Animal welfare and veterinary ethics

The American College of Animal Welfare has proposed a new animal welfare veterinary speciality. The creation of a new specialty happens when a new veterinary college is created. Admission to a veterinary college normally entails completion of veterinary school (obviously), then a few years in private practice or a one-year internship, then a multi-year residency in the specialty, including clinical practice and research, and finally a difficult board exam. There may be some other requirements for specific specialties. In this case, a proposed additional requirement is that the candidate sign a statement that they agree with the AVMA’s animal welfare principles.

Some veterinarians recently sent a letter to the AVMA protesting this requirement. This story has been reported on both by the Veterinary Information Network News Service (an unbiased report) and by Pet Connection (an opinon piece).

One item in the AVMA’s animal welfare principles that the veterinarians who sent the letter are taking exception to is:

The responsible use of animals for human purposes, such as companionship, food, fiber, recreation, work, education, exhibition, and research conducted for the benefit of both humans and animals, is consistent with the Veterinarian’s Oath.

Should veterinarians be required to agree with the AVMA’s animal welfare principles before they are allowed to be certified as animal welfare specialists?

It is worth pointing out that the AVMA already requires all veterinarians to take an oath upon completion of veterinary school. Here it is:

Being admitted to the profession of veterinary medicine, I solemnly swear to use my scientific knowledge and skills for the benefit of society through the protection of animal health, the relief of animal suffering, the conservation of animal resources, the promotion of public health, and the advancement of medical knowledge.

I will practice my profession conscientiously, with dignity, and in keeping with the principles of veterinary medical ethics.

I accept as a lifelong obligation the continual improvement of my professional knowledge and competence.

This oath may seem innocuous, but note that it frames a veterinarian’s primary responsibility as being “for the benefit of society,” not for the benefit of animals. This is very similar to what I see as the primary objection to the animal welfare principles being debated, which emphasize “the responsible use of animals for human purposes.” If you disagree with the latter, should you have sworn to the former? Or is it possible that a number of veterinarians are taking the Veterinarian’s Oath without really meaning it?

Personally, I actually prefer the phrasing in the animal welfare principles, which only require “the responsible use of animals for human purposes.” What is responsible use? It is presumably different for different people. In the VIN article, Dr. Gary Block (moderator of a veterinary ethics mailing list, past president of the Society for Veterinary Medical Ethics, member of the leadership council of the Humane Society Veterinary Medical Association, board certified internal medicine specialist) explains his view point:

For the most part, everyone would agree with the principles. But let’s say that I come to the conclusion that based on ethical, medical, physiologic and environmental grounds that invasive research on higher primates should never be done. Now I’ve just run afoul of the principles.

I have a lot of respect for Dr. Block and his positions on animal welfare, but in this case I think he’s wrong. I think it’s fine to interpret “responsible use” to mean “no use” in some cases. There are some things that cannot be done responsibly; genocide comes to mind. If Dr. Block chooses to believe that primate research cannot be done responsibly due to primates’ high requirements for enrichment, I don’t find that position to be irreconcilable with the AVMA’s animal welfare principles.

My view is that the AVMA has dragged its heels for too long when it comes to its views of animal welfare. The AVMA’s positions on animal welfare seem to me to all too often fail to reflect the views of the majority of American veterinarians. Creation of an animal welfare college would be a big step forward. If we stop to quibble about the details, it may never happen. These principles are broad and can be interpreted in a variety of ways. It’s annoying to have to sign them, no question. But worth jeopardizing the creation of the new specialty? In my opinion, no.

Links post

• ZooBorns has your canid puppy fix, with baby bush dogs, dingoes, and fennec foxes. The dingoes post has some interesting background on dingoes and explains how they are different from domestic dogs.
• Hands Off My Bone! (The Thoughtful Animal): review of an article about whether dog growls have different meanings to dogs.
• P ≠ NP and the future of peer review (Science in the Open): Science in the Open considers what the reaction of the mathematics community to a recent extremely high-profile paper means for peer review.
• Native American Project HSVMA Stipend (The Vet Gazette): a vet student reports on her experience working on a Native American reservation, providing veterinary services, spay/neuter, and outreach to grade school students.
• Science Bloggers: Diversifying the news (CMBR): review of a journal article about science bloggers versus political bloggers, and how they approach topics differently.

