, we are often confronted with what, if any, vaccine schedule to use on the foals, broodmares and performance horses on the farm. Each category has a unique set of parameters. For Jade, Jill’s stallion and now our five-year-old stallion, Quartz – they are shown in USEF/USDF/FEI shows. Therefore, they are required to follow a rigid and frankly, obscene vaccination schedule to enter the showgrounds at a sanctioned show.

In order to highlight just how crazy the veterinary vaccination system has become, I offer the following examples of what people are required to do in the horse world.

For showing horses at US Equestrian Federation (USEF) licensed competitions, horses are required to have the following vaccines every six months of a show date. Yes, you read that right – every six months, as a minimum.

• Equine Influenza Virus (EIV): Vaccine is required.

• Equine Herpesvirus (EHV-1 & EHV-4): Vaccine is required (covers the respiratory form; no vaccine protects against the neurologic EHM form).

For upper-level horses in FEI, which determine Olympic caliber horses and world champions, the requirements are more stringent, and there is also a 7-day waiting period after vaccination. This must all be documented. Then temperatures have to be recorded, starting three days prior to the event, and two temperature readings per day (morning and evening) for the three days leading up to arrival is also required. These readings must be entered in the FEI HorseApp. Reporting is strictly enforced, and failure to comply may result in sanctions.

This is all being done to “prevent infectious diseases.” Instead, what this all becomes is a program to build little dictators within the horse industry, all in the name of “safety.’

With EHV-1, very rarely, a horse will develop a neurologic form (EHM), which can be fatal. The estimated number of horses developing EHM (neurologic EHV-1) per year in the US is typically in the dozens, ranging up to 100 or slightly more in years with higher outbreak activity.

As of 2025, the estimated total number of horses in the United States is between 6.6 million and 10.3 million. So, because of the fear of a rare complication – which vaccination does not prevent in most cases – horse owners are forced to pay significant amounts of money, allow their horses to be handled by veterinarians (who are in contact with hundreds of other horses at a show and locally), all to prevent 100 cases of the neurologic form. The original reason for the horse show organizations requiring this vaccine every six months was to stop the neurologic form. When that reason was proven no longer valid, it didn’t stop the organizations from requiring the vaccinations!

Nearly all adult horses are exposed to, or latently infected with, EHV-1, EHV-4, or both viruses during their lifetimes. Estimates suggest up to 70–90% of horses become infected and carry latent (dormant) virus, even if they show no clinical signs. EHV-1 and EHV-4 are among the most frequent causes of viral respiratory disease in horses worldwide. Most equine herpesvirus infections are mild and go unnoticed. The vaccine is basically ineffective.

The vaccine against EHM has literally proven to be almost useless at preventing infection; see the table below and the article linked here (ref), and may even cause neurologic form, as show horses are among those most likely to contract the neurologic EHM. Show horses are the one category of horse that is highly vaccinated, as documented above. Whether this complication is due to antibody-dependent enhancement or immune imprinting from the vaccine remains to be determined, and frankly, I doubt vaccine manufacturers are in any hurry to figure it out.

The ACVIM is the equine-focused group within the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine, and is the leading certifying organization for veterinary specialists in internal medicine. This organization has recently come out with a damning consensus statement that reads:

So, basically, to show horses, which is required for getting top dollar and for establishing oneself as a good breeder, one must vaccinate every six months with leaky, ineffective vaccines, which may have significant adverse events.

Another example.

I had concluded years ago that the equine herpes vaccine (EHV-1) being promoted to stop horse abortions is a scam, as it is based on flawed data from studies done by Merck in the 1970s and 80s, involving a small number of horses in challenge studies. The main study, which has been scrubbed from the internet, did not reach statistical significance.

The truth is, 92-94% of equine abortions and miscarriages are from other causes (fescue toxicity and idiopathic reasons). Yet, veterinarians push these anti-abortion vaccines upon naive breeders as a cure-all to stop equine miscarriages.

