The American Veterinary Medical Association Strengthens Support for Heatstroke-Based Mass Killing of Farmed Animals
At the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) Convention in June 2024, the AVMA adopted its new Principles of Veterinary Medical Ethics. The new document added highly controversial language stating, "Depopulation of animals is an ethical veterinary procedure when the AVMA Guidelines for the Depopulation of Animals is followed."
Dr. Barry Kipperman, a professor of veterinary ethics at UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, recently criticized this position in a commentary. Many veterinarians found the AVMA's response to his commentary disappointing.
In light of the AVMA’s obfuscation, we have compiled answers to common questions surrounding depopulation and the AVMA’s processes.
What is VSD+?
VSD+ refers to ventilation shutdown plus. This is a method of mass killing farmed animals in emergencies or infectious disease outbreaks that first came to light in 2016.
The AVMA officially recognized this method in 2019 with the first edition of its Guidelines for the Depopulation of Animals.
It refers to sealing up buildings, pumping in heat, and waiting for the animals inside to die via heatstroke. Some say the plus refers to the addition of gas such as carbon dioxide, but for the most part, the use of carbon dioxide gas is referred to as “whole house gassing” which is listed as a “preferred method” because it results in a more rapid death.
If you have never heard of VSD+, this website of Veterinarians Against Ventilation Shutdown is a good primer. This page is currently being managed by Crystal Heath of Our Honor.
Would reclassifying VSD+ as “not recommended” raise the price of food?
Taxpayers heavily subsidize animal-based protein. Whether you are vegan, vegetarian, hunt, or only purchase products from so-called local “high welfare” slaughtered animals, you are paying for the worst corporations that practice the lowest welfare practices that the AVMA condones. No one has the choice of opting out of paying corporations that produce food in ways that don’t align with our values. And the industry is spending a great deal of money to make consumers “trust the process.”
Jennie-O Turkey Store has received more than $105 million in taxpayer-subsidized bailouts after killing its HPAI-infected flocks via heatstroke. The CEO of Hormel Foods, Jennie-O’s parent company, received more than $6 million in compensation, while the company earned more than $12 billion.
In 2023, Tyson Foods' CEO received $13 million in compensation, while the Company generated $13 billion in revenue and received $29 million in taxpayer-subsidized bailouts.
Allowing VSD+ does not keep the price of food low, it just allows for lower welfare production practices while the executives of billion-dollar multi-national corporate conglomerates enrich themselves at taxpayer expense.
Was the AVMA House of Delegates (HOD) well-informed about VSD+ before making their decision?
The AVMA leadership has long misled the HOD about the implications and development of the Guidelines on Depopulation. Back in 2020, when the AVMA House of Delegates was considering the original Resolution 8 to reclassify ventilation shutdown plus as a “not recommended” form of depopulation, on December 28, 2020, the AVMA sent out this highly misleading letter to all members of the House of Delegates. I obtained this letter through a FOIA request of the USDA-AMS.
Excerpt from the AVMA’s misleading letter sent to the House of Delegates prior to the vote on Resolution 8 to reclassify VSD+ as “not recommended”
Excerpt from the AVMA’s misleading letter sent to the House of Delegates prior to the vote on Resolution 8 to reclassify VSD+ as “not recommended”
That document states how renowned behaviorist Temple Grandin reviewed footage of pigs being killed via VSD+ and said, “The video showed that the pigs remained calm until they lost posture and the ability to stand. They walked around and there was NO piling or escape attempts. The pig's behavior was calmer than the behavior I have observed in a CO2 chamber.”
Anyone who has sat in a sauna, been to hot yoga, or gone on a hike on a hot day only to find yourself succumbing to heatstroke later knows that you aren’t exactly going to act frantic to escape the situation, that doesn’t mean you are not suffering. Likewise, a dog dying from heatstroke on a long hike or in a hot car isn’t acting frantically like pigs dying in a carbon dioxide gas chamber— that doesn’t mean this should be an acceptable way a place like Ridglan Farms, with 4,000 beagles should exterminate their dogs in an emergency.
Additionally, Grandin was referring specifically to a video from the experiment that was then published in JAVMA in which 243,016 pigs were killed via ventilation shutdown. This was a highly engineered experiment that took a great deal of painstaking measures to avoid splattering pigs with hot water. Even Temple Grandin has said this is impossible for the average producer to do, saying:
The building used for Process Controlled heat and humidity MUST be specially configured with steam ports located near the ceiling to prevent scalding. Temperature from heaters must be controlled with precision and be even throughout the building. If process control is sloppy, the pigs will severely suffer. This method requires engineering and following a very precise protocol. Further research will be required to determine how aversive this process is to the pigs. For euthanasia of smaller numbers of market weight pigs or sows, either captive bolt, gunshot, or other methods in the AVMA euthanasia guidelines should be used.
