CAM Vets Attacking Conventional Veterinary Medicine

The nature of science is fundamentally critical. Science works best when it shows us what is not true. This is largely a function of the fact that most of the biases and cognitive quirks that lead us astray when trying to evaluate the natural world lead us specifically in the direction of seeing what is not there and of confirming our own beliefs. We find patterns where there are none, we underestimate the role of chance, and we inevitably filter what we see to build a case for our existing theories. Science brings us closer to the truth by compensating for these tendencies and poking holes in our cherished beliefs.

For this reason, a science-based approach to medicine often involves critique, testing claims by attempting to disprove them. But while I think substantive and civil critique is essential to the process of finding the truth and improving medicine, I understand that critical comments are often perceived and received negatively. It doesn’t surprise me, then that proponents of alternative medicine often bristle at the questions I ask about their methods, or at the conclusions the evidence often leads to about their effectiveness.

However, there is a certain hypocrisy in much of the hate mail I get, which frequently berates me for being unkind or arrogant simply because I ask such questions and rely on the evidence rather than the testimonials and belief of CAM believers. It is frequently argued that, right or wrong, I have no business criticizing alternative medicine. CAM practitioners are apparently minding their own business, doing what they think best for their patients, and along come skeptics rudely challenging their claims.

This is hypocritical because so much of alternative medicine is marketed predominantly on the basis of criticisms of the safety and efficacy of conventional medicine. CAM advocates are not at all shy about claiming conventional medicine is inferior to their methods or even outright harmful. Skeptics do not begin these debates, they simply respond to the claims CAM proponents make.

Personally, I think it is fair game to criticize conventional medicine when it makes claims that go beyond the evidence (as I do when talking about stem cell therapies or annual vaccination, for example) just as I think it appropriate to criticize CAM therapies marketed without good supporting scientific evidence. But I object to the clear double standard involved in resenting criticism of CAM while routinely mischaracterizing or denigrating science-based medicine.

The following are examples of veterinarians or veterinary organizations who promote CAM expressing typical criticisms of conventional medicine. I have limited my examples to veterinarians to illustrate that this is not simply a phenomenon of random zealots on the internet making claims that do not fairly represent common thinking in the CAM community. (There are plenty of examples of these as well in my general hate mail and well as in the attacks on me from defenders of CAM proponents I have criticized, such Dr. Andrew Jones, Dr. Al Plechner, and others.) While there is undoubtedly a great diversity of opinion among CAM proponents, and many also utilize science-based therapies, it is common for “mainstream” CAM doctors and organizations to criticize conventional medicine with at least as much vigor, and generally less evidence, that found in my criticisms of CAM.

These criticisms of conventional medicine levied by CAM proponents fall into a few general categories. One of the most popular is the claim that the fundamental theoretical mechanisms of science and science-based medicine are mistaken and that only the theories of the particular alternative a given practitioner favors can identify the true cause of illness or effect real healing. Conventional medicine only suppresses symptoms but doesn’t actually find or treat the cause of disease.  

Did you know that conventional veterinary medicine (excluding surgical options) and its conventional drug therapies – is capable of relieving symptoms but not curing your pet? If you have a pet you love or farm animals you care for – homeopathy is the only system of veterinary medicine that holds the potential to actually cure animals of disease.

Academy of Veterinary Homeopathy Facebook page

 

The word “disease” is really a bastardization of the original word “dis-ease” meaning the body was uneasy because it was/is imbalanced. The word “disease” was instituted to place labels on symptoms and is used to lend an element of fear that states only a licensed physician can cure and/or treat the “label” using invasive measures such as surgery and synthetic pharmaceuticals to “control or manage the labeled symptom”. Really there is no such thing as “disease” in the Westernized meaning of the word – merely symptoms of a body out of balance.

Today’s veterinarians are in the business of disease care, not health care. They hold doctorate titles from colleges that teach them chemistry and surgery. They are taught the labels or names of a set of symptoms as a disease. They are taught how to use modern, high tech equipment to diagnose while the pharmaceutical companies teach them which drug to prescribe to suppress the symptoms of the dis-ease or illness the animal is presenting with.

