Advertising is a form of communication intended to influence the behavior of potential consumers with regard to specific products or services. As such, it is inherently competitive to some degree, attempting to encourage consumers to choose the advertiser’s product over those offered by competitors. However, widely accepted ethical principles, and often specific laws, require that advertising be fundamentally truthful, within fairly elastic bounds. And there is no inherent need for advertising, though it is competitive, to be negative. It is possible to promote one’s own services without claiming that one’s competitors are incompetent, dangerous, dishonest, or guilty of some other malfeasance against the customer.

We all know that in reality, advertising often falls short of the ideal of factually accurate and civil content. While many practitioners of complementary and alternative veterinary medicine (CAVM) advertise in a way that is at least civil, if not in my opinion factually accurate, I also frequently find examples of advertising for alternative veterinary products and services that are not only inaccurate but also blatantly hostile towards conventional, scientific medicine.

This makes sense in that “alternative” medicine, by definition, must consist of therapies intended to replace conventional medicine, and such therapies would have no value if conventional medicine were accepted as generally safe and effective. “Integrative” and “complementary” interventions are, at least theoretically, not incompatible with conventional medicine, so they could more easily be advertised on their own claimed merits, without the need to claim that scientific medicine is unsafe and ineffective. But even when labeled with these less confrontational buzzwords, such interventions are often promoted on the basis of at least implying, of not claiming outright, that scientific medicine is harmful and not very effective.

Despite disagreements over the theories and scientific evidence associated with alternative veterinary medicine, it seems to me that there might be some common ground possible between skeptics, such as myself, and more reasonable advocates of CAVM to agree that advertising by veterinarians which is egregiously hostile or which depends on painting one’s colleagues as incompetent, venal, or otherwise not genuinely interested in the well-being of their patients is inappropriate. Despite the fact that this blog consists primarily of critiques of therapies I believe make claims not supported by reasonable evidence, I make great efforts to repeatedly affirm that most practitioners of these therapies have honest intentions and are truly seeking the best for their patients and client. I am seldom accorded the same courtesy by my own detractors.

I have previously discussed examples of what I believe to be inaccurate and inappropriate advertising by alternative veterinary practitioners (such as Andrew Jones, Gloria Dodd, and Erik Weisman, all of whom have face legal or regulatory board action for their actions). And to be fair, I have also criticized advertising of conventional interventions that are advertised in inappropriate ways, such as Medivet’s stem cell therapy.

Recently, I came across a couple of web sites which exemplify the worst sort of advertising rhetoric and techniques found in CAVM promotion. If the more reasonable proponents of alternative methods wish to be treated respectfully they might consider challenging such practices among their own colleagues.

Dr. Jenifer Preston of HolisticVetExpert.com provides several examples of negative and inaccurate advertising. The claims and comments made on this veterinarian’s web represent the use of exaggerated and unsupported allegations, and lack of regard for fact, that characterizes the more extreme CAVM propaganda.

Dr. Preston, for example, claims to have an herbal remedy that prevents and cures heartworm disease and other parasitic infestations. Such a claim, if not supported by FDA licensure, is illegal according to the terms of the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 (DSHEA), which forbids prevention and treatment claims and allows only vague “structure and function” claims.

These claims are also dangerous in that they can mislead consumers into failing to properly protect their animals from this deadly disease or to treat them appropriately when they become infected. And because there is no scientific support for these claims, they are sold through disparaging and misleading criticism of truly effective heartworm preventative and treatment agents and the implication that veterinarians sell these “poisonous chemicals” knowing they are dangerous out of simple greed.

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…

Our parasite formula has been used for several years now to treat heart flukes successfully….In my holistic practice, I find flukes and a host of other rarely diagnosed parasites through radionic testing.

We are now using our HVE Parasite Formula to treat all stages of heartworms. As with heart flukes, we have found that a slow killing of these heart parasites is much safer to the patient than the immediate kill-off with drugs such as Melarsomine (Immiticide). We are recommending a therapy (by weight) of daily treatment for seven days for a total of three rounds with two- four day breaks in between. In other words, treat the heartworm-positive dog once daily for seven days; stop for four days; repeat for seven days; stop for four days and repeat daily for a third round of seven days. In severe cases, we may have to go another round or two of therapy.