The AVMA letter quotes Dr. Temple Grandin’s comments after she reviewed video footage from this study, which is not representative of how VSD+ is performed in the field.
Other facilities did not take these precautions. Iowa Select Farms was one such facility, and 24 hours of recorded audio and snippets (turn to 1:50 to watch) of video show pigs screaming intensely for a prolonged period of time.
Producers used to kill chickens only using heat, without steam, but this heat compromised PVC pipes inside buildings. So, researchers have suggested adding steam to poultry depopulations to protect these PVC pipes. If only we cared as much about the welfare of birds as we do about the welfare of PVC pipes.
The letter to the House of Delegates also says, “The AVMA is not a regulatory body and has no authority over depopulation decisions made by producers, the companies with which they are affiliated, or by state or federal agencies (note: state or federal agencies may or may not be involved in such decisions, depending on the situation).” However, the USDA paid the AVMA $36,000 to develop the Guidelines for the Depopulation of Animals, and this document is used to set policy and indemnity payments related to depopulation.
The letter to the House of Delegates says, “The AVMA is not a regulatory body and has no authority over depopulation decisions made by producers, the companies with which they are affiliated, or by state or federal agencies…” However the USDA does look to the AVMA’s policies in allowing the distribution of indemnity payments.
Despite the letter to the AVMA House of Delegates saying, “The AVMA is not a regulatory body and has no authority over depopulation decisions made by producers, the companies with which they are affiliated, or by state or federal agencies…” The USDA does state that methods “identified by the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) (AVMA 2019) as a preferred method or a method permitted in constrained circumstances” will not affect a producer’s ability to receive indemnity payments.
The House of Delegates is currently being told that an ethicist was involved in the drafting of the guidelines. That may be true, but that ethicist was not consulted when the AVMA decided at the last minute to insert language into the guidelines that allowed the heatstroke-based mass killing of pigs in “constrained circumstances.” See below for how that language was added.
Was the decision to allow VSD+ in constrained circumstances a carefully deliberated decision?
Emails obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests would show otherwise. In fact, the decision was the result of a last-minute scramble as the Director of the AVMA’s Animal Welfare Division, Dr. Cia Johnson, who should only serve an administrative role, provided the chair of the swine working group, Dr. Patrick Webb of the National Pork Board, the language and reference needed to solidify VSD+ as a method to be used in “constrained circumstances” instead of “not recommended,” saying, “There is a statement in the section stating that VSD should only be used as a last resort. If that is the case then VSD should be listed as Not Recommended instead of Permitted in Constrained Circumstances. In order to keep from downgrading the method we suggest the attached language be used instead.”
The email is dated March 22, 2019, which was the final due date for submission to publication of the AVMA’s Guidelines for the Depopulation of Animals. Johnson adds, “we are in a crunch to finalize the main language before our main contact in Publications goes out of town.”
The Director of the AVMA’s Animal Welfare Division suggested final edits that allowed VSD+ as a method to be used in “constrained circumstances” instead of “not recommended” on the day of the deadline for publication.
Before the change, the draft of the Guidelines stated, “Ventilation shutdown should only be used as a last resort for depopulation of pigs,” which would mean the method should be classified as "Not Recommended.”
This document was created via a cooperative agreement between the USDA and the AVMA, which has major implications affecting producer bailouts, animal killing policies, and research funding.
The exchange led VSD+ to be classified as a method to be used in “constrained circumstances” instead of “not recommended,” a seemingly minor change that allowed producers to receive millions of dollars in USDA indemnity payments when their animals were killed en masse using these brutal methods.
The classification of depopulation methods also had implications for research funding, as shown by this January 2020 email exchange between Dr. Johnson and the National Pork Board’s Assistant Vice President of Animal Welfare, Sara Crawford, who says:
We are going to be meeting with our Depopulation Task Force in the next couple weeks and I would like to talk with you beforehand to ensure that we are aligned with AVMA on our process moving forward. Also, I would like to know what information you have about different methods, if possible, so that we can determine what to (or to not) provide research funding for.
The methods listed in the AVMA’s Guidelines for the Depopulation of Animals effect how organizations like the publicly-funded National Pork Board distribute funding for depopulation research.