American Council of Animal Naturopathy Facebook page

 

traditionally trained DVMs practice ‘reactive’ veterinary medicine. This means they don’t have much to offer pets unless and until they’re good and sick…

…preventive medical care in the mainstream veterinary community has evolved to mean not much more than yearly vaccines and chemicals to discourage pests and parasites like fleas, ticks and heartworm.

There is rarely discussion between vets and pet owners about nutrition (because vet students receive almost no education in the subject), exercise and other physical therapies, or the importance of a strong, resilient and balanced immune system.

Dr. Karen Becker

 

Allopathic veterinarians are trained to relieve symptoms with little or no emphasis placed on the consequence(s) of the treatments selected…

Dr. Patricia Jordan

Conventional medicine looks at the body as being made up of various parts that, when sick, have nothing to do with the rest of the body, or overall health of the animal.  

Pets treated conventionally also do NOT truly achieve a higher level of health,

Dr. Michael Dym 

Doctors know a lot about medicines and surgeries but not enough about the causes of health. We are not trained to recognize the impediments to health that we ourselves have constructed, much less to remove them.

Dr. Barbara Royal

Cure CANNOT be achieved in the physical body alone. Cure cannot be achieved by focusing on symptoms but on CAUSE, the true nature of symptoms exhibited. It is as if there is a dirty spot on a lens of a slide projector that is projecting an image on a screen. The traditional doctor works away on scrubbing the spot off the screen, while the holistic doctor cleans the lens, the cause of the spot on the screen… 

Dr. Gloria Dodd

 

In my own practice, the average pet with cancer, given a prognosis of 6 to 12 months of life expectancy from conventional veterinarians, typically lives 12 to 24 months or even longer. Additionally, many pets with “incurable” cancers are cured from their cancers using an integrative approach

The sad news is that so many cancer patients will ultimately die after surviving conventional therapies because nothing is done to prevent the recurrence of cancer…How sad and tragic to know that many people will needlessly die out of ignorance once their cancer returns.

I’m still bewildered by the fact that many conventional veterinarians choose euthanasia as a solution for failure of their conventional treatments, rather than simply opening their minds to the healing power that exists when using clinically proven, time-honored natural therapies.

Dr. Sean Messonier

In addition to suggesting that conventional medicine is misguided and ineffective, CAM practitioners frequently assert that it is actively harmful, particularly vaccines and medicines.

Vaccinations are for the most part unsafe and unnecessary and actually the very “thing” that is making the branch of medicine known as “internal medicine”…. Vaccination is the cause of disease not the answer to stopping disease…vaccination is not legitimate, it is not ethical medicine.

We should rewrite the books of medicine to reflect the understanding that disease has evolved from the very use of vaccines.

Never should we have allowed the innoculation of poison, the grafting of man and beast. Now we all carry the scar, of medical superstition the genetic plague of inquity.

Vaccines and drugs are at odds with the intelligence of the almighty design and getting back to the garden means getting back to the natural form…

Dr. Patricia Jordan

 

The bodies of most animals have a tremendous capacity to detoxify poisons, but they do have a limit. I think we often exceed that limit and over-whelm the body’s immune system function with toxins from vaccines

Dr. Pat Bradley

 

Veterinarians and animal guardians have to come to realise that they are not protecting animals from disease by annual vaccinations, but in fact, are destroying the health and immune systems of these same animals they love and care for. Homeopathic veterinarians and other holistic practitioners have maintained for some time that vaccinations do more harm than they provide benefits.

Dr. Charles E Loops

 

The model of disease prevention put forth by conventional veterinarians is fundamentally flawed. It is in fact damaging the animals whose owners partake in it.

Dr. Will Falconer

 

Dr. Preston practiced allopathic medicine for twenty five years before realizing that the vaccinations and drugs she dispensed daily were causing more problems than they ever solved and often to a more severe degree…The drugs prescribed every day were literally destroying healthy organs and shortening lives.

