I have written about Jean Dodds many, many times. She is one of those controversial figures who did some legitimate, even trailblazing work early in her career and then went off the deep end, not only embracing many forms of pseudoscience but apparently becoming convinced that she could never be mistaken regardless of the evidence against her ideas. She promotes speculative, inaccurate, and even clearly false claims about thyroid disease, pet nutrition, and vaccines. She has become especially blatant in selling proprietary diagnostic tests that, at best, are unproven and that, in some cases, have been clearly shown not to work. She has an undeserved reputation for being an “expert” in fields in which she is actually simply an outlier, promoting views that clash not only with the assessments of true experts but with basic science and research evidence.
Despite all of this, she has continued to practice and promote her unscientific approaches openly and with impunity for many years. Vets throughout the country, myself included, regularly have to try and explain to misinformed clients why her tests and recommendations are not reliable and shouldn’t be followed. And while holding this role as an iconoclastic sage for the alternative veterinary medicine movement, she has not held an actual license to practice in any state.
However, I have also discussed in the past the impotence of most legal and regulatory restraints on unscientific veterinary practice, with examples of figures such as Gloria Dodd and Al Plechner, arguably even more dangerous in their views and actions than Dr. Dodds, practicing openly without effective sanction for decades. With or without a medical license, many individuals are able to promote and sell pseudoscientific products and practices freely despite misleading and endangering the public because the political will does not exist to restrain them.
I was pleasantly surprised, then, to read in The Canine Review that the California Veterinary Medical Board has issued a cease-and-desist order and levied a fine on Dr. Dodds for practicing veterinary medicine without a license. The details of the citation involve Dr. Dodds being listed as the veterinarian of record on both electronic medical records and on results from her bogus Nutriscan allergy test and other laboratory tests.
Given the evidence of history, I am not sanguine that there will be any significant consequences for Dr. Dodds stemming from this action. Dr. Gloria Dodd was cited for malpractice and also issued a warning by the FDA for her quackery, and neither prevented her from continuing her actions. Dr. Plechner was being investigated by the veterinary medical board for a malpractice claim when he died, after decades of dangerous and unscientific practice, making the claim moot. I will not be at all surprised if Dr. Dodds manages to evade responsibility and continue her practices regardless of this action.
Nevertheless, at a minimum it is worthwhile to have an official regulatory body confirm what so many of us have known and discussed for years– that Dr. Dodds is not a trustworthy representative of the veterinary profession but an outlier whose views and conduct do not reflect the values or practices of the vast majority of her colleagues.
Hmmmmm. 🙁
The question IS what is her doctorate IN? And from where?
I’ve been to 2 seminars. Been to her facility. I think she’s brilliant.
I am confused. There is writing about Dr Jean Dodds and Dr Gloria Dodds. How do they relate to Dr J Dodds sited?
She apparently got her DVM from Ontario Veterinary College in 1964
Dr. Gloria Dodds is unrelated to Dr. Jean Dodds. She is another CA vet who practiced pseudoscientific nonsense. She was sanctioned by the VMB and warned by the FDA but got away with it for years, so she is an example of the ineffective regulatory system in veterinary medicine. You can follow the link to the complete article about her.
It’s good to hear a veterinary body taking some action against charlatains such as Ms Dodds but it happens all too rarely. In the uk we’ve been campaigning against homeopaths and quacks for decades and it’s made virtually no difference. Infuriating!
Story update coming later this evening . Still have about six or seven more major reporting t’s to cross, i’s to dot but made good progress today. There are a lot of years to cover and TCR is apparently the first to do the kind of common-sense requisite fact-checking on Dodds that we consider standard.
This is a failure of management, oversight, will, accountability, and, yes, the press dropped the ball, too. No reporter bothered to look this person’s name up on the vet board at any point? In all of the times she’s been written about? Really?
This absence of strong, professional journalism on Planet Fluffy’s Listicle of Favorite Grain Free Affiliate Revenue Model Click Bait DCM Delicious Dishes is much of what made me confident about starting TCR. I know none of this should surprise me. There’s still no explanation for it and even as i write this, nobody in the bowels of ineffectual California govt bureaucracy seems to think he or she bears responsibility, at least that’s what my reporting today seems to show. Story up soon. Meantime, everyone keep reading SkeptVet.