Report from the trenches of local politics: pit pull ordinance hearing

Last night I attended a city council meeting in Worcester, in which the public was allowed to speak about the proposed pit bull ordinance. As a reminder, this ordinance would require pit bull type dogs in the city of Worcester to be muzzled when in public, and would require owners to post a sign warning that a pit bull type dog was in residence. Last night’s meeting was ably reported by the Telegram and Gazette, the local paper. I’ll give my own report here, and I’ll say up front that I don’t support the ordinance, and my reporting is biased (for the unbiased version, see the T&G).

As a Grafton resident, I was not allowed to speak at this meeting. I attended because I was curious, and to show support from the nearby vet school for opponents of the ordinance. Four other vet students attended with me (and maybe others that I didn’t know about). The room filled to overflowing, and was standing room only by the time the meeting came to order.

The first speaker was a state representative, who said that he had served on committees for animal legislation. He felt strongly that this ordinance doesn’t go far enough, and that pit bull type dogs should in fact be banned. He believed that “punish the deed, not the breed” was not a good argument against breed specific legislation, citing anecdotal evidence of pit bull type dogs having injured people. (He did not explain why he felt that breed was a better predictor of a dangerous dog than irresponsible ownership, something that often frustrates me about proponents of breed-specific legislation, because it seems to be such an obvious question to me.) His speech was greeted with loud boos from the audience, causing Mayor O’Brien to have to ask for quiet and for people to behave respectfully.

A representative of the Worcester Animal Rescue League also spoke. She made her case well, I thought, covering the important points: we have no reason to believe this ordinance will be effective; accurate identification of pit bull type dogs is very difficult; this ordinance will make people think the problem is solved when it is not. She was a good public speaker, something not to take for granted when a busy urban shelter needs to find someone to present their case at a city council meeting.

One person spoke in favor of the ordinance, saying that he had seen pit bull type dogs owned by drug dealers. Again, I felt that his case was lacking in some logic — perhaps ownership by a drug dealer might be a better predictor of a dog’s temperament than its breed.

Then people from the floor started lining up to speak against the ordinance. Mayor O’Brien attempted to alternate pro versus con speakers, but no one else was offering to speak in favor of the ordinance. So for the next 45 minutes, we heard from people against it. One speaker was a veteran of two wars who has a pit bull type dog with a Canine Good Citizen title, who is training her dog to do therapy work (going to places like hospitals and nursing homes to visit sick or elderly people who want to spend time with a dog). She was an excellent speaker who made good, logical points, but also had good emotional appeal.

Other speakers appealed solely to emotion, but I think that’s as important as appealing to logic in a situation like this. One elderly gentleman explained in detail how sweet his neighbor’s pit bull type dog was and how it liked to lick his face. While speeches like this seemed useless to one of my vet school compatriots, who wanted logic, logic, logic, I’m guessing that the less scientifically-trained in the audience found that sort of appeal more effective in some ways.

The ordinance will be voted on at the next city council meeting, in early September. In the meantime, apparently some motions were brought after I left, to modify the text of the ordinance to target dangerous dogs regardless of breed. That sounds like a good change to me. I’m hopeful that the suggestions that were presented to the city council will cause them to think this ordinance through over the next month, and possibly even work with the Worcester Animal Rescue League to redesign the ordinance. Something does need to be done, but whatever is done needs to target dangerous dogs, not dogs of a particular breed.

[ETA: Unfortunately, the ordinance passed, 9-2. It takes effect April 1, 2011.]

Links post

I’m catching up on science blogs reading after a few days off. I was awfully busy recovering from defending my thesis! I am now almost done with the MS part of my dual-degree program, though there will be some thesis edits to do. Then I settle in for the final two years of the DVM program.

