This Wednesday, Jan. 3, would have been the 88th birthday of Dr. Alson Sears, who discovered how to use Newcastle Disease Vaccine to save dogs from canine distemper.
Dr. Sears wanted nothing more in life than to stop canine distemper. Although he lived to see a lot of progress made against this disease, he did not get to see his discovery of NDV serum tested in the early stages of the disease and published in a scientific, peer reviewed journal.
But we could still see that goal reached. We ask that anyone who had been helped by Dr. Sears and his treatments — or anyone who admired the man — to donate any amount, to honor his birthday and his life.
The money raised will be collected by Kind Hearts In Action and will
be put towards a new foundation in Dr. Sears’ name, which we hope will
someday defeat canine distemper.
In the meantime, we are also running a special promotion on the book, which will be available until Jan 7, 2024.
Thank you,
Ed Bond project director for Save Dogs From Distemper Kind Hearts In Action
Dr. Alson Sears wanted nothing more in life than to stop canine distemper. Although he lived to see a lot of progress made against this disease, he did not get to see his discovery of NDV serum tested in the early stages of the disease and published in a scientific, peer reviewed journal.
But we could still see that goal reached. We ask that anyone who had been helped by Dr. Sears and his treatments — or anyone who admired the man — to donate any amount, now.
The money raised will be collected by Kind Hearts In Action and will be put towards a new foundation in Dr. Sears’ name, which we hope will someday defeat canine distemper.
In the meantime, we are also running a special promotion on the book, which will be available for free until June 18, 2023.
Thank you,
Ed Bond project director for Save Dogs From Distemper Kind Hearts In Action
I received this email from Dr. Sears’ son, Skip, on Saturday:
“My Father passed away quietly at his home in Park City. 1/3/36-6/3/23. He had entered the hospital May 1, and had an aortic value replacement on May 8, he never really got a break after that. Just a slow decline. Your friendship and book meant the world to him and from his entire family, thank you. Best of luck in the future, Skip Sears”
We met in 1997, a few months after he had saved my dog’s life. As a then-reporter for the L.A. Times, I wanted to know how he did it. He was shy about having a spotlight placed on him because he had been burned in the past, but he finally agreed to an interview.
I drove up to the Sears Veterinary Clinic in Lancaster, California to have lunch with him and his wife Ruth. [Ruth died in October 2022]. He came out to the lobby to greet me. He was a big, friendly man in his early 60s with a full head of white hair. He held out his hand. “Call me Al,” he said as we shook hands. He spoke with a direct, country-wisdom, often punctuated with humor and a deep belly laugh.
This began an association with Dr. Sears that would outlast my relationship with the Los Angeles Times, my career in journalism, our residency in California, and even the lifetime of my dog, Galen, who he had saved. Meeting Dr. Sears changed my life in ways neither of us would have expected. Either out of an abundance of politeness or a desire to give him respect, I always called him “Dr. Sears.”
We changed each other because of hope. He taught me to have hope for dogs who the experts had deemed to be hopeless. He showed me repeatedly that dogs could be saved from canine distemper. Even though he lacked the expertise and contacts to get his discovery published in a scientific journal, the plain truth of what he had found became impossible for me to ignore. More than that, I had to do something about it.
As a non-scientist, I knew I had no place in advocating for an unpublished treatment. But when a vet in Romania followed Dr. Sears’ protocols [which I had posted on my little-known website] and found they had the same life-saving properties Dr. Sears had seen, I became a full-throated advocate. Doing nothing would cause harm. Doing nothing meant letting dogs die when I knew at least some of them could be saved.
Dr. Sears and I then spent years working together to record what he had done to the best of our abilities and spread the word about his treatments. More dogs were saved than lost, but the ultimate goal had always been to see some scientist put his NDV serum to the test to determine its effectiveness in saving the lives of dogs in the pre-neurologic stage of the disease. Then, the hope would have been to see those results published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal.
That would have been the most reliable path to acceptance. I believe that would have ultimately saved the lives of most dogs.
That still has not happened. He always knew it would be a long road to acceptance, a destination he likely would not reach in his lifetime.