Yes to reitereate the above…. no matter the outcome , it is good to see some body trying to hold scammers to account.
A lot of us have known for a long time that Dr.Dodds isn’t actively licensed. My suspicion is that she will claim, as Dr. Gloria Dodd did, that she is a “consultant,” and that all the patients she is involved with have a primary veterinarian who is licensed. It is a disingenuous smokescreen for unlicensed practice, but it has been effective for others, and my guess is it will ultimately get her out of any responsibility or need to change her practices. Hoping I’m wrong, though!
So help me understand how my 11 yo American Cocker has been itchy to the point of scracthing herself to a point bleeding and didn’t respond to Apoquil except to grow lots of bumps. She didn’t respond to anything except steroids and we all know long term steroids are not an option. Used every type of shampooo script and otherwise. She was at times so itchy that she was frantic. Undertook the Hemopet saliva test and we found she was sensitve to a lot of things in her food. Changed her diet to non-reactive food 13 days ago and and she is subjectivly 800% better. Sleeps at night, no longer frantic, and much happier.
SkeptVet – please help me understand how nothing else worked but this did.
I doubt that I can, since you don’t really think there is any possibility you might be wrong. However, I have written extensively about why such anecdotes are unreliable, why what seems obvious can often be misleading. This is a well-understood phenomenon of human thinking with it’s own name; the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy.
Just because it rains after you wash your car, and even though it didn’t rain after you took out the garbage, painted the house, or mowed the lawn, doesn’t mean that washing your car caused it to rain. Lots of complicated things are happening all the time in and around a dog with allergies, and we tend to give the credit or blame for changes in symptoms to the few things we notice, not to any of the many more things we don’t notice.
Here’s some humor and a collection of detailed articles answering your question:
Here’s a bit more detail on why anecdotes aren’t very helpful:
Why Anecdotes Can’t be Trusted
Brennan, there’s a chance you could be wrong about the impunity hypothesis, as you’ll read more about later. Sorry for the delay, but there’s been an inexplicable absence of legal and financial reporting on Dodds/Hemopet in addition to the more typical reporting errors and oversights, so it’s been a long week of reporting and fact-checking for TCR. Trying to wrap up at least a portion of what we’ve amassed so y’all can have at some of this today. EB
new news https://thecaninereview.com/2021/10/30/breaking-california-attorney-general-is-now-investigating-jean-dodds/
Say what you will, but Dr. Jean Dodds and her Nutriscan test saved my Alaskan Malamute Shyanne from a life of allergy misery! I’m forever grateful to her for improving Shyanne’s quality of life tenfold!
Say what you will, but anecdotes aren’t reliable evidence-
Why Anecdotes Can’t be Trusted
Dr. Dodds saved my dog’s life when my dog had liver disease and had less than a month to live at 8 yrs old. She was on an excellent home cooked diet (rice, chicken, etc). She had been dying for 6 months. I paid thousands of dollars to internists and vets in Marin and Sonoma counties in CA (high end vets) and all they could tell me was she would die within a month. I found a Yahoo group on Canine Liver disease and prayed and cried for months. Finally I found Dr. Dodds and her liver disease diet through the Yahoo group (primarily steamed cod, sweet potato and white potato, all skinned, green beans, carrots, vitamins). My dog lost 12 lbs of ascites fluid on the cod in 12 days. My dog is now 15 and healthier than I am. She has been on the same diet since Dr. Dodds gave us the diet. I stop people in the street to tell them about Dr. Dodds. Dr. Dodds never charged me a one penny and she is a SAINT. Google the liver disease diet. I would follow all of Dr. Dodds’ advice for preventative health if I had a young pet. For now I am blessed to have my dog because of Dr. Dodds’ ground breaking work.
In Houston, there is an actual literal witch doctor practicing as an MD. She has stated publicly that diseases are caused by having sex with demons who come to patients in their sleep.
There is a small, but noisy, minority of nurses (and even doctors) who are anti-vax.
And yet, all these people manage to keep their licenses. Even during the pandemic, which should have demonstrated just how dangerous that is.
I would be surprised to find that veterinary medicine was better.
I wonder, just what does a medical professional have to do to lose his or her license? Sometimes I think the only purpose licensing serves is to give the public false confidence in the professionals they’re dealing with.
Yeah, I’ve asked this question before regarding vets, and there doesn’t seem to be any limit!