Anyways, links!

• The PepsiGate linkfest (A Blog Around the Clock): so comprehensive, he even linked to me.
• Mesozoic Blogosphere (Chasmosaurus): David Orr considers the usefulness of topic-based networks. The comments suggest aggregators to achieve this goal.
• “Dominance” mythologies, Suzanne Hetts (The Other End of the Leash): More on dominance theory in dog training from Patricia McConnell
• Tick news? It ain’t good, Dr. Flea tells AVMA audience (Pet Connection)
• Environmental enrichment is key to happy, healthy animals (Pet Connection): This seemed like a relevant link after The Thoughtful Animal’s recent post about behavioral differences in pigs in enriched environments.
• On detecting stress endocrines in hamster poop (C6-H12-O6): need I say more?
• Learning to speak dog (Dog Star Daily): the usefulness of understanding canine body language, and some good pointers
• You are what you eat – how your diet defines you in trillions of ways (Not Exactly Rocket Science): Nice post about how populations of gut bacteria are influenced by diet in different life stages and in different cultures. “As we learn more about our bacterial partners, we might eventually find ways of influencing them to improve our health, just as breast milk appears to selectively nourish helpful species.” He suggests inoculating people with appropriate gut bacteria, which makes me a little sad. I’d rather see people change their eating habits. Anyone for some research on the effects of fresh whole foods on populations of gut bacteria?
• Under Pressure: The Search for a Stress Vaccine (Wired): What is it today with links to articles about fixing problems with injections? Actually, this is a really good article about Robert Sapolsky, who did ground-breaking work on the effects of chronic stress on health. Apparently Sapolsky is now working on a vaccine to counter the neural effects of chronic stress. I have to admit that I find that a little scary. It sounds like a great answer to the problem of a society full of highly-stressed people, but the stress response is so complex and affects so many parts of our metabolism that it just can’t work without horrible side effects, can it? (The article addresses some of the issues.)
• Virginia Heffernan Is Our Target Audience (Uncertain Principles): For those who don’t know the background, Heffernan wrote a piece in the New York Times in which she criticized Scienceblogs.com for having some snarky people on it, and said as a result of its tone, she didn’t find it to be a good place to go to learn about science. Various science bloggers have opined that she’s dumb and no one should change what they are doing. Here, Uncertain Principles suggests perhaps science bloggers should be trying harder to speak to this particular audience. I’m not going to write a whole blog post about it, but I vote with UP and the others who’ve voiced this particular opinion. Who cares who’s right? The important thing is getting your message across, and it’s pretty clear that some members of the audience find a less snarky message to be easier to absorb.

Philosophy of the Dog Zombie blog

I got tagged by Jason Goldman of The Thoughtful Animal to write “your blogging motivation, philosophy and experience in exactly 10 words.”

Blog rarely. Blog nicely. Blog clearly. Blog controversially. Blog dogs.

I’m not going to tag ten more blogs to follow up on this meme, but I am going to leave an open tag — if you’re a reader of this blog and want to participate in this meme, do it and comment here!

Links post

• The ancestry of the domestic donkey is no longer a “wild ass” guess (Retrieverman)
• Should Doctors Have to Take Physics and Chemistry? (Uncertain Principles): I would definitely support some change in the pre-vet (very similar to the pre-med, with one or two more classes) process. The comments are almost more interesting than the actual post here.
• Welcome Scientopia, a new science blogging network (Blog Around the Clock): Oh good, it happened — a not-for-profit science blogging network organized by the bloggers. Now I can relax.
• Food scares and FDA actions: What has happened since 2007? (PetConnection): Report from the American Veterinary Medical Association convention last weekend about what the FDA has done since the 2007 pet food recalls.
• BREAKING: Bloggers Are Misunderstood (It’s not a Lecture): Another post on why being polite and reasonable is more effective than ranting. Maybe I should make a new “nice blogging” tag for these links...
• More hybrid lovin’: coywolves, wolves and coyotes… (Wild Muse): Canid soup is so interesting. Dogs are coyotes are wolves and they all interbreed like mad. If this topic interests you, definitely check out the comments on Wild Muse’s post for links to more information. The article that Wild Muse is covering is by Jon Way, who also wrote a very interesting book, Suburban Howls, about his research on Massachusetts coyotes. You can also find more on canid soup in Dogs: a new understanding of canine origin, behavior, and evolution, (Coppinger and Coppinger) which I have recommended before.