So far, we have NO side effects in these positive cases–all dogs are doing very well. I also believe that HVE Parasite Formula can be used to prevent heartworm infections.”

This is the most beautiful natural wormer we have found. It is a liquid herbal wormer that we have found to be effective against:

Intestinal Flukes
Liver Flukes
Lung Flukes
Heart Flukes
Intestinal Flukes
Blood Flukes
Cryptostrongyloides (roundworms in the lungs)
Sparganosis (migrating tapeworm larvae)
Pin Worms
Threadworms
Hook Worms
Whip Worms
Roundworms (in any organ including the brain)

Dr. Preston tests for these in her practice, and this is the number one wormer she uses.

There is no evidence to suggest that the undisclosed ingredients in this product, or any herbal product, is a safe and effective preventative or therapeutic agent for heartworm disease, and even many proponents of herbal and holistic therapies acknowledge that conventional medications are the safest and most effective agents for this purpose. What is more, though there are well-known risks to conventional prevention and treatments, these pale in comparison to the tens of thousands of dogs who have been spared illness and death by these products.

Regardless of what I am sure is Dr. Preston’s genuine, though deluded, belief in the statements she makes here, there is no justification for regulatory agencies, or responsible proponents of alternative veterinary medicine, to allow these kinds of claims to go unchallenged.

The rest of the site contains many other cases of misleading and unsupported claims about the dangers of conventional medicine and the superiority of her approach. Dr. Preston’s bio contains a fairly typical conversion story indicating that she began practicing as a conventional veterinarian and then became convinced that she was doing far more harm than good, which led to a conversion to alternative methods. The narrative contains the usual unsupported claims that vaccines and medicines are terrible toxins responsible for most of the diseases science hasn’t yet found a clear cause of or cure for, laments about the unpleasant fact that not all illness can be prevented of cured, and claims that alternative medicine is obviously safer and better but that it is suppressed by greedy corporations and the blindness of  unenlightened mainstream veterinarians.

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. So the leading income-producer in her practice–vaccines–was obviously creating havoc in most of her patients. The drugs prescribed every day were literally destroying healthy organs and shortening lives.

Ten years ago, Dr. Preston turned to holistic veterinary medicine–it seemed to be the only answer to the overwhelming set of diseases that were not responding to conventional therapy. For decades, allopathic medicine has been revered and taught in every veterinary college in this country without exploring alternatives! One only needs to realize that many of the biggest subsidizers of veterinary schools across America and Europe are Big Pharma. Who donates new, expensive equipment? Who provides large scholarships? Who provides most of the grants to research veterinarians? Major pharmaceutical companies. She realized that their goal was not to improve the lives of millions of companion animals but to line their own pockets.

She is confident that HolisticVetExpert supplements will tackle diseases that have up to now baffled you and your pet, such as:

-cancer
-mild to severe arthritis and degenerative joint diseases
-joint injuries
-hypo- or hyper- thyroidism.
-cushings disease
-liver and kidney disease
-cystitis-acute or chronic
-urinary incontinence
-constipation
-asthma
-allergies
-obvious or unobvious underlying parasitic diseases
-chronic infections in any system or organ
-vaccinosis–diseases caused by vaccines themselves

As is common in the advertising of “holistic” medicine, the emphasis in this site is on sweeping statements about the dangers of conventional care  and sweeping claims about the superiority of alternative care, all presented with no supporting evidence beyond opinion and anecdotes. The ignorance of conventional veterinarians is portrayed as a positive danger to their patients.

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

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! Naturopathic veterinarians have found that these alternative products are accepted so much easier by the animal’s body and therapy is so much quicker and more complete!

By using natural, holistic supplements, we all enjoy a better quality of life, because we ourselves are not exposed to the toxins that go onto or into our pets’ systems!

Here’s another example.

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.

The culprit for seizures – except for the cases of malignancies of the brain or chemical poisonings-is often distemper and/ or rabies vaccines.

One other common contributor to seizures is the use of topical flea products-any brand-they are all nasty.

Another case of dodgy advertising that caught my attention recently, though I have discussed the individual’s advocacy of alternative veterinary nutrition before,  is the site of Dr. Tom Lonsdale, who promotes his book, products, and overall agenda with inflammatory statements like these:

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.