This statement you made is not true, breeders have been sued over recommending vaccine protocol as practicing veterinary medicine without a license ” With or without a medical license, many individuals are able to promote and sell pseudoscientific products and practices freely despite misleading and endangering the public because the political will does not exist to restrain them. “
I wouldn’t argue that no one has ever been sanctioned for unlicensed medical practice, of course, but a casual search through this blog alone will show dozens of examples of people offering products and treatments that are not science-based and facing no consequences. A few minutes on the internet will show you thousands of examples. It is the rare exception that someone promotes a bogus “cure” or therapy online and gets caught and punished.
Her doctorate is in veterinary medicine. There is more involved in being a licensed veterinarian then getting your diploma. You have to maintain educational credits. You have to pass a state board exam. At some point in their life a lot of that stuff doing all of this just like some lawyers stop taking refresher courses and paying bar association fees
Which is fine if she then stops practicing medicine once she nolomnger has a license. However, giving specific advice for individual patients, as she does, is still practicing medicine. The fact that this is technically illegal bothers me less than the fact that her advice is large nonsense, but it is still relevant.
Hello Animal lovers. I worked for Dr. Gloria Dodd, in Danville. She had alternative healing options for most animals. She had her office staff help her with flower remedies (bach flower remedies) .. had pendulum readings over the phone, where she would take the animals chart, and swing a pendulum over it while on the phone with the client. People paid much money for this and I saw the invoices. I was also asked to go to the bank and deposit cash for her. I did this, not a problem, as making a deposit was normal for most companies. However, I felt uneasy and left her practice, as much of it seemed on the shady side. My dad made me quit her practice, as it was under the counter, no taxes.. so I didn’t feel it was on the up and up. She had two lovely daughters my age and one had cancer and one was a free spirit. I don’t know which one passed away, I loved them both. I have mixed feelings about that situation, as on one hand, I feel I left them high and dry by quitting, but.. on the other hand, I was a minor and felt I had to follow my parents decision. I remained in contact with them off and on until hearing of Dr. Dodd’s death from cancer a while back. She was a lovely person. She went to Germany and when she came back changed her practice from the traditional vet practice to the holistic vet practice. I believe we must blend the two. It’s great to feed your cats raw chicken, they live longer and their teeth are shiny and strong. So many dry foods are junk. My collie, was fed raw cow stomach .. he lived to 14 so healthy.. however I took him for his rabies and 5 in one shots.. so.. I sort of combined healthy eating with preventative medicine. Basically a raw diet and I also gave him “rescue remedy” which really did calm him down during fireworks. He was a great dog. I have had many stray kittens and rescues I have done the same with.. and learned TONS of flea preventatives etc from Dr. Gloria Dodd. She continues to be one of my heroes! I love her still and she is an angel now for sure. 😀 Hug your fur babies and don’t be so hard on the holistic vets who do ok, some goofy stuff but also some wonderful preventative medicine with healthy alternatives like raw feeding, calming techniques. She sold a beautiful green halter harness for healthy living for even horses. Don’t know how that panned out for them, but it was a pretty color, and the crystals she taped or placed on the heart area chakras calmed down the OWNERS, and this transfered over to the pets. (this was my own conclusion!) I also felt calmer wearing pink quartz. Who knows how or why it works, but it is a calming color. So the Amethyst was to open the mind, the malachite was for strength, etc.. and I may have mixed that up. In any case .. I learned how to relax and have fun with my animals and they in turn relaxed and had fun. I learned training and food training and clicker training with treats, all fun activities for teenage girls who love dogs! Hope you all can take some of this with a grain of salt. If it works, don’t fix it. ;D Have a great 2024
Regardless of your personal relationship with Dr. Dodds or her family, or your own experiences with “holistic” approaches, none of this is really relevant to the issue of whether the things she advocated helped or hurt patients. Either we accept that science is the best way to figure out what helps and what hurts, or we just give up and believe anything we want.
We did that for most of human history, and it didn’t work well. We live longer and healthier lives than any time in human history because we found a better way to understand the world, and there really isn’t any good excuse for retreating back to the time when belief mattered and evidence didn’t.
The Hemopet saliva test helped me find the right food for my dog which stopped his diahhrea after years of suffering. He tested sensitive to almost every ingredient tested. Now with a very limited ingredient diet he is fine 100% of the time. Another dog has skin issues and eliminating poultry and oats eliminated that issue. I don’t care if she has a licence or not. I always recommend this product and will continue to.