What could poison ivy possibly have to do with the stress response?

Hyperactive immune system + big back yard + hard-to-find poison ivy + dog who likes to roll in plants in back yard + dog zombie who likes to let her dog sleep on her bed... It’s all bad, people. I’ve thought of various ways I could turn my bad fortune into blog material, but I don’t have the energy due to side effects from various medications (prednisone can upset your stomach; it can also make it hard to sleep, and overdosing on sleeping pills will apparently also upset your stomach), so I’m just going to distill out some facts, inspired by the joyful weekend I’ve had.

• It isn’t the urushiol oil itself on the poison ivy which makes you itch; it is your immune system’s extreme response to it. This may seem like splitting hairs, but it is an important distinction when the rash continues to spread for days (in my case, more than a week). Is the problem that you are being continually exposed? (Dog + yard — this was possible in my case.) Or is the problem that your immune system has become so overstimulated that it is simply continuing to make rashes here and there, whether or not there is any good reason to?
• If the rash just continues to spread, it is worth trying to convince a doctor to give you prednisone. Prednisone is an artificial imitation of our very favorite hormone, cortisol. Because chronic stress suppresses the immune system, when we need to suppress the immune system we can do so by telling the body that it is under extreme amounts of stress. The doses of prednisone that are given in this case are really large compared to the amount of cortisol you might normally expect to see circulating around your blood system. This is why it is important to taper off your dose of prednisone. Your body notices that it is pumped brim-full of glucocorticoid substitute, and stops making cortisol itself. So if you stop taking prednisone suddenly, you could suffer from the effects of a sudden deficiency of glucocorticoids in your system. They are stress hormones, but we have a little bit of stress every day, and so they are actually vital for proper bodily functioning.
• What are the side effects of so much stress hormone in your body likely to be? A lot of the background reading for my thesis involved the effects of endogenous (natural) glucocorticoids on health outcomes, and I did some side reading about the effects of artificial glucocorticoids. So, as you can imagine, I asked my doctor what side effects I might see. He allowed as how my immune system would be suppressed (that was the whole point, after all), and so if I had a fever or some such, I should let him know. For the next few days, I was hyperactive, almost manic, and had extreme difficulty sleeping. I wondered if this was just psychosomatic, due to my knowledge that I was full of stress hormones, and my personal obsession with them. I finally did some research online and discovered that no, these were side effects common to this medication, about which my doctor had failed to warn me. When you are very stressed, you need lots of energy (to run away from the predator which your body assumes is pursuing you). Therefore, your body elevates your blood sugar, mobilizing storage reserves if necessary. This may account for my jumpiness.
• A side note about poison ivy and life with dogs... I know how reactive I am to the stuff, and I am very careful not to touch it. If I had seen any of it in my yard, I would have noticed it. When you live with dogs, it’s important to remember that they may get it on their fur. They may not show signs themselves, but will carry it into the house and give it to you as a present. I don’t actually know that this is what happened, but I suspect. Today I made a hand-made haz-mat suit and toured my yard, killing anything that had three leaflets, then washed everything I could think of, including my dog. Apparently Palmolive is a great way to cut urushiol oil. I also use Tecnu, which is marketed for the purpose, though I hate the smell of it. I was tempted to put this task off until my boyfriend was in town, as he is less reactive to poison ivy, but decided it was best to deal with it while I was still on high doses of prednisone, in case of a reaction.

If this post sounded slightly manic, thank the pred. I have about another week to taper down.