What happened to freedom of choice?
The AVMA Proposal 2003
If this proposal is adopted and passed by your state's legislature, you would no longer have the option to take your animal to any massage therapist, Reiki or Bach Flower practitioner, acupressure or acupuncture therapist, homeopath or any type of alternative, complementary or natural practitioner unless approved by a licensed allopathic vet! In addition, you would no longer be legally permitted to work with any practitioner over the telephone or Internet without the permission of an allopath licensed in your state. For those of us with no holistic practioners within a practical driving distance, that would in effect mandate that we work with an allopath regardless of our preference for holistic treatment. Find out more: The Proposal, It's For the Animals webpage, and the AVMA Antidote Lobby.
The AVMA accepted "commentary" through March 15th and adopted the proposal as written on 1 July. The next step for us is to keep contacting everyone we know, asking them to write veterinary board members, legislators, State Boards of professional licensure, animal organizations, press & media making our feelings known regarding this proposal and its implications. Links to each state's veterinary board can be found here.
There have been successes in some states where the proposal has been put to a vote: Recently, the Illinois legislature passed the proposal with added wording exempting from the definition of
veterinary medicine those who not diagnose, prescribe, do surgery or represent him/herself as a vet. New Jersey had a vote on legislation including regulation of alternative veterinary health modalities in 2001, and this bill passed with a similar ammedment. Other similar ammendments have passed in Arkansas and North Carolina.
Unfortunately, some states already have laws in effect which limit alternative practitioners' ability to practice. In addition, even without any sort of regulating legislation, alternative practitioners in many states are facing legal difficulties based on the perceived practice of veterinary medicine.
It would appear that with the advance of holistic medicine, conventional veterinarians are finding that they are having to expand their knowledge to keep up. Is this a way of making this unnecessary? What happened to freedom of choice?