Over the years, drugs and vaccines have made our pets, our beloved companions, seriously sicker and have shortened their natural life span. Why do we so often see premature aging? How do we STOP this trend? Treat holistically!

Epilepsy in dogs and cats can develop at any age. Allopathic veterinarians do not give you any real reason that this develops in your beloved dog or cat.

What the vets don’t realize is that they themselves have very likely created this syndrome with vaccines. Yearly administration of multi-valent vaccines assault the animal’s immune system over and over. More and more animals are developing ‘auto-immune’ diseases and the allopathic community has no idea why.

Dr. Jenifer Preston

 

I firmly believe in holistic medicine for pets.

We are killing them with the most of the terrible dog foods on the market along with pesticides contained in flea and tick medications and also medicines the vets want you to purchase.

Pay Close Attention – today, I’m going to show you why conventional veterinary medicine is harming your pet and step-by-step what you must do to prevent it.

“Regular” veterinary care has lost it’s [sic] effectiveness over the years, and in some cases is causing illness in our pets.

Dr. Andrew Jones

Most offensive of all, CAM practitioners commonly attribute the refusal of skeptics to believe their claims as evidence of greed or the malign influence of industry, the so-called Pharma Shill Gambit. These individuals show an incredible arrogance in believing that the only reason someone might not believe their claims or accept their methods is if they have a sinister financial incentive not to or are dupes of industry. The very thought that someone might honestly and intelligently evaluate the evidence and conclude that some alternative practices simply do not work is apparently inconceivable. And yet these same advocates are among the most outspoken and offended when faced with skepticism about their practices.

The vaccines are unsafe and they are unnecessary, they are also the FOUNDATION of conventional medicine which unfortunately is not to be confused with conventional “wisdom”. This is an example of how the system is built upon a foundation of “speculation” or unethical medicine that is now being questioned. Vaccines DO NOT confer herd immunity and they DO NOT confer individual immunity. They are however, the “golden calf” of the white coats that grows into the “sacred cow” of vaccine induced disease. What will they do when the public figures out they have been lied to for the purpose of “making a living by killing” by the pharmaceutical medical industrial complex that is only in operation due to government financial scaffolding and protection?

Dr. Patricia Jordan

 

Doctors that spend the time to find and promote health take more time in the exam room, and it doesn’t make financial sense. Doctors aren’t rewarded for the health of their patients; they are rewarded when their patients are sick and they need testing and medical intervention. And even the most idealistic and dedicated doctors arrive in the profession with large student loans to pay. Volume of patients, not vitality of patients will pay the bills

Doctors and veterinarians are not trained in nutrition because it will not help them financially. There is much more money in surgery and drugs. We learn our medicine in programs and teaching hospitals that are typically funded by those who have the most to gain financially: the drug companies.

Dr. Barbara Royal

 

So the leading income-producer in her practice–vaccines–was obviously creating havoc in most of her patients

Heartworm preventatives are a huge income to both veterinary clinics and the big pharmaceutical companies that manufacture the drugs…There are other alternatives to these poisonous chemicals…

Dr. Jenifer Preston

 

The model of disease prevention put forth by conventional veterinarians is fundamentally flawed. It is in fact damaging the animals whose owners partake in it.

This broken model of disease “prevention” will never change from Dr. WhiteCoat’s side, who sells it:

• He refuses to see the possibility of it causing harm.
• He’s comfortable in it; change loses to maintaining the status quo.
• He profits from providing it and profits again from the disease it causes.

Dr. Will Falconer

 

The profits that a cancer cure would accrue wouldn’t even come close to the profits made by all of the cancer treatment drugs and the associated services involved in treating cancer. Sad to say, the treatment of cancer has proven itself to be, a tremendously successful revenue builder. Why wouldn’t you keep a possible cure under wraps?

But of course, this is purely a hypothetical question. We couldn’t possibly believe that our medical institutions could be callously driven by the pursuit of profit. Why, they’re as ethical as our great financial institutions are and look at how successful they’ve been.

The frightening fact is that a cancer cure could prove to be financially disastrous to the pharmaceutical and all of the other dependent medical industries.