Johnson has a long track record of supporting VSD+. At the International Symposium on Animal Mortality Management held at the end of June 2022, Dr. Johnson again caused controversy, calling into question the scientific legitimacy of the Panels, when at the end of her talk, she called on the “friendly” audience to provide her with data to support leaving VSD+ in the Guidelines, saying:
One item I would like to place some emphasis on for this room, since I feel you are a little more friendly of an audience than I’ve had the opportunity to present for, over the past couple of years, is we need data from you. And I know we’ve seen some presented here. Even if it's not published, if it's a case report, if it's proprietary data, if it's unpublished data, the panel needs it. Some of these methods are at risk of leaving the guidelines, I think you probably have an idea of what those methods might be. We need data to support them staying in the document.
To get the public’s buy-in for some of the worst practices, Executive Director of the American Association of Swine Veterinarians Harry Snelson said it best in an email obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request: "It’s going to take a veterinary perspective rather than a producer perspective, and I think that’s what you want for producers. It will provide the professional support for what we are likely going to have to do.”
Email from the Executive Director of the American Association of Swine Veterinarians explaining how a “veterinary perspective” is what producers need to provide “professional support” for what they will have to do—which is seal up buildings and pump in heat until the pigs die of heatstroke as a means to get rid of excess pigs during the COVID-19 induced slaughter-house bottleneck of 2020.
After the COVID-19 slaughterhouse bottleneck, and the use of heatstroke-based killing to end the lives of millions of excess pigs, The National Pork Board created a depopulation task force with a $490,000 budget with the “STRATEGIC IMPERATIVE” to “BUILD TRUST.”
Is the veterinary profession’s job to build trust? To provide professional support for an industry that wants to profit from the worst animal welfare practices at taxpayer expense?
The small percentage of veterinarians who do work in animal agriculture and industry are overrepresented in the AVMA’s decision-making bodies, helping push the organization’s policies to enable cruel factory farm practices, while veterinarians who vocally oppose these practices, as I have, are systematically silenced and discredited.
Are all AVMA-member veterinarians' perspectives considered when drafting these documents?
Last year, I and other veterinarians who have advocated against the AVMA’s backing of ventilation shutdown were barred from attending the organization’s Cargill-sponsored symposium on animal killing techniques. Non-veterinarian and self-proclaimed “bacon activist” Jeff Pigott, vice president of industry relations for the National Pork Producers Council, a major pork lobby group, was allowed to attend.
During the AVMA’s House of Delegates Meeting in June 2024, the Board of Directors recommended approval of the Principles of Veterinary Medical Ethics (PVME), Smith-Blackmore stood to make a comment during the discussion about amendments to the PVME which did not include any changes to the depopulation language. But as soon as she mentioned the word “depopulation,” AVMA President Dr. Sandra Faeh stated that Smith-Blackmore was out of order. Comments were only accepted about the amendments proposed. Crucially, comments about the full resolution were not allowed. Smith-Blackmore was only able to make a statement after the vote, and voting on other resolutions, when the floor was opened for comment. Her statement (which she posted on LinkedIn) was the sole voice within the AVMA representing the ethical concerns regarding depopulation and current food systems.
The process by which the amendment was passed seemed to violate the usual process in which comments about the full resolution are heard after all amendments are voted on.
Is this how the largest veterinary organization in the world should function? Such retaliation is an example of what psychologist Jennifer Freyd refers to as Institutional Betrayal by the AVMA of veterinarians and our patients.
How should facilities depopulate their animals?
Each facility should invest in high-expansion nitrogen-based foaming equipment, keep stockpiles of supplies on hand, and regularly train staff on how to use them—or another one of the less cruel methods listed here: https://awionline.org/sites/default/files/uploads/documents/More-Humane-Farmed-Animal-Depopulation-Methods.pdf
If producers are unable to end the lives of their animals using less cruel ways than heatstroke, then they should not confine that many animals, and certainly not receive millions of dollars in taxpayer-funded bailouts for doing that.
We used to have a duty to the animals we profit from—ensure their access to food, water, shelter, and a quick and painless death. Nowadays, producers don't seem to feel beholden to that responsibility.
I wrote about this betrayal of our values in an op-ed for the Mercury News.
How does the AVMA’s policy influence corporations’ ability to receive taxpayer-subsidized bailouts when they depopulate their animals using ventilation shutdown plus (VSD+)?
See this document from the USDA: Emergency Response for Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza Outbreaks in Seven States
"The use of a particular method will not impact indemnity payments if the method has been identified by the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) (AVMA 2019) as a preferred method or a method permitted in constrained circumstances." (p. 17 numbered p. 22)
"USDA APHIS VS maintains that VSD+ should only be utilized in constrained circumstances that meet specific criteria stipulated by the AVMA (AVMA 2019)." (pp. 45-46, numbered pp. 40-41)
"If the poultry owner submits an indemnity request, depopulation must be conducted according to AVMA (2019) guidelines." (p. 46, numbered p. 41)
See: APHIS's current policy on use of VSD+