Some veterinary reproductive practices will no longer treat horses that have not had a complete series of vaccinations. A friend recently shared that she had to prove that each of her mares had received seven different vaccines before a reproductive facility would even see her horses.

One study on the safety of these anti-abortive vaccines stated that it had an excellent safety profile, because only two horses out of 941 horses had an adverse event (ref)! This is for an ineffective vaccine and, in some cases, a vaccine which may make infections even worse (see the image above).

We could do the same exercise with a number of the cat and dog vaccines.

Now, why am I writing all of this?

Jill has been writing about some of these peer-reviewed vaccine studies on Facebook that show poor effectiveness, and the response from her horse friends was overwhelming. Everyone had a story to share about terrible adverse reactions from equine vaccines (including laminitis and abortion).

Yet, their veterinarians were basically guilt-tripping and bullying them to comply with a dizzying array of vaccine schedules – even after a severe adverse event. Furthermore, more veterinarians refuse to do an antibody titre to determine if an animal still has an immune response to a specific disease.

Jill recently had a veterinarian where we keep our junior stallion, inform her with a straight face that Potomac horse fever had a 100% mortality rate. Potomac Horse Fever is an infectious disease that is caused by horses ingesting specific water bugs that are infected with the bacterium Neorickettsia risticii. There is no horse-to-horse transmission or transmission from an insect bite – this is a rare disease. A vaccine will not stop transmission.

She was told that she needed to vaccinate our stallion immediately (another vaccine whose effectiveness lasts about six months). She knew that information was wrong, and she went home and we looked it up. The number of horses testing positive for PHF each year in the U.S. is likely in the dozens to low hundreds, and with a CFR rate of 5–30% of laboratory confirmed cases. It is not 100% as this equine veterinarian stated. With 6-10 million horses in the USA, it is kind of hard to get worked up over less than a hundred deaths per year- even if it is a regional disease! But the vet’s strong assertions caused Jill to allow her to vaccinate on the spot. And so it goes.

Dr. Brooke Miller recently told me that he backed off on specific vaccines recommended for his black Angus cattle herd of about 300 animals, and his abortion rate for that year went way down.

So, we who have livestock all seem to have experienced such incidents, and after hearing all the horror stories through Jill’s Facebook friends, we began to investigate the reporting systems available for adverse events involving veterinary vaccines at the USDA. The answer shocked us to our core: there are essentially no reporting systems in place. There is nothing like VEARS or FAERS for our animals, neither for our pets nor for our livestock.

The USDA does not collect adverse event reports on animal vaccines, even if someone takes the trouble to find the correct telephone number at USDA APHIS office and phones it in. There is no online form, no email to send reports to. They don’t want to know. Literally.

According to the USDA, in the event of an adverse event, the protocol requires the veterinarian to contact the manufacturer, who will then contact the USDA. Of course, most animal breeders don’t use veterinarians to vaccinate. So there is that little complication.

Adverse events related to veterinary vaccines in the USA are not made public.

Although an AI nicely informed us, that if one really wanted, one could try putting in a FOIA request to the USDA… snort!

So, if one complains to a manufacturer AND if it actually gets reported to the USDA – there is no public record. The USDA, and not even FDA MAKES THOSE REPORTS PUBLIC!

Frankly, this is beyond shocking; it is infuriating. Our pets are our family, and we trust the government to regulate the safety of these products. We eat our livestock, and we rely on the government to regulate the safety of our food. Yet, the safety profile of veterinary vaccines is not made available to the public, not even to livestock owners. How can informed breeding and safety decisions be made without this knowledge/

We had had plenty of adverse events from vaccines in our horses over the years. Most of the time, the vet will prescribe anti-inflammatories and antihistamines. Never once have these events been reported to the manufacturer -even when we had a horse wheezing, irregular breathing, and choking – basically anaphylaxis. Nor have we ever heard of a DVM reporting an adverse event to a manufacturer. It must happen, but equine veterinarians are in the field – they barely have time to enter data into their mobile phones or laptops, let alone spend time calling up vaccine manufacturers. Most are so indoctrinated into the good that vaccines do, they can’t see the nose in front of their face anyway, so to speak.

