Veterinary students can propel our profession forward
Historically, it is veterinary students who have helped propel our profession forward and advocated for more compassionate approaches to animal care. Examples of issues students have impacted include advocating for diversity and inclusion, better treatment of our patients, transitioning away from terminal surgeries and increasing access to veterinary care for the underprivileged.
Now is your time to take action. Many of you have followed one of the biggest ethical challenges currently facing our profession: ventilation shutdown. In 2020 and 2021, producers killed millions of pigs by sealing up barns, pumping in heat and steam as pigs died over the course of hours, all with veterinary assistance and approval.
VSD causes not only tremendous suffering for animals, but also exposes participating veterinarians to incomprehensible stress, leading to suicidal ideation by many.
In a recent JAVMA letter to the editor, lead VSD researcher Dr. Angela Baysinger revealed that "10% of swine veterinarians surveyed have thought about suicide and 23% reported needing mental health counseling." Clearly, our profession needs to make a change to help not only animals but our colleagues.
Over 3,000 veterinary professionals and 1,500 veterinarians have already signed on to ask the AVMA to reclassify ventilation shutdown as a “not recommended form of depopulation.” Dr. Temple Grandin has published that VSD/VSD+ should not be used and proposes numerous alternatives. Food animal producers should work more closely with veterinarians to plan and prepare for potential future depopulation events so they can deploy more humane methods.
We also need to critically evaluate the food animal rearing practices our profession approves or endorses, such as housing animals in high stocking densities, performing painful procedures without analgesia, and transporting animals long distances without adequate food or water. These are but a few examples of practices veterinarians oversee that could help decrease physiological stress levels, improve animal welfare, and avoid conditions that increase the risk of animal disease outbreaks and depopulation.
We submitted the following letter to the AVMA House of Delegates as well as the AVMA Committee on Depopulation and have not received a response, so we are publishing it as an open letter to our profession.
Please sign and share this letter with other veterinary school students. Together, we can build a more compassionate food system.
Please check out recent media about ventilation shutdown.
Please read our letter to the AVMA, and if you agree, please sign and share.
Thank you!
C. Heath, DVM
Ernie Ward, DVM
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