 The situation is grim and starts with the veterinary profession’s inattention to detail. Whilst it is obvious to most folks…that junk foods are bad for health the veterinary profession appears to have been too busy to notice. 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.

It is my belief that the profession’s political mismanagement and acquiescence is matched by a naive scientific methodology… Our way out of the mire is via a holistic assessment…. Since the holistic approach is not usually taught or practised, here are a few tips which may be of help. Firstly, make sure to have fun. There are no columns of meaningless figures in this approach nor disembodied dry facts.

We have standardised error such that incompetence has become the standard.

Such negative advertising may not be the rule for alternative veterinary practitioners, but it is by no means rare. There is a natural tendency for proponents of alternative methods to promote them in terms of the inadequacies or dangers of conventional medicine. Insofar as they present reasonable evidence to support their criticisms, this is fair play. However, at a minimum, there should be some attempt to offer such evidence, and efforts to claim superiority by insinuating greed, ignorance, or stupidity on the part of the majority of veterinarians practicing conventional should be eschewed.

One of my favorite podcasts is Occam’s Razor, the science podcast of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s (ABC) Radio National. In a recent episode, A Scientific View of Non-Scientific Beliefs, Dr. Craig Cormick of Canberra does an excellent job of laying out a cogent view of how intelligent people come to and maintain unscientific beliefs despite powerful evidence against them. Though not as comprehensive a treatment of the subject as a book like Michael Shermer’s Why People Believe Weird Things, this short essay outlines some of the key issues, and points out some of the major challenges for those of us trying to counter pseudoscientific, or simply inaccurate, beliefs.

Dr. Cormick Begins with some frightening statistics (which are also oddly comforting only in that they challenge the assumption I sometimes make that the United States is the center of gravity for antiscientific thinking).

So what are we to make of the facts that in Australia roughly every second person believes in psychic powers such as ESP, one in three believes in UFOs and one in five believes in magic?

And a 2005 survey published in the Medical Journal of Australia stated that half of all Australians are taking alternative medicines with one in four not even telling their doctor they are taking them.

Other surveys conducted in Australia and in the USA indicate that about 80% of the population hold at least one paranormal belief which includes astrology. One in ten Americans said that astrology was ‘very scientific’, in the UK belief in UFOs is about evenly divided into thirds between those who say UFOs have visited the earth, those who say they have not and those who were undecided…

According to the US Centre for Disease Control, one in five Americans believes that vaccines can cause autism and two in five Americans have either delayed or refused vaccines for their children. And in Australia according to the Australian General Practice Network vaccination rates have been dropping over the past seven years, with now only 83% of 4 year olds covered which is more likely to lead to outbreaks of fatal, but preventable, diseases.

And in some areas, usually where there are high pockets of alternative lifestyle supporters such as south-east Queensland, the northern rivers of NSW and Adelaide Hills and the south-west of Western Australia vaccination rates are as low as 70%.

He then goes on to point out that providing facts and data which contradict unscientific beliefs doesn’t seem to be very effective in undermining these beliefs. As an example, he points out that despite the comprehensive disproof against the notion that childhood vaccines cause autism, and despite the retraction of the original paper by Andrew Wakefield and the revocation of ex-Dr. Wakefields medical license, belief in a vaccine-autism connection has not been much reduced. Dr. Cormick then gives examples of a number of factors that promote pseudoscientific beliefs based on current research.

The first on our list is scales of belief. People don’t divide into simple for and against camps on those things…There’s usually a wide scale, or a continuum of strengths of belief. So just because you believe in homeopathy and think that genetically engineered crops are unnatural it doesn’t mean that you don’t prescribe to a scientific view of the world on other things. But the further along the continuum you travel towards extreme anti-science thinking end, the more science-thinking is rejected and people at that end are very unlikely to ever shift their position.