“You know what? I’m going to be long gone by the time that this is accepted by my profession,” he said with a laugh in 2011. “I don’t expect it to be accepted within the next 10 years, OK? I’ve been playing with this for 50 years, and I still can’t get them interested. It boggles my mind.”
But in the years since we began our campaign, something else did happen. People began to have hope that their distemper dogs could be saved. They became more willing to try new techniques and more vets became more willing to support new treatments. Some dogs lived simply because the extra care gave them the time to eventually beat the virus. Some dog advocates have begun to push for further scientific research into how and why distemper dogs survive. This is all useful and encouraging.
But I still hold out the hope that someone will do a full and proper study of Dr. Sears’ NDV treatments and tell the world in no uncertain terms what they have found.
Mamas, survived distemper after treatment with NDV serum
From Liam McEvoy, Nov. 23, 2021
“Firstly, thank you so much for all of the information on your website. We truly believe that the NDV serum saved our dog. My name is Liam, I live in LA and our adopted dog Mamas (border collie mix) was diagnosed with distemper on 10/08/21. We had a PCR and blood test done to confirm this (i’ve attached them below). She had a fever, goopy eye, cracked nose, and cough etc. She was given the NDV serum before she developed neurological symptoms and over the course of a month she seems to have made a full recovery … “
Liam had questions about Mamas’s recovery, and in our correspondence, he explained that after adoption from a rescue, Mamas’ condition had gone downhill. That’s when the rescue stepped it and took over her care and got her treated with NDV serum, he said.
He still had worries about Mamas’ long-term prognosis, that perhaps Mamas could develop neurological symptoms later on. Some of the points I made:
1) Distemper is a nasty disease that does not play fair and it does not always progress as we would normally predict. We should be grateful that your dog has gotten through it and appears healthy and problem free. 2) vaccines sometimes fail. If a dog’s immune system is not working as strong as it needs to, it may not create the immunity needed. This may because the dog is too young or has a condition like mange that might block immunity. Also, I think in very, very rare cases it may be that there could be a bad batch of vaccine somehow. But that chance is very low. 3) a dog may already have been exposed to distemper before vaccination. That happened to us 3 times back in the 90s. We rescued 3 dogs from the streets (separate occasions) in each case, the first thing we did was take the dog to the vet for shots. But we were too late. 2 puppies died in neuro stage distemper, but we saved the 3rd dog with NDV serum from Dr. sears. Btw, that dog lived for nine years with no more problems from distemper. 4) yes, there is still an ongoing confusion for vets in identifying the difference between antibody tests from vaccine induced and hot “street” forms of distemper. Bottom line, I am grateful that your dog was treated before neuro stage hit, and there is a very good chance that your dog will have a good life with few or even no problems. I can’t give a 100 percent guarantee because that is not possible in medicine, but the outlook is good.
I also encouraged him to read through all the stories we have shared on the website. It’s useful to know what others have gone through and comforting when you know you are not alone in this battle.
So, thanks for sharing your story Liam. May it help someone else have hope!
Received this email from Turkey this morning, along with the accompanying video:
Hello,
My name is Hatice Degirmenci and I am writing to you from Izmir, Turkey.
I am a shelter volunteer and a rescue worker in a small town outside of Izmir. Last summer, a young couple brought in a puppy that they found after it had just been crashed by a car. Hind back leg was broken, and the first vet they took him to, did an operation but unfortunately not the puppy vaccines.
The dog, named “Darky”, stayed at a dog boarding facility for a while and then I took him into my garden where I look after near 17 rescue dogs of all breeds and sizes, and ages.
After a couple of days, I noticed the twitches. He would be standing up and have the small jumpy twitch. I couldn’t believe a dog in my garden could start showing distemper virus symptoms at this stage.
I was in shock and denial for a couple of weeks.
Then the symptoms got more and more severe. At some point, Darky, lost control and feeling in both of his front legs. He was basically just dragging himself on his head/neck on the floow and back legs.
2,5 months into sleepless nights, muscle spasms getting worse and worse, Darky falling into his own pee and poop every day… one of our rescue friends mentioned Dr. Sears’ NDV Serum/Spinal Tap treatment. And in no time, we went to our vet and got the Spinal Tap done. She had tried it on a few patients before and got results.