OK, but it doesn’t work.
Why distrust anecdotes as a source of evidence- Here are links to previous articles (and a bit of humor) explaining this. The bottom line is that anecdotes are psychologically compelling without being reliable reflections of true cause/effect relationships, and that is an established fact of life despite being hard to accept. Why Anecdotes Can’t be Trusted
I used to have a holistic veterinarian who went to one of the top 10 veterinary schools in the country and even though I knew of Dr. Dodds vaccine protocols ( which I have followed with all four of my dogs and continue yearly titer testing) I wasn’t aware that she would provide nutritional information and advice until I started seeing this licensed holistic veterinarian who turned me onto her. The veterinarian I see now ( who also went to Perdue) has a clinic where conventional medicine as well as holistic is practiced. We need both. We really do. I can’t imagine that a bag full of kibble, any kibble is better for dogs than real whole fresh food. Can you?
To begin with, where a person went to vet school has nothing to do with whether or not their particular beliefs are true or not. That is a fallacy that assumes the school correlates with intelligence and intelligence correlates with susceptibility to cognitive bias, neither of which are true. I went to Penn and graduated magna cum laude, though, so you should believe me. 😉
As for Dr. Dodds beliefs on nutrition, here is a look at some of these in more detail. They are not science-based on convincing.
Likewise, the idea of kibble as “processed food” that is inherently less unhealthy that “natural” Whole Foods is not very solid either.
The Health Effects of “Processed Foods” and Why Nutrition is More Important than the Amount of “Processing”
This is really sad to see. Mainstream trying to banish Holistic. I understand wanting to prove treatments scientifically but what would be the standard of those scientific tests that would match conventional Veterinarian’s requirements to accept those treatments? Holisitc works different than mainstream so testing with a mainstream approach would likely fail every time. Mass Spec for example will likely not show the components in a Homeopathic remedy since it energy medicine.
Coming from traditional Veterinarian school, mainstream Vets would never be taught or learn anything Holistically(expect with the viewpoint similar to this blog) that they are ineffective and “quackery”. Yet SO many humans and animals have benefited from Holistic care where-else mainstream/traditional treatments have failed them.
However, if a treatment or approach is harming a life or claims are deceitful, then certainly that specific Veterinarian should face repercussions.
One does not have to like or even tolerate Holistic care but trying to banish it completely seems to me very similarly to repeating history of discrimination to different viewpoints or lifestyle choices, which is a far more dangerous mindset then indifference.
The problems with our argument are
1. You assume the stuff you call “holistic medicine” actually helps animals. You base that on anecdotes and belief, and you feel no scientific evidence is needed, or even possible. Unfortunately, that excuse has been used for every treatment ever tried, from bloodletting to sun worship to ritual sacrifice to homeopathy, etc. ad nauseam. Nobody ever thinks their special belief can or needs to be tested scientifically. So either we accept anything anyone believes as true and give up onboard anything like an objective assessment of Nature, or we accept that our observations and experiences aren’t good enough to prove the truth of our beliefs. The fat that our lives are twice as long and much less uncomfortable since we started relying more on science and less on observation and intuition to understand nature suggests that a belief-based approach isn’t the right way to go.
2. You assume that science and unscientific ways of understanding the world are equal, just different, in the same way that hairstyles or clothing or art are culturally relative. The problem is that nature actually exists, and it doesn’t care what we believe or shape itself to match. Our understanding of nature is never perfect, but the more accurate it is, the better we can change things, and the less we suffer and die. Medicine is not just opinion because there is an actual truth to be figured out. Again, history shows without a doubt that science works better than the unscientific alternatives you defend. Homeopathy never eliminated smallpox or polis, but science did and could again if people would let it. Thousands of years of folk medicine never changed the fact that half our children never made it to adulthood, a fact which seems unimaginable now that almost all of the do–thanks to the use of science to understand and change what was killing them. It’s not just opinion.
3. No one is “banishing” anything. We are asking all treatments to be judged by the same standard, and that standard to be scientific. This has improved human and animal life and health dramatically in a short time, and the fact that so many people doubt this is a failure of education and communication, not a justification for continuing to believe in magic, which is all “energy medicine” is.