It seems quite true that there are such scales of belief. I know of one prominent advocate for alternative veterinary medicine who seems reluctant to criticize the more mystical and obviously faith-based alternative approaches despite being an outspoken critic of religious belief (though I cannot say if the person is truly a believer in these spiritual forms of alternative medicine or is merely being politic). I know another perfectly rational person who proudly claims to be an advocates of evidence-based medicine and who also practices Healing Touch, a non-denominational form of faith healing. So it can be difficult to clearly identify exclusively pseudoscientific thinking because it is often accompanied by perfectly sound scientific thinking in the same brain.

However, as well as being a problem, this could potentially be an opportunity for those of us advocates of the scientific approach. Recognizing that promoters of approaches that are unscientific in some aspect may also me supporters of science in other domains might give us common ground and a common language, which could facilitate dialogue and perhaps education. Or am I being too optimistic?

Next, Dr. Cormick talks about heuristics, the “mental shortcuts” that lead us into false beliefs and keep us there. I have discussed these many times before, but Dr. Cormick takes a slightly different approach to the subject.

It’s the way we respond to rapid and complex information being fired at us. We need to quickly sort it into categories and an easy way to do this is to sort it according to our existing belief systems or values…the cultural cognition effect which put simply, argues that our values are more strongly going to influence our attitudes than any standard demographic like age, gender, race or socio-political status…And through ongoing affirmation and reinforcement of wacky ideas, they become values or beliefs and don’t easily move for anything. If you doubt this, just google “The Royal Family are Seven Foot Shape Shifting aliens’ and look at the sheer amount of confirmation on different sites about this.

Access to the enormous breadth of opinions on the internet has revealed that people, when swamped with information follow up by ‘motivated reasoning’ which means only acknowledging information that accords with our beliefs and dismissing information that does not accord with them.

The next item on Dr. Cormick’s list is the depressing reminder that because of this values-based, motivated reasoning, facts don’t change beliefs very often.

Brendan Nyhan at the University of Michigan undertook a study that found that when people were shown information that proved that their beliefs were wrong they actually became more entrenched in their original beliefs. This is known in the business as ‘backfire’. And what’s more, highly intelligent people tend to suffer backfire more than less intelligent people do, making us immune to any facts that are counter to our strongly held beliefs…

Dr Andrew Binder at North Carolina State University found that most people when faced with an issue related to science and technology fairly quickly adopted an initial position of support or opposition based on a variety of mental shortcuts and predisposed beliefs. Dr Binder stated ‘This is problematic because it suggests that individuals are very selective in choosing their discussion partners and hearing only what they want to hear during discussions of controversial issues.

Dr. Cormick then addresses the “fear factor,” the phenomenon by which the emotional content of issues, particularly those that generate anxiety or fear, impedes a reasoned judgement based on facts. When an alternative medical approach, for example, is marketed through fear, fear of toxins, chemicals, or other nebulous dangers, then people are more likely to accept it despite the evidence against it.

Lastly, Dr. Cormick touches on what I believe is one of the most important factors, one related to the issue of fear: control. Alternative approaches are especially attractive to those who feel a need for more control, over their health or other sources of fear. Simple, confident, direct answers are reassuring and appealing even if they aren’t consistent with the often complex and ambiguous nature of reality. Pseudoscience has an inherent marketing advantage over science in catering to people’s anxiety and need for control because it is not constrained by the true nature of reality.

At the heart of a lot of our non-science beliefs is control. We live in an ever uncertain and more out of control world, but superstitious beliefs and pseudoscience can give people a sense of control and certainty, providing simple answers, which reduces our level of stress which again is a necessary adaptive mechanism and something we tend to be wired to seek out. But here’s the cruncher – science is predominantly based on uncertainty and the simple answer to this simple statement is that unfortunately there is no simple answer.

So what to do? Well, Dr. Cormick doesn’t claim to have a comprehensive answer (which increases his credibility, since any such answer would likely be wrong), but he does have some sensible suggestions.

…good science education can help. There is some evidence that adults with more science training will more often reject astrology or lucky numbers and more often accept things like evolution. Likewise a 2002 PhD study by Alyssa Taylor in Queensland found that a course on critical thinking led to significant decline in belief in paranormal claims.

So we need to educate people before attitudes and beliefs are strongly formed and in this it is more important to teach them how to think than what to think. The only way to make people bullet-proof to pseudoscience is to effectively teach the values and ways of science thinking whilst still young before alternative belief systems have formed.