“HE WHO PAYS THE PIPER, CALLS THE TUNE”

Much of so called ‘science’ operates on this basis.

And most of the medical/ big pharma colluded industry has a cozy little relationship with

government, msm and the educational institutes to boot.

We should class them as ‘Disease Care’ providers, and not Health Care!

Dr. Al Plechner

 

Why haven’t I heard of the VOM Technology before?

Because it works! That may not make sense at first, but consider this: if the VOM Technology does what it appears to do, it makes a lot of techniques, surgeries and medications obsolete. The professionals that provide those techniques, surgeries and medications will be placed in academic and financial jeopardy. These are the people that control publications in the field and control licensure and applications. AKA politics.

Dr. William Inman

 

Why there is an alliance between junk pet food makers (‘barfers’ included), many veterinarians and fake animal welfare groups designed to keep pet owners confused and in the dark?

See how incompetence and maladministration characterise the veterinary endeavour.

Once pointed out, the fact that an artificial diet fed monotonously either directly or indirectly poisons animals, the profession should have risen up and acted. Instead the professional ethic ruled that a mass cover up should apply. With the cover up safely in place profits were to be made. Increasingly elaborate ploys are now used in persuading the populace to a. keep more animals and b. feed them high priced artificial concoctions.

Dr. Tom Lonsdale

It seems to me however that skeptics who rally against natural therapies don’t want their patients or clients to have this choice. For many of these skeptical doctors, it’s “their way or the highway!”

They consistently try to talk patients out of a more natural approach to healthcare, all the while demeaning and insulting this choice, as if this choice is invalid or irrational…

The only answer I can come to after researching this question is this: economics.

If a doctor only offers one choice, in this case conventional drug or surgical therapy, and you choose a more natural approach, that means you will have to find another doctor. Your current doctor loses your business, and your choice punishes his pocket book. He won’t like that and will do anything to keep you as a patient.

Dr. Sean Messonier

At the end of the day it boils down to money. If the public are not lining vets pockets with unnecessary visits, purchasing processed foods from which vets also take a percentage, that’s quite a reduction in income.

I am “positive” that many ‘conventional” veterinarians think that Veterinary Secrets Revealed is a bunch of “hocus pocus” and should be shut down.

What does this mean?

It means that other veterinarians are upset about my website, ebook, and Complete Home Study Course.

After all, I’m showing people how to treat their own pets and save money on Vet bills

Most veterinarians just choose to ignore the research because either they still feel the benefits of vaccines outweigh the risks, or that they don’t want to lose income from giving booster shots to all those animals each year.

Dr. Andrew Jones

 

Obviously this website is biased against complementary integrative veterinary medicine….keeping comments and ideas one sided and supported pharmaceutical and commercial pet food monopolies which have been raking in the money for many decades.

Threatened financially and ideologically, they must resort to political tactics of attack, shock and awe using headlines inspired by the National Inquirer or some other ladies gossip rag.

Dr. Ihor Basko

To be clear, I don’t object to civil and substantive criticism of conventional medicine. I believe criticism based on evidence is essential to improving the quality of medicine, to identifying those therapies worth employing and those that should be discarded. And I sometimes agree with specific criticisms of conventional practice, such as the inappropriateness of annual vaccinations and the dangers of bias introduced by the influence of commercial industries on scientific research. The problem with critiques such as those I have cited is not that they are challenges to conventional practices, but rather that they are often purely ideological and without supporting evidence, and they are frequently distorted or cherry-picked to mischaracterize the safety and efficacy of scientific medicine for the purpose of marketing alternative medicine.

In any case, these examples should serve to demonstrate that the debate about alternative therapies does not begin with skeptics, and it is not a consequence of angry, arrogant, or mean-spirited critics unfairly attacking humble practitioners quietly trying to make the world a better place. The debate is a natural consequence of the claims made by CAM proponents, which often include vigorous criticism of the principles and practices of science-based medicine. In responding to such claims, we are not spontaneously attacking CAM without purpose but participating in a debate already launched by CAM advocates about how best to find the truth about nature and care for our patients.

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