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Vets groups duke it out on who's more humane
Denise Flaim | Animal House
January 31, 2008
It's Godzilla versus Mothra.
I'm talking about the recent head-butting between the American Veterinary Medical Association and the Humane Society of the United States.
Earlier this month, the HSUS and the relatively unknown Association of Veterinarians for Animal Rights announced they would be merging to form the Humane Society Veterinary Medical Association.
Of the approximately 80,000 veterinarians in the United States, only 3,500 are affiliated with AVAR, which focuses on reducing animal use in veterinary training and on advocacy for companion and farm animals.
Its supporters say the creation of the Humane Society Veterinary Medical Association - which is backed by the HSUS' healthy budget and boundless marketing and media savvy - was a response to the AVMA's lack of progressiveness and its kowtowing to industries that view animals as commodities, not sentient beings.
"All too often, the AVMA sides with animal-use industries, and not with animals," said Wayne Pacelle, president and chief executive of the Humane Society, at the announcement of the merger. "How could a veterinarian, who takes a sworn oath to care for animals, not speak out against force-feeding of ducks for foie gras or the confinement of veal calves in crates so small that the animals cannot even turn around?"
The AVMA volleyed back a high-road response: "Credibility is earned by engaging and gathering input from the broadest range of voices," said Ron DeHaven, executive vice president of the American Veterinary Medical Association, in a news release, "not by listening only to those who agree with us."
But off the page, DeHaven is quick to note the distinction between an "animal welfare" group like the AVMA and fringe "animal rights" groups like AVAR and, by extension, HSUS.
"Ultimately, it comes down to a fundamental difference in philosophy," he said. "That would suggest that they would confer upon animals the same legal rights that people have." Among the AVAR agenda, he contends: eliminating animal ownership and the use of animals for food or fiber.
Paula Kislak, president of AVAR, notes dryly that, as an association of veterinarians, "it would be pretty counterproductive if we were working toward eliminating pet ownership." As far as rights go, AVAR is concerned with what she calls "minimal rights" - "the rights for animals to extend their limbs and turn around and stand up in their confinement cages, or the right to food, water and shelter, the right not to be abused or beaten or not to live in fear or neglect."
Which side to sympathize with?
On the one hand, the AVMA is hardly progressive, leaning toward bureaucratic sluggishness in areas that might engender controversy. Consider the declawing of cats, considered by many to be amputation.
"Declawing of domestic cats should be considered only after attempts have been made to prevent the cat from using its claws destructively or when its clawing presents a zoonotic risk for its owner(s)," reads the AVMA's tepid 2003 position statement.
Preventing overvaccination is another area in which the AVMA could take a greater leadership role. Although the veterinary group did issue a report on changing vaccine schedules in 2002, its efforts pale compared to those of the American Animal Hospital Association, which in 2006 updated its highly specific canine vaccine protocols.
(DeHaven replies that sometimes, the AVMA need not reinvent the wheel when other reputable groups have taken the lead.)
DeHaven notes the AVMA's house of delegates has reviewed policies brought before it by the AVAR - specifically, the production of foie gras, tail docking and ear cropping in dogs, and induced molting in chickens. None were passed in their original form, DeHaven says, "principally because revisions to the submitted language were necessary to accurately reflect the available science on these topics." In several cases, he adds, "policies emerged or were revised" as a result of discussions with AVAR representatives.
As for HSUS, its critics decry its very name, noting that the group runs no humane societies and saying it is basically a watered-down version of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, which would end domestication as we know it and return every dog and cat to born-free-Elsa status. While HSUS does do important work in highlighting animal abuse, and while it works hard to maintain a mainstream image, it arguably falls more to the left than center. Pacelle, for example, has gone on record saying that he thinks all breeding of companion dogs should be regulated, regardless of whether the puppies are raised in a puppy mill or by a hobby breeder in the home.
"This merger sends a message to the AVMA," said Jean Dodds of Santa Monica, Calif., who has been an AVAR member for decades. "As a profession, we need our national association to continue to be more proactive and responsive to what society wants and expects with respect to animals."
In the face of charges that AVAR vets are tree-hugging wackos, consider that Dodds is not averse to sacrificing animal life for the greater good: The Rabies Challenge Fund, which she helped found, is testing the duration of immunity of the rabies vaccine to see if it extends as far as five to seven years. At the end of the vaccine trial, all the beagles will be euthanized so their brains can be examined for signs of the disease - the only definitive way to diagnose rabies.
Much like when I watched those painfully bad Japanese horror movies, I find I'm unable to decide between the overgrown lizard and the supersized, powder-spewing insect. I think I'll wait for the sequel.
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