Jessica, thank you. What I do is my attempt to redeem myself for failing Meadow, and it's the least I can do to honor him, even if it was not possible for me to save him.
If you e-mail me privately, I can send you a copy of the l992 French challenge study, in which Michel Aubert (he is the researcher who developed the rabies titer test) and his team demonstrated that dogs were immune to a rabies challenge 5 years after vaccination. Dr. Schultz's serological studies show that dogs have antibody titer counts at levels known to confer immunity 7 years after vaccination.
Because the USDA does not require veterinary vaccine manufacturers to provide long-term duration of immunity studies in order to license their products, and they have no financial incentive to fund expensive research that could result in decreased sales, pet owners are funding this research themselves. Vaccine manufacturers are only required to show that their vaccines confer immunity as long as the label states -- they could recommend giving a rabies booster every 6 months if they chose to. Some manufacturers relabel the 3 year rabies vaccine as a 1 year product. (If you click on this link
http://www.calmanimalcare.com/vaccine.htm , you will be taken to the Calm Animal Care website, which has posted Colorado State University's Small Animal Vaccination Protocol for its veterinary teaching hospital. In their protocol, it states:
Even with rabies vaccines, the label may be misleading in that a three year duration of immunity product may also be labeled and sold as a one year duration of immunity product.)
The rabies challenge studies are being conducted by Dr. Ronald Schultz of the University of Wisconsin School of Veterinary Medicine (his research on pet vaccines forms a large part of the scientific base for the American Animal Hospital Association's 2003 and 2006 Canine Vaccine Guidelines as well as part of the American Academy of Feline Practitioners' Feline Vaccine Guidelines) according to USDA vaccine licensing standards.
If the studies are able to replicate the French challenge studies, then the science will be available for individual states to extend their immunization requirements to 5 years. Hopefully the studies will also be able to prove a minimum 7 year DOI by challenge as well, and laws can be extended again.
My Meadow had his last rabies shot at the age of 6. When he turned 9 and was due for a booster, for which he received a medical waiver due to his metasticized cancer, I had a rabies titer done on him. His titer count was 1:5,800 -- in humans, a 1:5 is considered adequate to confer immunity; a 1:245 count in dogs is very good. The rabies vaccine is the most potent of all the veterinary vaccines and dogs should not be required to be immunized with it any more often than is necessary to maintain immunity.
Rather long response -- it's obvious that this is a deeply personal issue for me, as it obviously is for you as well. To give you an idea of how important the world's 2 leading veterinary vaccine research scientists (Dr. W. Jean Dodds and Dr. Ronald Schultz) feel these studies are, they have both volunteered all of their time to this effort, as I have and The Rabies Challenge Fund website designer, Andrea Brin, and the University of Wisconsin waived their usual 48% overhead fees for this research. None of us in the RCF are paid or reimbursed for our expenses -- we shoulder our own costs -- the only expenses paid out of the fund is for insurance and IRS filing fees, otherwise, all donations go directly to finance the studies.