After you've cleaned your room, you can go outside and play with Foamy.

Christina Cauterucci writing for Slate:

But opposition to pet vaccines seems to have risen since the COVID-19 pandemic. Experts say that since contemporary pet owners view their animal companions as family members, attitudes toward veterinary treatments mirror attitudes toward human medical interventions. The Vaccine journal study found that people with negative views of human vaccines were likelier to have negative opinions of animal vaccines—and COVID-19 had a lasting impact on the way people feel about preventative shots. In a series of Gallup polls, the percentage of Americans who said it was extremely or very important for parents to vaccinate their children dropped 15 points between 2020 and 2024, a decline the poll attributed almost entirely to right-leaning Americans. A survey conducted in Brazil found that pet owners were six times more likely to refrain from vaccinating their animals if they themselves were not fully vaccinated against COVID-19.

Anti-vaccine advocates save their strongest rebukes for mRNA pet vaccines, the first of which were approved by the U.S. Department of Agriculture for canine influenza and feline leukemia last year. The menu of veterinary mRNA vaccines may soon expand; in Canada, pets can already get one for rabies. Because the two most famous and effective COVID-19 vaccines—Pfizer’s and Moderna’s—were the first-ever mRNA products to receive Food and Drug Administration approval, mRNA technology has become a primary villain of the anti-vaccine movement in both human and animal medicine.

Just as the alleged connection between human vaccines and autism has been thoroughly, repeatedly debunked, there is no evidence that pet vaccines are responsible for the ills with which anti-vaccine advocates credit them, from early-onset cancers to a suite of cognitive and behavioral problems that some half-jokingly call “pawtism.” Like autism in humans, “pawtism” is allegedly characterized by repetitive behaviors, sensitivity to sensory stimuli, and difficulty in social situations.

The lack of scientific backing for these vaccine concerns hasn’t stopped a multitude of influencers, care providers, and activists from raising alarm about veterinary shots. There are peddlers of tonics that claim to heal pets from the effects of “toxic preventatives and pharmaceuticals.” There are podcasters trumpeting “the risks of over-vaccination.” There are social media personalities posting scary videos about pet vaccines “shedding” onto humans.

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Like more than a dozen other states, Colorado offered a loophole for medical exemptions. If she could argue that a pet was not healthy in any way, Jasek would write up a note excusing the animal from the rabies vaccine. Most of the time it worked fine, but she says she was twice contacted by the state board because people had filed complaints against her. (The complaints never led to any disciplinary proceedings.) Once, it was another veterinarian who didn’t believe an exemption was justified. Another time, a client’s unvaccinated dog bit someone.

“She kind of threw me under the bus, basically, and said, ‘Well, Dr. Judy said I don’t need the vaccines,’ ” Jasek told me. “That isn’t true. I mean, I tell people that the vaccines can cause health concerns. However, when it comes to the laws and the rules, people still have to be accountable.”

Rabies outbreaks in wildlife populations are on the rise across the U.S., due in part to human incursion on natural habitats. Though the people who have died from rabies exposure in the last year have gotten the disease from wild animals, veterinarians worry that distrust of pet vaccinations could lead to a resurgence among domestic animals of a virus that is nearly 100 percent fatal in both animals and people.