In the meantime, RNA vaccines are already being rushed onto the market for our dogs, cats, poultry, and livestock.

The American Animal Hospital Association extols their virtues in an article titled: “RNA vaccines: the way of the future?”

These are the pet RNA vaccines that have been on the market since 2024.

• Nobivac® (canine influenza vaccine using RNA particle technology)

• NXT Canine Flu H3N2 (canine influenza vaccine – RNA particle technology)

• Nobivac® NXT FeLV (non-adjuvanted feline leukemia virus (FeLV) vaccine – RNA particle technology).

The product labelling for the canine influenza vaccine states explicitly that “Duration of immunity has not been established.” How can these vaccines be released without knowing the long-term safety profile or even the known duration of immunity?

As stated above, all of these RNA particle “vaccines” have a short-term adverse event profile of 2.5-3%, and the long-term adverse event profile isn’t known.

Other RNA vaccines currently approved include a conditional RNA vaccine for avian influenza, a rabies vaccine (species unlisted, 1905.D1 RNA Particle 165A), and three swine influenza vaccines (19A5.RC H1, RNA Particle 165A; 19A5.RD H1, RNA Particle 165A; and 19A5.R8 N1 & N2, RNA Particle 165A). An extraordinarily long list of other licensed vaccines in the USA, which includes hundreds of vaccines is available from the USDA here.

Yet, whatever adverse events, including death, are associated with veterinary vaccines, we are not informed.

The USDA plays a central role in promoting veterinary vaccines: investing in research, maintaining emergency stockpiles, expediting regulatory approvals, supporting industry innovation, and ensuring preparedness to protect animal and public health. The USDA and the FDA assure the public that these products have been thoroughly vetted, that they are safe and effective, but the USDA has failed to deliver on that promise enough times that the public deserves some answers.

To be specific, manufacturers can not be trusted to monitor their own data safety signals for vaccines and to report those safety signals back to the USDA. The fact that the USDA does not make the adverse event data available to the public is very troubling indeed.

The USDA needs to set up a reporting system (using VAERS as an example) for veterinary vaccines. Adverse events from pet and livestock owners, as well as veterinarians, should be reported directly to the USDA with confidence that these events will be recorded and made public. Those adverse events need to have a real-time dashboard that is AI-based, so that we can monitor the safety of those events.

We know that the lot-to-lot variability with the mRNA vaccines was significant and that specific lots accounted for most of the adverse events because people were able to access the VAERS system, and some smart people figured out how to extrapolate the data from the VAERS system. The people figured it out, even if the FDA and the CDC evidently didn’t. This would have never happened if adverse events had been reported to the COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers, instead of VAERS.

We believe that setting up a reporting system for veterinary vaccine injuries clearly falls under the authority of MAHA, and we urge the USDA Secretary Rollins, HHS Secretary Kennedy and FDA Commissioner Makary to address this issue. Our pets and livestock deserve better treatment. We, as a people, deserve transparency about the products we are often required to inject into our animals.

Feel free to forward this article to a government office or official.

How to reach the USDA:

• General Email: [email protected]

• USDA Office of Communications Press Inquiries: [email protected]

How to reach Commissioner Makary and the FDA:

• Official FDA Email for the Commissioner: [email protected]

• FDA Main Contact Information:
  U.S. Food and Drug Administration
  10903 New Hampshire Ave
  Silver Spring, MD 20993
  Main phone: 1-888-INFO-FDA (1-888-463-6332)

• Media or Public Inquiries: You can also contact the FDA’s Office of Media Relations or find more official contact options via the FDA’s contact web page

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