Animal agriculture stresses Earth

 [ accepted]

What You Can Do

• Please write Henry E. Childers, president of the AVMA, and urge the AVMA to place a higher priority on animal welfare than on agribusiness profits.
  • Dr. Henry E. Childers
    1119 Park Ave.
    Cranston, RI 02910
    
    
  • Dr. Henry E. Childers, President
    American Veterinary Medical Association
    1931 N. Meacham Road, Suite 100
    Schaumburg, IL 60173
    
    
  • Dr. Bruce W. Little, AVMA Executive Vice President
    1931 N. Meacham Rd., Suite 100
    Schaumburg, IL 60173-4360
    
    
• Please also ask your local veterinarians to write to the above AVMA representatives, urging them to place a higher priority on animal welfare when required to choose between animal welfare and economic considerations. Click here to print a letter for your veterinarian to sign and mail.
  
  
• Order AVMA Reform Campaign brochures to give to your local veterinarians and to spread the word about this Farm Sanctuary campaign. To order these free brochures, simply email campaign@farmsanctuary.org or call (607) 583-2225 ext. 251.

Click here to find out What You Can Do for the No Foie Gras Campaign.

Click here for additional background about the AVMA Reform Campaign.

Factors In Vet Shortage Began 35 Years Ago
Large animal vet explains that drug companies care more about profit than animal care and human health:

"....producers aren't trained to discriminate between competing products and programs to produce healthy animals. Only the attending vet has the technical knowledge to sort through the sales spin. Some large companies try to cover their shameful behavior by hiring a veterinarian willing to prostitute his license visit producers once a year to meet pharmacy law requirements that he be on the farm if he writes prescriptions for controlled drugs. All this defeats the purpose of providing professional care for animals, protection of the food supply and profitable farm management. Sales pressures have overtaken competency."

 [ accepted]

Also, during their annual meeting in the summer of 2005, the AVMA considered two proposals that would discourage the inhumane force-feeding of birds to make foie gras (translated from French as “fatty liver”). A pipe is shoved down the birds’ throats and huge quantities of food is pumped in, causing their livers to expand up to ten times their normal size. The birds experience tremendous injuries and high mortality rates during the process. Shockingly, the AVMA refused to take a stand against this egregious cruelty.

On July 16, the AVMA's House of Delegates (HOD) rejected the 1998 Report of the Scientific Committee on Welfare Aspects of the Production of Foie Gras in Ducks and Geese as being out-dated. They also ignored requests by their own veterinary members and staunchly refused to take a stand opposing the practice of inhumane foie gras production. The issue was defeated by the AVMA HOD due to opposition by the American Association of Avian Veterinarians, the American Association of Avian Pathologists, and the New York State Veterinary Medical Association. These organizations claimed that their recent visits to foie gras farms in New York revealed proper care of birds. However, in previous, unannounced visits to the same farm, ducks were videotaped in diseased and filthy conditions.

It is critical for veterinarians and others to urge the AVMA to adopt sensible policies that promote animal welfare instead of economic priorities. The veterinary profession should take a stand against “factory farming” cruelty, rather than defending it.

 [ accepted]

With growing concern among veterinarians about the cruel farming systems that are endorsed by their trade group, the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA), the AVMA is beginning to address factory farming issues.

In 2004, Bonnie Beaver, then AVMA President, acknowledged,

“It is important for each of us to recognize that we may at times become too close to the industries we serve, losing our objectivity about what is the best welfare and adopting instead that suggested by industry.”

First, Do No Harm: Although the Veterinarian's Oath clearly states that the veterinary medicine profession should aid "the relief of animal suffering", the AVMA unfortunately remains too close to the agribusiness industry, and it has failed objectively to promote animal welfare.

The AVMA recently failed to take a stand against egregious animal cruelty, including the force-feeding of birds to make foie gras (“fatty liver”) and the prolonged confinement of breeding pigs in two-foot wide metal crates. Both systems have been shown to cause animal suffering.

In July 2005, the AVMA revised its policy, which had supported gestation crates (two foot wide metal enclosures where breeding female pigs are confined for most of their lives), acknowledging that these intense confinement systems cause animal welfare problems. Despite this, however, the AVMA is not advocating a shift away from gestation crates until other systems are “economically viable”.

 [ accepted]