It was a miracle. The harsh distemper symptoms started to decline. We did a lot of exercise for the front legs. And one day he started taking like 10-15 steps without falling.
He still has the spasms but he lives a fully normal life.
I CANT THANK YOU ENOUGH!!
Kind Regards
In a follow-up email, she added:
Your blog helped me thru the hardest days… I read and read and read and read and it gave me hopes. You’ve helped a dog and a family across thousands of kilometers.
THANK YOU, Hatice! You are a hero. Saving the life of one dog may not change the world, but it will change the world for that dog. Your email really made my day! — Ed
” … On Dec. 21, I received an email from Debby Simms of Huntington, West Virginia, about a dachshund/Basset hound mix named Coal she was fostering from a local shelter. ‘He tested positive for distemper on Dec 15,’ she wrote in an email copied to her friend Barbara Bias. ‘He is still eating and eliminating. He was first diagnosed with kennel cough and then began losing weight. The return visit and testing gave the result of distemper. I have been researching on Internet and found you. If you know of a vet near West Virginia please let me know.’
They took Coal to Ohio State a couple days later, but that only confirmed the dog had neurologic distemper. The school refused to consider the unpublished NDV spinal tap treatment, so I encouraged them to contact Dr. Harkin and get into his study.
‘Coal has had the treatment!’ Debby wrote on Jan. 2. ‘We were so impressed with Dr. Harkin and the med student … We will let you know as he improves. We can not thank you enough!!’ … “
Page 372 …
” … According to a post she submitted to the website for the Herald-Dispatch in Huntington, WV, Barbara Bias took Coal back to Kansas State for a follow-up evaluation on April 17, 2015, and had been told he was disease-free. ‘Coal’s new life began Jan. 2, 2015, and now a year later he is celebrating his New Year as a very active and happy 2-year-old doggie,’ Barbara wrote in the post … “
Page 405, The Epilogue …
“… Barbara Bias wrote with a cheerful update on Coal.
‘Coal is a very happy and active dog,’ she wrote. ‘He loves to race around the living room couch playing with his toys. I love him very much. Thank you for everything you did for him. Thank you for helping my friend Debby Simms find the right place to take Coal. Dr. Harkin at Kansas State was very happy with Coal’s improvement.’ “
Nilla was a border collie in South Dakota diagnosed with the neurologic stage of canine distemper in May 2012. Her family, Clark and Jennifer Audiss, and their children Nathan and Rachael, were not given any hope from their local vet. But rather than have Nilla put to sleep, Clark reached out to Kind Hearts In Action, found out about the NDV treatments and persuaded the veterinary hospital at Kansas State University to perform the NDV spinal tap. The full story is in the book, but here are the videos the Audiss family took during their battle to save Nilla from distemper.
Nilla’s recovery prompted Professor Ken Harkin of Kansas State University to conduct a study of the NDV spinal tap between 2014 and 2016. Despite the recovery of Nilla and a couple of other dogs treated at Kansas State, Dr. Harkin did not see improvement in other dogs who were suffering from myoclonus, which is the muscle tremors some distemper dogs experience. He ultimately was not convinced that the NDV spinal tap was beneficial. But he also said that people do give up on these dogs too early. Many can recover if given enough nursing care and support to survive until the virus goes silent.
More about our attempts to document the effectiveness of these treatments and the conclusions from Dr. Harkin are here and in the book. We had also compiled anecdotal information on the outcome of cases here.
“I am 100% certain Nilla would not be here without the NDV treatment,” Clark Audiss wrote in January 2019.
Nilla lived until July 7, 2019 as the neurologic problems become more frequent and her health went into decline.
Clark’s tribute to Nilla on Facebook: “Thought we lost her once then God gave her back. She’s gone now and our hearts are heavy. Even so, God has been faithful and true! Job 1:21 ‘The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away. Blessed be the name of the LORD.’ Tears are flowing but Joy is coming! Psalm 30:5 ‘Sorrow may last for the night but JOY comes in the morning!’ Love you Nilla Bear!”
For more about this and other stories of survival check out the book.
